Building operations software at the speed of thought

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Monotony be gone. Modern enterprises are putting resources behind software-led operations to automate repetitive tasks towards efficiency, rather than merely re-creating solutions for minimal gains.

Retool Inc. looks to quicken the pace for developer teams building internal tools, “making it easy and fast to productize workflows that were previously being done in spreadsheets or hacky workarounds”, explained Eleanor Dorfman, sales leader at Retool Inc. The company targets DevOps departments facing “backlogs of internal tools requests to build,” while “sales teams are building manual forecasts.”

Dorfman spoke with theCUBE hosts Lisa Martin and Dave Vellante at AWS re:Invent, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed how there is more software demand today than developer supply, Retool’s angle on operational visibility and how it supports scalable automation. (* Disclosure below.)

Building operations software at the speed of thought

Citing a customer use case, Dorfman shares a recent Retool initiative with DoorDash Inc. A couple of years back the food delivery service shared concerns with their inability to turn off deliveries in certain areas during storms. At the time DoorDash’s operations team would submit a manual request, then engineers would run a manual task to notify the area. Orders would get cancelled without any notice, leaving customers confused and frustrated.

This issue even hindered DoorDash’s global growth efforts, as regional weather conditions vary greatly. In collaboration, Retool was able to build an app designed for real-time reaction capabilities, significantly shortening DoorDash’s expected two years of engineering time for an in-house solution.

Retool looks to differentiate with a focus on observability and actionable insights. Not only can you see who might be fraudulent, you can flag them as fraud. Not only can you see who’s actually in danger, you can click a button and send them an email and set up a meeting,” Dorfman explained. 

Retool leverages Amazon Web Services to integrate directly into an array of AWS products for databases, data warehousing, deployment configurations, monitoring and observability, to name a few. They can work with the existing AWS stack so that the integration is seamless and quick.

Dorfman emphasizes the advantages of Retool’s agility in this regard, innovating through modernized platforms effectively changing the economics of software development. “[We] build operations software at the speed of thought,” Dorfman concluded.

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of AWS re:Invent:

(* Disclosure: Retool Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Retool nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE