Company Interview / Can this tech company succeed in APAC?

Key Topics Discussed:

The core services and software SS&C Technologies provides to businessesRole and benefits of Intelligent Automation in business operationsThe potential of their technology in the APAC region, particularly Australia

Mike Megaw, from SS&C Technologies (NASDAQ: SSNC), articulates how they provide core services and software for businesses which allow financial and health care transactions to be processed on a large scale. Their technology gives companies significant returns on investment, enabling them to operate their businesses at scale. As the spearhead of SS&C's intelligent automation business, Mike shares that they provide unlimited connectivity and the ability to weave in artificial intelligence across their platform, which increases scalability and capacity in organisations.

Discussing intelligent automation, Mike explains how it enables the creation of complex workflows that assist in achieving business goals. The technology has evolved significantly in recent years, becoming much smarter in defining workflows and in assisting employees in their role, leading to enhanced company scalability. He reveals that their technology, based on a study, provides around a 330% return on investment and found that their clients saved about 53 million in a span of six months.

Mike believes that in the APAC region, including Australia, businesses want to achieve more with less. Here, SS&C Technologies' solutions provide excellent return on investments and allow businesses to deliver much more while creating capacity. Back in his company, the technology they provide has helped them streamline their operations and realise a savings run rate of $100 million. Also, they view their technology as a major tool that assists businesses in meeting their regulatory obligations while benefiting from top-notch security, governance, and auditability features.

Full unedited transcript:

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He provides a number of solutions to the marketplace, but fundamentally it provides core services and software that businesses are run on. So we do significant amounts of processing of financial transactions, significant amount of processing of health care transactions. Um, but ultimately, you know, we deliver results for our customers, giving them significant amounts of scale, significant amounts of return on investment, and, uh, the ability to really operate their business at scale. And how are you doing that? How are you facilitating that in terms of the technology you're using? So, um, so I run our intelligent automation business at SNC, and what we really provide is a fabric that allows unlimited connectivity, the ability to, uh, insert artificial intelligence across the platform. Um, also giving them, uh, really giving scale, but also the ability to create capacity within the organization so they can do more for their customers. When you talk

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about intelligence, automation, what does that actually involve? And I guess immediately would think of AI. How is that playing its role? Sure. Um, so intelligent automation is a number of things. It wears a lot of hats within an organization, but fundamentally it allows you to build complex workflows that allow you to deliver what your business sets out to do and meet its goals. Um, but in there, you know, it's my it's it's, uh, it's significant. It's capability is significantly increased over a number of years. Um, and that capability is now getting super intelligent where it can define workflows, assist people in completing their jobs, as well as create a better scale within an organisation. What opportunities would you see here, for instance, with the Australian economy in terms of that, that transformational force that it would provide? Yeah, so so we did a study and we found that our technology provides somewhere around 330% return on investment. Uh, it was a

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survey of a number of our clients, you know, 150 plus. And we were able to deliver, you know, 53 million in run rate savings over a six month period for, for a lot of our customers. And in that, um, what it really provides is, is a significant return on investment, significant capacity for that business to operate so they can do more within their organization and deliver results for their customers. All right. Specifically, when you're focusing on this area in of APAC, Australia and the Pacific. Um, what opportunities would you would you look for? Well, I think, um, you know, the, the, the world economies are uh, and Australia and uh, specifically, uh, what we're seeing is, is that businesses are asking me to do more with less and what we think our technology does and the capability of what we can deliver to them is give them significant returns on investment. Allow them to do exactly that, which is to deliver more, uh,

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while creating capacity at those organizations, being able to leverage some of the latest and greatest technologies with security and governance that really will deliver some of the results that they're looking for. Can you give us some examples of how this automation has allowed you to streamline your own operations? Sure. So so at SNC, we were a big believer in using our own technology. We think that that inserts ourselves in the views of what our customers, um,

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have the same views that our customers would have when they're using our technology. Um, we deployed our technology across our organization, which is relatively complex. We we deal with highly regulated industries that, um, that with significant scale. And we were deploy this technology since we bought it in 2022 and we've seen a run rate savings of $100 million. Um, we've applied it in almost every aspect of our business. And what it's done is, given our workers more capacity, the ability to deliver better SLAs to to our customers. Um, but also giving, uh, also while also giving SNC a good return on investment. When we look at the Australian economy at the moment, a big problem is productivity or lack of it. What role can automation play in that regard? Well, automation significantly can increase your productivity. I know I mentioned the 330% return, and that's really a measure of productivity that that you can

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get out of out of this. And the way that, you know, we look at it is it really assists your, your, uh, your current organization with uplifting what they can do for your organization. And so some of the things are even immeasurable. It gives time back to the employees. It gives time back to management. It allows you to think more strategically while also streamlining your organization and being able to deliver more results for your shareholders or the constituents that you need to. What about in terms of meeting your regulatory obligations, particularly in terms of compliance? So we think our technology really is one of the one of the major technologies that can actually give all these types of results with it, but with the governance, security and auditability that's required. That's fundamental to the technology that we've put together. And it's it's been at the forefront of what we do. What we're now able to do is, is also allow you to take advantage of some of the newer technologies and

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artificial intelligence, large language models, and being able to put security, governance and auditability in there while also using the latest and greatest technologies to give you further scale. How are you keeping pace with that development in AI? It is growing so rapidly, but at the same time, and we're seeing this, um, particularly play out on Wall Street at the moment, there are some questions being asked about the returns on that. I you know, we've seen just like Microsoft today, for instance, reporting and investors perhaps thinking, well, we've got ahead of ourselves here just in terms of those immediate returns. Well, if you go back, uh, um, even, you know, 5 or 6 years ago, uh,

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it's always the next thing that's going to return something back to the business. And there's a lot of hype around it. I think that what our technology allows to do is allows you to use it smartly, apply it where areas where it can have significant returns on investment. And then as the technology evolves, it gives you the flexibility to apply it to more aspects of your organization. And we think because really what we're trying to do is deliver measurable results to our customers. And we think the way that we've set up our technology, the way it operates within our, our customers, in that sense that our that you can take advantage of it getting a true, measurable way of of seeing the impact. And then as it evolves, you can use it more and more in your organization while maintaining the security, governance and auditability that we've always said was at the important part of our technology.