Cohesion

Simpplr’s Live EX and The Future of Employee Experience with Parag Kulkarni, Chief Technology Officer at Simpplr

Episode Summary

This episode features an interview with Parag Kulkarni, Chief Technology Officer at Simpplr. Parag has nearly 25 years of experience as a technology industry leader. Previously, Parag was the Senior Vice President of SaaS Engineering at Nutanix where he developed modern SaaS applications covering the customer and partner lifecycle. Parag is now heading Simpplr’s engineering and technology teams to create more value for its customers. In this episode, Amanda and Parag discuss Simpplr’s new employee communication software Live EX, intranets and employee engagement, and the personalization of communications.

Episode Notes

This episode features an interview with Parag Kulkarni, Chief Technology Officer at Simpplr. Parag has nearly 25 years of experience as a technology industry leader. Previously, Parag was the Senior Vice President of SaaS Engineering at Nutanix where he developed modern SaaS applications covering the customer and partner lifecycle. 

Parag is now heading Simpplr’s engineering and technology teams to create more value for its customers.

In this episode, Amanda and Parag discuss Simpplr’s new employee communication software Live EX, intranets and employee engagement, and the personalization of communications.

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“When we talk about engagement and connection, the big component of that is communication. How do you communicate? Who do you communicate to? Can you properly explain the why? Can you communicate at the right time? The product [Live EX] really focuses on that communication aspect as the first step of employee engagement or employee experience. Once that communication has happened, the next piece is to actually have a way of listening back to the feedback. Which is where surveys, the analytics that I talked about came into play. So, you really understand, ‘If I’m falling short in terms of engagement in certain areas, why is that? What can I do?’ And then the third component, which is where we are moving towards, is using that to inspire. Which is where things like recognition comes into play. If you see certain cultural values being exhibited that will drive more engagement, more connection. Then those are the ones that you really want to communicate to the larger group. Those are the ones that you want to recognize. So between connection, listening to the feedback for the connection that was provided, and then ultimately inspiring using recognition is how the platform can really help. And we are seeing a great uptake in that. We are seeing companies who are looking at employee experience and saying, ‘I really want to invest in my current employees.’ Hiring a new employee is so much more difficult and so much more money than focusing on the existing employees and keeping them happy.” – Parag Kulkarni

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Episode Timestamps:

*(01:44): Parag’s background

*(05:02): Segment: Story Time

*(05:16): Simpplr’s Live EX function and what makes it different

*(08:00): How Live EX helps drive employee engagement

*(13:55): How Simpplr personalizes data to communicate with employees

*(19:24): How people use Simpplr to get to know each other

*(23:14): Segment: Ripped From the Headlines

*(23:27): How organizations can use Live EX to minimize employee turnover

*(25:36): Segment: Asking For a Friend

*(28:10): Parag’s advice for those hesitant to change the employee experience

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Links:

Connect with Parag on LinkedIn

Simpplr

Amanda’s LinkedIn

www.simpplr.com/podcast

Episode Transcription

Amanda Berry: Parag thank you for joining me. How are you doing

today? 

Parag Kulkarni: I'm doing great. 

Thank you so much.

Amanda Berry: I want to first start off and understand your background a little bit more. Can you talk about what has inspired your career? Yeah. Oh, 

Parag Kulkarni: absolutely. So my background is not very different from, you know, what you generally see in the Silicon valley. I come from a computer engineering, but I have been in the San Francisco bay area.

Since the late nineties, I primarily worked in technology companies, various technology, leadership roles. My prior two companies were Nutanix and Juniper networks. I've always been very passionate about. Solving business problems with technology. And that has always been the driver for my career path, the decisions that I've made, where to work, what to do.

And so on. So prior to Simpplr, I spent eight plus years at a company called Nutanix that's in the hybrid cloud infrastructure space. I joined them and they were around 250 people left when they are grown almost 20 X, hoping to do the same at. 

Amanda Berry: Yeah, that'd be great. The company is growing really fast. Can you tell me about your current role at Simpplr?

Just talk a little about what you do as the chief technology officer. 

Parag Kulkarni: When you think about a CTO role, it can be a little different based on the type of the company and the size of the company at a high level, our CTO. Very focused on the technology, roadmap, innovation, you know, emerging technologies or in certain company.

And that usually happens in really large companies, but in fast-growing companies like Simpplr, the CTO's role is not just technology, roadmap and innovation, but it's also actually getting stuff done. It's it's the actual execution product delivery and so on. And that's exactly what it is for me here. I have the overall responsibility for all of technology, so right.

For. What tools and what technology and where do we want to go in terms of the technology roadmap. But in addition to that, the larger responsibility is also getting the product out of the doors, the execution that releases all of that is part of my portfolio at Simpplr. And in addition to that, I also have responsibility for the it and the core business applications, actually short term, just because of the spirit we are growing that currently sits under the engineering organized.

Amanda Berry: And for those of our listeners who may not be familiar with Simpplr, I mean, I know I can describe it, but describe what Simpplr does. You said you worked for like to work for companies that solve business problems. What is Simpplr 

do? 

Parag Kulkarni: So Simpplr, original claim to fame was an internet platform. Simpplr is the leader in the internet platform space.

We are the best ranked internet company by, but that has been the original piece or the last few months, few quarters we have really started moving into a space where we can bring. Well, what all employee experience, platform, employee engagement. And so on, we recently rolled out capabilities like surveys, newsletters, which are part of the larger employee communication, but what's really unique about Sempra and where we are going.

And I know we'll talk about this mode is that the underlying data that we have as a part of internet platform, all the tools that we are rolling out can really give you. Create real-time insights into employee experience, and that's really where we're going. We call that live VX. So it is not just a basket of react to communication, but it's about getting real time proactive, predictive insights into the overall employee engagement and employee experience.

So we are really an employee experience plus. 

Amanda Berry: And that's where that live employee experience 

Parag Kulkarni: comes in. That's exactly what it is in terms of getting the real predictive insights and getting them immediately. 

Amanda Berry: I want to dig into that quite a bit more. It's a nice overview. So let's move into our first segment called story time.

You just mentioned the new offering is called live edX and it's described as the employee communication platform on what that experience management components talk about how this is different than a lot of the offerings in the fields. 

Parag Kulkarni: So the 

traditional offerings in the field are much more reactive.

What most companies will do is they will come to. Then they will wait. They will not necessarily know whether that communication has been received. Right. And maybe down the line, few weeks later, a few months later, they will do a survey. Some people will respond to the survey and this will go on. It's a very slow process.

What is different in terms of live Vieques is the live word, right? It's about being real time. The fact that our platform allows communication and then can get real-time feedback on that communication. Uh, Because not only does that allow you to double down on communication, uh, if it's going right, but it also allows you to course, correct.

Let's say a company just came out with their earnings is that only reserved may be great. It may not be great, but how do you know what the mood of the company was as a part of that visit? Are people excited as the morale improved our RPP? How can you get real-time feedback? Our platform very easily can allow not only the initial communication of that learning result, right?

Whether it's using our native video capabilities, it's using our feeds. Uh, it can also do in pulse real-time checks. To get feedback on what are the employees feeling now? Did they like that? Is that not like the result? And I just gave you an example of an earning business, but this could be anything, it could be an important initiative.

It could be maybe a, an MNA, all kinds of things. Just getting that real time feedback is huge on top of that, the fact that our platform includes not just. Communication please. But it also includes the listening piece. We also have very rich analytics that can help all levels of management from the manager, all the way to the CEO of the company to really understand trends and so that they can really take action and then course correct and do things based on that.

So that's really, what's different at Simpplr compared to most traditional platforms, which are okay. You send us a wait for a response, consolidate it. And all of that takes a long time. 

Amanda Berry: I feel like 

this is filling a dual role, right? Because this is something that I've struggled with in my many roles in internal communication.

Is there that measuring piece, traditional engagement, you do wait for those annual or biannual engagement surveys to see if people understand how this big initiative fits into the corporate strategy. But we wouldn't know for six months to a year, and that's really too little too late when you're trying to move the needle.

Immediately because these initiatives move fast, but at the same time, you've got people now being dispersed. The workforce is all over the place and gone are the days when I see, could feel that understanding how do people really think about this and how are they feeling about it? That idea of that, like a Canary in a coal mine.

Now I can't really go to an office and understand how people are feeling about us. And on top of that, I'm telling a story usually from open rates, page views, and I've always thought that that doesn't give much insight because I know I'm a person who will open an email just to make it read right opened.

And it's gone. It feels as if this is doing it a little bit different. This idea of real-time analytics in a sentiment check. Can you just talk about, I know we're not going to do a demo, clearly, this is all audio, but how that works, like what it looks like help our listeners understand how are you getting those nuggets of information?

Because even if someone does a pulse check quarterly or even monthly, it's not quite the same. So I want to help people understand what that looks like. 

Parag Kulkarni: I think you're absolutely right. As in, if we think about how much business work has changed in the last two plus years, I'll say COVID and the post COVID.

Well, I don't know whether, again, we are in a post COVID world, but in the last two years, the connection piece, what was it? 2019 folks were going to the office. They were meeting people. You are understanding what's happening. The water cooler conversations were happening now with everybody dispersed, most people working from home, even going forward.

What? I don't see people coming back full time and that connection piece is lost. And what that has led to is this whole real resignation on the grid reshuffle. So that has been a big challenge now where Simpplr platform can help is one, not only communicate. But also you're talking about an example of where, or you will just read an email just to mark it as read, but what if after you read a message, the system actually prompts.

You let's say the CEO or some top executive in the company is driving an initiative or a campaign or regarding a specific initiative. They send out some communication. Now, most people may just look at it and say, yeah, sure. But what wonder if after that communication has been reviewed and read the system asks some very pointed questions, very simple.

Two or three questions. So did you understand this? Um, or can we provide you more information? So that's very useful. It's almost like a conversation where people are in the office. Somebody has communicates. And, and people are trying to get clarification. So the system will actually not allow you to do that.

Now, once that is asked, you can decide how you want to answer those questions. But now that answer to that question can really lead to a lot of rich data sets, which can drive. Much more engagement, much more understanding of how the employees are receiving this communication. You use the word thinking it's not just what you're seeing directly, but it's also thinking, right.

If an employee is not even clicking on something that's important, does that mean that the engagement of that employee has gone down? Is that something we could do here to help? And if you're not even opening and you're not even answering the question that our analytics that are. That you can immediately measure, but that also analytics that you can glean from just the behavior where you clicked, what did you click?

I think that's really the key in terms of how the system can help, uh, drive engagement, drive better communication and help the change. I mean, that's the biggest piece for us. That is where Simpplr is really focused on in terms of technical. 

Amanda Berry: The 

open rates is one thing, but if people don't understand, let's say that there's a new system going online and they don't know when.

And then the internal communication person, media is thinking like, oh, we need to do more. Then it's time to, to step up to make sure that this change initiative is successful. And that seems really, this is like a really great feature. 

Parag Kulkarni: Yeah. And I, I think you talked about sentiment checks, right? So what we are doing within the system is we are also introducing things like sentiment, check, sentiment analysis.

So based on the words that are used, how you respond, where did you click? How did you rate that? Our is now we've not technology has improved so much that our wish to measure sentiment. It like literally is where you fall in terms of, if I was color coding it, green is really happy in terms of sentiment or.

Not at all. Happy. How do we measure that? How do we measure responses based on what you write down as your responses? Can we measure sentiment? Can we look at how you answers? I think a lot of that is already getting built into the system, through which we can drive sentiment, check, see, ultimately it is all about, can we make this a happier workplace?

That's what the driver is right? Is can we make this and happier workplace? And measured. And then driving, 

Amanda Berry: as I've 

talked to internal comms, people on this whole, you know, back to the office situation, you know, do people want to go back? Do people want to stay home or work remotely? And I feel like this is something that comes up where internal comms folks I know will say, well, I know him, please don't want to go back with the leaders aren't listening.

This sounds like this would be a great opportunity. For internal comms, to be able to have the data to say, see, this is where we are with the sentiment of the employee base, which then might prevent them from leaving and finding a job that is work remote because they're listening to the employees and what they actually want.

Parag Kulkarni: And let me add there, it can be different for different people, different for different geographies. So one of the things that within simply what we're doing is not just. Going through and showing this data, but also doing a lot of personalization. You talked about return to office, just within Simpplr.

The results that we see from our users are very different people in say in the U S may want to just work remote by employees in India, just because of personal situation. We want to come to the office, right? It may be very different or younger folks may want to come to the office. They may want that social connect.

So it's very different. What we are doing is not just allowing you to see the data, but personalizing it, that you could communicate based on where you are, what the demographics are, different criteria. So that way an initiative like return to office. Could we personalize the communication for you?

Personalize the reporting for it could be personalized. Different criteria. It is not just by the way, is the analytics piece of it. But it's analytics at a very personalized level. That's what the system 

does. 

Amanda Berry: Can you talk a little bit more of that personalization? Just so I understand that our listeners can understand it.

Just talk about how that works in some people. 

Parag Kulkarni: Let's take 

an example of say an MNA, a company is going through an MNA and the results of that MNA could be that different departments are impacted differently. Different geographies are impacted differently. Now in a traditional sense, if the communication is okay, we are going to an M and a, and this is what's happening.

It doesn't necessarily capture. The right feedback or the right sentiment, because a specific department that's going to benefit by an MNA would feel very different in terms of the sentiment in that department, compared to a department which may potentially be impacted in a negative way. What's Simpplr as a communication platform or an employee engagement platform allows you to do is when you are doing communication, it allows you to cater to all these different criteria and cater communication.

Accordingly. Maybe some groups need more communications, some need less, some need specific kinds of committees. All of that is very easily possible in what I call it as a low-code way, right. Where you don't need an it, a lot of customization and so on. All of that can be done in a very, very easy manner.

And then based on that communication, you could easily glean information on how did people feel? What do they feel? Another example is. When you are onboarding users, you are doing communication. That's different for week, one different from week two different from month one. And after that, we don't put the employers onboard.

So you don't need to provide that communication. All of this ability to personalize based on who the employee is, where they are in terms of the employee life cycle, all of that is very easily possible within the system. That's the first piece of it, which is communicate. And then the listening piece of it to ultimately understand whether you're doing it right.

And then according the course. This is all available out of the box. Very little to no customization as a part of the Simpplr IEX platform. 

Amanda Berry: So 

talk a little bit more about the technology that Simpplr is investing in to create this sort of a tech stack. That's employing communication and. Sure 

I'll answer it in a slightly different way or maybe add to it.

Parag Kulkarni: When we talk about investment, it is a technology component, but it's also the people component technology has improved so much specifically in the MLAI space over the last few years that lots of algorithms are openly available. You could use a public cloud, but you also need the right people to understand those algorithms.

I've been at template for four months now, but we have really doubled down on our investment in the data science piece. We hired a chief data scientist. Yeah. At the end of last year, he's an MIT alum and has done this role at multiple companies, really focused on data science. In addition to that, we are also leveraging the power of public cloud in terms of algorithms and also without getting into too much detail, building some proprietary algorithms, specifically around the sentiment analysis and engagement analytics to really drive this.

We've already used. Most of the new technology stack. The focus this year has been on the line. We excited really? How do we take all this data that we have all the goodness that we have in terms of lowing, who is responding? What are they looking at and driving? Like I keep saying the predictive piece of it, the engagement piece of it.

So investments both not just in terms of. But also in terms of the right people and hiring the right people to drive up data science practice. 

Amanda Berry: When I think 

of Internet's just because I've been around implementing them for, for a long time, you know, people say it's an, it's your grandmother's something.

Well, this is definitely a different way of thinking about it because traditionally internets have been, you go there, they're static content and it's just, you go there and find a policy and it's written there and that's it. And you just go there when you need a piece of information. So you might go.

Once a week, once a month, but it's not this engagement experience tool that was out there that we're hearing about that the live edX and the Simpplr platform. 

Parag Kulkarni: That's 

correct. So when you think of traditionally internet, you think about almost like a content solution where that has a lot of documents, hopefully some sort of a service that works, or you look up this document, you will see those documents and that's what an internet it's, it's a place to dump a lot of information.

And then most of that information is not kept up today. You don't know which is the latest document. And so on. Simpplr is completely different to that. You wouldn't even recognize it's more like a traditional internet. Think about it this way. I have a 16 year old daughter. If I show her the traditional internet, she's going to say, what is this?

She has grown up in the age of Instagram and Facebook and feeds. If she wants to do something, first thing she does is. Great. That's how simple it is. The core piece is a search, a federated search. It has a rich native video content. It has a field. So now you are not even thinking of a traditional internet.

It is about content. How do you show that content? How do you, uh, interact with the content? How do you ask for feedback on the content in a very, almost like a B2C bay, right? What you see in the social networking platforms. And then if you could do all of that without a lot of it and engineering. What I call it as local local were very easy to implement out of the box.

Radio carousels feeds a strong federated search. That's really what Simpplr gives in terms of an intranet. And then the whole live X thing that we were talking about. That's really the cherry on the top, right? Because now you're really using all the data that you have captured and driving predict to analyze.

Amanda Berry: One of the coolest features is this idea of how you really can build culture. This is such a big buzzword right now with people being dispersed people coming in, working from home or working remotely. I think it's very interesting how it can build culture and sense of community. And in many ways, How do people use some blur to really get to know one another?

I wonder if you can speak to that some different components to helping build that sense of community when people are all over the world, the country, the state, wherever people are located. But I wonder if you could speak to that a little 

bit. 

Parag Kulkarni: When we started the internet component of it, the idea was never to just be like a document or here's a document.

He has the search, but it was to drive just the way the product is designed. The user experience for it is very similar to some of the social tools. Not only is it. What focused finding information on boarding and so on, but you can also drive campaigns and initiatives using the tool and you can drive a collaboration using the tool.

It's just the way it is. The field is a very, very important aspect of the tool, which is no different from. I would've loved doing a demo. It is so much more easier actually showing some of the social aspects of it compared to just talking about them. But that's where we are going. 

Amanda Berry: It really is different to see it and be in it.

And if this was visual, it would be fun to see that the people can see how people interact. You know, we use some blur clearly and just being able to learn about people based on their comments, and then you can have conversations with them about topics. And then that leads to me to go into slack and then really just connect one-on-one if that's what I want to do.

So it doesn't. Even me being half the country, half the U S away from my company and my coworkers, it gives that opportunity to learn just through the way that they're able to go into the tool and post and comment, which is 

really cool. 

Parag Kulkarni: You touched on two points. Slack is very common with the whole hybrid thing.

Teams has become very common, Simpplr, provides native integrations into bed. So not only can you go back and forth between the two, but you could actually post something that goes to slack and vice versa. And one days of using a product like Simpplr, all these native integrations that are provided where not only can you do a lot of things within the system, you can also connect to the ecosystem around simply in terms of what's available.

And so on. What if I add in slack, I do a search on, I asked a question. Can I just get that information out of some. Absolutely you can and vice versa, right? As you could post to do something in Simpplr and you could post it to some of these messaging or communication tools, very easily. So very strong integration framework.

And then a large number of our users actually use mobile. And some blur has the same native radio, strong mobile capabilities, because we have customers who have a lot of frontline workers who are, you know, could be truck drivers or who could be providing health coverage. They don't go to a desktop or a computer to look up things.

And very accustomed to having an app and are just working with. I will have a lot of the marks. I think that's a huge strength of the 

Amanda Berry: yeah. The mobile component. I'm actually continuing to hear a lot of that. And I've worked in organizations where a large portion of the employee population wasn't on a desktop and all they had was their phones.

And when you don't have the mobile capability, it really pushes out all base the employee population. But even as an internal comms person, I've been used to using very different products for one for newsletter. And to help create videos, one for the intranet. And I think that's a big difference for this for me is it's all one stop, right?

It's all in one place you can do video in there, you can do a newsletter and it's all connected. So it really cuts down on the frustration for using multiple products. Yeah. 

Parag Kulkarni: It's all the different channels available all together, where you could communicate, whether it is static communication using an internal.

Newsletters that are going very focused messaging, whether it is instant messaging, SMS, messaging, mobile email, all kinds of build together, you decide how you want to communicate. And how do you want to personalize that our customers who are very mobile, independent, or that are customers who prefer doing newsletters on a quarterly basis, all of that is available as a part of a single ecosystem and all of that.

The information is then now captured as analytics, which can drive. What's the right mode of channel that's working, what is not working? Can you double down on something? So all of that is equitable and is widely used by our 500 customers. 

Amanda Berry: Want to move into our next segment called ripped from the headlines.

X-ray x-ray read all about it. 

Our stories rip from the headlines. 

You'd mentioned earlier, the great resignation it's now been called. I believe the great reshuffle. How can organizations use Simpplr and live IEX principles to minimize employee turnover and create more Invensys and see results with employee retention?

Parag Kulkarni: When 

we talk about the whole employee resignation or the reshuffle. I think the big reason for that at I personally will do the big reason for that is engagement and connection. People just don't feel that engaged or they're not feeling that connection with the organization and companies are really looking at ways to improve that.

Now, when we talk about engagement and connection, the big component of that is communication. How do you communicate? Who do you communicate to? Can you properly explain the why? Okay. Then when to get at the right time, the product really focuses on that communication aspect as the first step of employee engagement or employee experience.

Once that communication has that. The next piece is to actually have a way of listening back to the feedback, which is where surveys, the analytics that I talked about came into play. Right? So that is the next piece. So you really understand, okay. If I'm falling short in terms of engagement in certain areas, why is that?

What can I do? And then the third component, which is where we are moving towards is using. We inspire, which is where things like recognition comes into play. If you see certain cultural values being exhibited, that will drive more engagement, more connection, then those are the ones that you really want to communicate to the larger group.

But those are the ones that you want to recognize. So between connecting. Listening to the feedback for the connection that was provided and then ultimately inspiring using recommendation. And maybe there's other ways is how the platform can really help. And we are seeing a great uptick in that as we are seeing companies who are looking at employee experience and saying, I really want to invest in my.

Current employees hiring a new employee is so much more difficult and so much more money than focusing on the existing employees and keeping them happy. Like I said, our tagline is make workplace happier. We make the workplace better. That's really what the whole product is focused towards a 

Amanda Berry: lot 

of discussion about this great resignation of people leaving their roles.

I'm trying to really focus on their experience. So this is coming at a really great time. I want to move into our last segment called asking for a friend, a friend,

Producer: asking for a friend

Amanda Berry: what are some of the tech trends you think will have the greatest impact on employee experience over the next five to 10 years? 

Parag Kulkarni: With just COVID there has been a huge change. It has been effectively proven. Now that productivity does not suffer with remote work or hybrid work. This was almost unheard of three years ago.

Most people, we used to go to the office. They were in the office for X amount of time. They would sit in the traffic, come back home. That's how it worked in the initial days, everyone was worried about productivity, but what we saw and I've seen multiple surveys and multiple articles that show productivity has actually in many cases.

Now the connection and engagement may have suffered just because people are not meeting each other, but the productivity has gone up. And I see that more and more, this so-called remote work related to sort of remote work littered systems and Simpplr really helps with this whole make it easier to work from home or making easier to work hybrid.

One of the things I see just in terms of the business and the technology is that companies have really started to focus on the overall employee experience and really focused on tools and products that help. Overall employee experience. So I see this trends accelerating over the next few years where maybe a few years ago, IEX may have been something that only few companies looked at or may have been an afterthought by X I'm an employee experience, but that is becoming front and center for most of the initiatives that companies are looking at.

Why not innovate? And keep current employees happy instead of trying to always look to hire, because we've already proven that they are the ones who can help with the higher productivity and on, so that I see as the biggest trend tools or products that can help with remote work hybrid work will be where things are going.

And then ultimately using machine learning AI to drive predictive related behavior, to course correct. That's always been the case, but I think using MLAI working closely with tools out products that can drive. Uh, I think it's going to be a 

Amanda Berry: quick, let me just ask a little follow up to that. A lot of people are set in their ways.

Sometimes when you get into companies, you have leaders, they say, Hey, this is working. This is the way we've always done it. Whether it be annual engagement surveys, or just these iterative communications that get sent out people, aren't getting something out of the old ways of doing it. And they're probably reluctant to adapt to a tool or new ways of doing it because it has worked in the past.

So, what would you tell someone who continues to take a more traditional approach to employee experience? What would you say to get them to really focus and pay attention and consider changing? 

Parag Kulkarni: And we started, this is the only constant is change, right? That's how I did all of this. I'm a big believer in data.

There's always resistance to change, but people don't want to change. It takes a lot of effort, but if you can prove it, data that if you. Do X, Y, and Z. Your employee engagement is say 50%, but if you do a, B and C do things a little differently, I can effectively clearly prove to you that I'm playing engagement is going to go off.

Your attrition is going to go down. That's when it is easier to convince people, right? Otherwise it is just opinions. The great part about how we have built the product and how will I be. It was that focus on analytics. It is very, very easy. You could very easily implement some parents say, okay, I'm just going to do it for this one department.

I'm going to drive communication using the tool. I'm going to measure the engagement productivity, and then compare it with my current method. And then the fact that we are so easy to implement, most of our customers implement our product in eight to 10 weeks, which is like unheard of running an enterprise system.

So it's very easy. I think for me, the biggest piece, just, just me and engineer, the biggest. I can prove it to you with data. And if I can do that, why would you not 

want to change? I think it's so important. 

Amanda Berry: I know as I've been talking, I continue to talk to IC folks across the globe. I can see the value in using data to show the value that internal communications provides.

And what this tool does is it gives you a sort of hands. Do you, and the way to show value across your employee base. That's phenomenal. Prague. This has been fantastic before I let you go. Is there anything you want to talk about that we haven't covered here today? 

Parag Kulkarni: Only 

thing I would say, just to end this conversation is few years ago, internal comms was maybe not a CEO driven.

That's no longer the case. I've talked to so many people where this is now a CEO driven initiative. CEOs are driving change management. They are the ones who are worried that if they can't keep their employees engaged, connected, they are the ones we're going to lose. Very important in terms of employee experience, employee engagement.

And I would really encourage folks who have not looked at this to give it a real shot and see how they can improve their own overall engagement. 

Amanda Berry: The pandemic time has really changed internal communications and how they're seen as very valuable, and it changed the way we view employee experience and the importance that leaders are putting on that.

So I couldn't agree more. Well, thank you, Prague so much. Let our listeners know where they can find 

you. 

Parag Kulkarni: I am on LinkedIn. Just do a search for practical, Kearney, Simpplr or fully. That's the first, first link that you will get happy to connect to people. Happy to answer questions that may come up in this space or for that matter in any space that I can help it again.

Great talking to you, Amanda. And this was. 

Great. Thank you, Prague. Thank you so much for joining me today. This has been great. 

Producer: Thank you again for listening to this episode of the cohesion podcast drop to you by simply the modern internet software that simplifies the employee experience. Learn more about how Simpplr can help you build the future of your employee experience.

At Simpplr.com. That's S I M P P L r.com 

to all of our listeners out there. Thank you for listening. If you've enjoyed this episode and want to hear more, make sure to hit subscribe, leave a review and head over to www.Simpplr.com/podcast. For more information until next time you're listening to the cohesion podcast, brought to you by Simpplr.

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