00:06I'm Alison LaBorgia, and today I'm sitting with Rudy Zabran, the COO at Consolidated Analytics.
00:12Rudy, thank you for sitting with me.
00:13A pleasure to be here with you today, Alison.
00:15It's a beautiful venue here at Barton Creek, and the gathering has been pretty busy.
00:19A lot of energy in the air today, so excited to be part of it.
00:22I'm glad that you're here as well, especially because your roles recently changed.
00:28Well, recently this year has changed.
00:31You've stepped into the COO role.
00:34How has your industry experience shaped the way that you're thinking about growth in today's market?
00:43Yeah, I mean, my perspective is a little bit different.
00:45I've spent years in the office of the CRO in a sales and marketing capacity, so transition back into an
00:52operational seat has been certainly different.
00:55But I think what comes through to me is that growth and innovation, they're not disconnected from execution.
01:02Ultimately, they rely on the executional framework.
01:07You can build a sales engine, but if you don't have the execution discipline to get things done, you create
01:13backlogs.
01:13And backlogs are not a great customer experience ever.
01:17So we try to have an operational execution and operational discipline that can support a strong growth engine.
01:25And we've got, I'm fortunate to have tremendous partners at Consolidated Analytics.
01:29Our CEO, Arvind Weijay, a partner of ours, is really responsible for driving the vision.
01:35And then we've got our founder and president, Brian Gale, who's really the energy behind the company and responsible for
01:42the commercial execution.
01:43So being able to support them by making sure our operations are really running efficiently and effectively and can support
01:49the scale that they bring to the company has been pretty critical.
01:52And I don't view the two as disconnected.
01:54I think they're very much in the line.
01:56And the operations function really helps Consolidated Analytics help other people grow, which I think is a critical component.
02:06And what I'd like your take on is there's pressure for industry leaders to grow quickly at times when there
02:13are market opportunities that emerge.
02:16Rapid growth can, however, expose some operational cracks.
02:21What does it actually take to scale effectively?
02:25Yeah, I think that's, I think, I think part of the answer is in your question.
02:28I don't think growth creates the operational cracks.
02:31It certainly reveals the operational cracks.
02:34And having defined processes that are scalable, you know, are critical.
02:40The bits and pieces that make up the whole are, the people are the executors and they need to have
02:48efficient processes to be able to execute when volume comes in.
02:52So, you know, you can't just continue to throw bodies at problems, right?
02:55You can't just adopt technologies to stack on top of technologies and think it's going to solve things.
03:01You need repeatable systems.
03:02And, you know, the pressure is always there for us to support clients with additional volume.
03:07And we try to create repeatable systems and processes so that we can do that at scale.
03:11You've mentioned previously that workflow evaluation and process discipline aren't the most exciting topic, perhaps, but it's a critical one.
03:22Where do you see lenders getting this wrong?
03:25You know, I think there's a natural tendency oftentimes to want to stack technology on problems.
03:33I think that that happens quite a bit and, you know, it kind of creates this swivel chair mentality, right?
03:41The goal is connected intelligence, not just technology for the sake of technology.
03:47So I think, you know, oftentimes as we're trying to scale and, you know, we're looking at ways to drive
03:51efficiency and, you know, where the brakes are in the business.
03:55We can throw a SaaS product at a solution, but, you know, if it's not connected to the way that
04:02we work and, you know, the way that people operate in the business, if it doesn't reduce friction, if it
04:08doesn't increase the customer's experience, you know, if it's not additive to it, it just creates more breaks in the
04:15process.
04:16So often you implement some new piece and it just creates new handoffs.
04:20And if those handoffs are dislocated, it's really just adding additional confusion, right?
04:26So I think that's, you know, that's part of the problem.
04:29There are better ways to kind of reimagine the organization and the operational effectiveness rather than to just, you know,
04:35stack additional technologies onto it, which, you know, happens from time to time.
04:40How would you recommend that lenders approach avoiding that approach?
04:45Well, avoiding it really means being thoughtful about the operational platforms that you're putting together and how you execute.
04:54We want to create automation.
04:56We want to do it in our businesses.
04:58Our clients want to, you know, do it.
05:00But if you're automating an imperfect platform, you're just increasing the speed of confusion, right?
05:08You're adding additional bandwidth to create more confusion within the organization at a faster rate.
05:14So I think, you know, a thoroughly planned and thoughtful operating mechanism, operating structure is critical.
05:22And that's the technologies.
05:24It's the people process.
05:26You know, it's a sales process.
05:27They all need to work in tandem to be able to support the organization.
05:30And I think oftentimes there is a, you know, there's a tendency to just want to take the sale, take
05:38the sale, take the sale.
05:39Right.
05:39But that will break at scale if you haven't put the proper operational discipline behind it.
05:46Something that we touched on in a previous conversation when we were talking about growth is how when you go
05:52through periods of growth as a company, sometimes leaders lose sight or visibility of what's really happening on the ground.
06:00You specifically mentioned new ways that you were looking at taking pulse surveys of the organization and surfacing actionable insights
06:10and efficiencies.
06:11How does that ability to have visibility change the way that you're leading and making decisions?
06:17So, you know, I think we, amongst everybody else, do kind of annual engagement surveys with employees and they're important
06:27from a human resource perspective and, you know, to try to get a sense of the, you know, the landscape
06:33out there of, you know, kind of how people are feeling.
06:35But what we don't get there is kind of the tactical feedback, what's happening on the ground today or what
06:41happened this week, right?
06:43So we've engaged a third-party software to be able to pulse the organization on a daily and or weekly
06:51basis for more tactical insights, right?
06:54So, you know, once you reach a company of scale, let's say 75, 100, in our case, 1,200 employees,
07:01in my seat as a COO, I lose some of that, you know, touchpoint with the,
07:05all the prongs of the organization and, you know, I value the feedback.
07:11Oftentimes, it's the people on the floor that can tell you how things broke, right?
07:15We can look at reports and we can say, hey, something's broken, something's slower, something's not happening effectively, but how
07:22do I find out, you know, what's the why behind that?
07:25And it's the people on the ground that ultimately can tell us that.
07:28So we've deployed a new tool recently that'll send a LLM-based prompt pulse out to our team members,
07:35and it'll do it on a weekly basis with a couple of questions based on the business line that they
07:39support.
07:40It has a follow-up LLM-based question.
07:43So if I say, hey, what was the, you know, biggest problem you've seen in data this week?
07:48They may give you the problem and then it'll have a follow-up prompt.
07:51Why?
07:52Why is that occurring?
07:53And now you're surfacing some more tactical information to the top of the organization.
07:58And when you deploy that across hundreds of people, the platform ultimately will heat map that for us.
08:04And now we can look at it and say, okay, what are the core themes that are coming back?
08:08And what are the responses as to why?
08:10And now we can more tactically address issues without just looking at dashboard reportings and saying, you know, something's wrong.
08:17What's going on?
08:18You know, what's causing it?
08:19And sitting in, you know, 15, 30-minute meetings with business executives, I'm getting the feedback directly from the ground,
08:25which is of critical importance to me, someone who cares about how the widgets move through the process.
08:30And I think that that's fantastic because, or I'll pose to you, how has that changed making some of those
08:38efficiency changes or problem solving on a faster scale?
08:43It's brand new.
08:44So I'm interested to see, just as you are, how that's all going to work.
08:48We've got some initial testing in.
08:50And it's uncovering some insights as to things that, you know, you don't see at the executive level.
08:58So, for example, let's say you have a system that has a workaround.
09:02And people have gotten used to a workaround.
09:03Maybe somebody, you know, submitted a bug ticket a year ago.
09:08Maybe 50 people submitted a bug ticket a year ago, but it never got fixed.
09:12So there's a workaround.
09:13And people just naturally have adopted that workaround.
09:15And, you know, it lives and breathes with the system.
09:18With these prompts, with these cues, we're encouraging our people to resurface those types of things so that we can,
09:23you know,
09:24kind of move those little bugs out of the system where necessary.
09:27And, again, you know, it's all about reducing the friction and the fail points within it.
09:31So that's going to create that operational leverage that we need to scale the business.
09:36So we're hopeful that we'll continue to get insights, early indicators are,
09:40that we're going to get real feedback from the ground that we're going to be able to act on.
09:43So we're pretty excited about that.
09:45So that's one exciting thing that you're looking at or looking forward to internally.
09:50But externally, as the market continues to evolve,
09:54where do you see the biggest opportunities for lenders to create meaningful change?
10:01I think lenders need to look deeply at their organizational structure and determine whether or not they're built for scale,
10:08right?
10:09We're in a, you know, there's, it's not a crazy volume cycle right now, but one's coming at some point,
10:15right?
10:15That's the way the market works.
10:17And I can sit back today and I can say, hey, things are just operating just fine.
10:21And, you know, there's this patchwork of new technologies that are availing themselves to the market and, you know, opportunities
10:27for us to, you know, kind of dive in.
10:30But am I actually taking the opportunity right now while I have capacity to build these things into our organization?
10:38Or am I going to scramble when volume's at the door?
10:41And when I scramble and volume's at the door, it never really effectively, you know, gets through the org.
10:47So I think, you know, sitting, stepping back, looking at the organization, defining the way that you want to operate,
10:55choosing the right vendors and making sure that as we're connecting technologies, they're integrated connections and they're creating a more
11:05fluid system, right?
11:06I think that's the critical piece.
11:08And, you know, guys that do that will stand the opportunity to win when the volume actually hits the door.
11:13And the ones that don't are going to throw more bodies at it.
11:16And the reality is that, you know, you can't win, you can't scale based on the heroic effort of an
11:23individual, right?
11:24There's only so much coffee, so much adrenaline that you can pour into an organization to make, you know, volume
11:31ultimately flow.
11:32At some point that breaks, people break, right?
11:34So, you know, investing in the technology and the process and really being mindful about how you build it, I
11:42think, is of critical importance when you're considering scale.
11:45And it's an opportunity for lenders right now.
11:48Well, Rudy, thank you so much for taking me through how you're looking at growth, your new role at Consolidated
11:54Analytics and what Consolidated Analytics has been up to.
11:58Yeah, I appreciate you having me.
11:59It's always fun to see the Housing Wire crew out at these conferences, and we've got a beautiful setup here.
12:05So thanks for having me.
12:07It's been a joy.
12:07Thank you for joining me.
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