John Bates the CEO of intelligent automation company Eggplant tells Business Matters what defines their way of doing business.
What do you currently do?
I am the CEO of Eggplant, the leader in intelligent automation, on a mission to rid the world of bad software.
I want to ensure that Eggplant is the global leader in intelligent automation, and create a culture of leaders that will help build an even more valuable and successful company. To make this happen, we will need to continue our path of rapid growth.
What was the inspiration behind your business?
The inspiration for our business is the fact that now, all businesses must succeed in a digital world – and thus be judged as a digital product. This means they need to offer an amazing customer experience, that helps them meet and exceed their desired positive business outcomes, and beat their competitors.
Eggplant is about helping them achieve this – through testing, monitoring and continuously improving the customer experience and business outcomes. Our core technology is a platform for “intelligent automation”, utilizing AI in a number of unique ways.
We can automate the testing of any technology on any device, operating system or browser. Our software harnesses AI to test usability, functionality and performance of digital assets across a vast range of infrastructure, coding languages, processes and architecture. Our no-code approach to test automation minimizes time-to-market, maximizes ROI and optimizes UX, ultimately improving business outcomes.
One way our software uses AI is in “automated exploratory testing”. Instead of humans having to manually test Apps, Websites and Processes, our software learns what is important and automatically generates the right tests, to minimize time-to-market, maximize ROI and optimize UX – ultimately improving business outcomes.
What defines your way of doing business?
Here at Eggplant, we have a set of values that we live by, and this completely reflected by how we do business. We want to wow our customers by providing top quality solutions and services, and are doing this by innovating every day, looking at how to improve and add value to our products. We act quickly. Our team breaks the rules and strives to achieve something better, acting at warp speed.
We work as a team, bringing together everyone’s different skill sets and experiences to achieve something great and successful.
What do you admire?
I admire amazing product innovators, including Elon Musk, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. They are trailblazers who completely revolutionize their respected industry. I admire individuals who aren’t afraid to push boundaries and try something new.
Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?
I would have not spent so long in academia. I spent 10 years from PhD to Computer Science Faculty. But the real applied work happens in the real world. I should have got there quicker!
What advice would you give to someone starting out?
I’d advise those just starting out to not go into stealth mode. It’s difficult to get people to listen to you, without saying anything.
It’s important to own the mindshare as soon as possible. If your approach is different, then you can win. However, you need to engage with customers ASAP, don’t develop something secretly that you have no idea if people are looking for.
