We sat down with Form.com VP of Sales Ryan Lucas (pictured) to learn more about his role and how Form.com makes a difference in the forms automation market.
Ryan studied communications at Appalachian State University, where he focused on rhetoric. After completing a law degree at the University of Miami in Florida, he took a role at WorldAPP in sales. Since then, he has steadily worked his way up to become the vice president of the department.
What is your role at Form.com?
I’m the VP of sales, so I cover all sales operations globally. My team is responsible for retaining customers, ensuring they’re satisfied, and providing great experiences with Form.com. Ultimately, it’s my job to deliver successful outcomes for our new and existing customers.
I’m very lucky to talk with leaders from so many different and unique organizations every day. Those conversations have opened exciting doors and uncovered new ways we can help our customers. My team looks at how they’re currently using Form.com and sheds light on places our solutions can take them in the future.
We’re always looking for new customers and businesses that can benefit from Form.com, examining their challenges from a data automation and digitalization perspective, and seeing if we can help them on that journey.
Is there anything new or developing for Form.com that you’re excited about?
Overall, there’s a push in the market toward digitalization. We see this happening inside many of the businesses we meet, and that’s a big change from five or six years ago. Back then, there was often a concern that there simply wouldn’t be enough devices to support a mobile solution.
We were evangelizing for mobile devices, taking paper forms, and turning them into mobile apps. Now, everyone has made the decision to go mobile, and they’re using it as best they can in many respects. That shift in the market and in the mindset of buyers has led to a fundamentally different kind of conversation. It’s become much more of a business transformation conversation as opposed to one about business process changes.
Tell us about a time you saw Form.com’s innovation make a meaningful difference for a client.
The most meaningful opportunities I’ve had in this business involve the ability to go with our customers or our partners to experience the inspections firsthand.
I’ve had the privilege to walk alongside people at some of the largest restaurant brands in the world. I’ve seen how Form.com changed the way they handle personnel audits and brand excellence evaluations. It’s a wonderful experience to watch a solution that has become very simple to me over time affect these multi-billion dollar industries. The digital transformation of a form can pivot these huge companies toward greater excellence, and that’s incredible to see up close.
We’ve also seen these huge businesses take operational data that was collected using Form.com and make very meaningful changes, like safety training changes. One company in particular used Form.com to reduce the loss of life in their operations. That goes beyond improving the bottom line, and it’s something that everyone can get excited about because we know we’re making a difference.
What do you see in the future for Form.com? Where is the company going in the next several years?
The impact that Form.com has for our customers is often many times bigger than what we expect, and a positive experience doesn’t simply lead to a happy customer. When a customer stays with us for a while, it usually leads to us working together to discover more ways we can help.
We take the lessons we’ve learned from being partnered with the biggest firms in the world and apply them for all our customers. That’s why we’ve become thought leaders in the forms automation and digitalization spheres. We know how to optimize these processes, and our customers come to us with modern, digitally focused problems.
Becoming the kind of partner who can solve these kinds of problems shows that it’s not just the value of the technology, it’s the value of the partnership. Any modernization that Form.com experiences through our partnerships effectively benefits all of our other partnerships as well.
From a technology perspective, there are no islands anymore. There’s an expectation that all of your systems are speaking to each other in the same language. Companies are no longer required to choose between system A and system B. Now they say, “Okay, I found this best in class data collection tool, I’ve found this best in class scheduling tool. Let me marry those two together and have a solution that combines the best of both worlds.” I think that’s the future of all software, especially Form.com.
What’s the best thing about working at Form.com?
It’s the people. I’ve made lifelong friends in a few different countries while working here. I have people that I consider family who work at Form.com. The culture of Form.com and the people that work here have made it so that it’s hard for me to imagine working anywhere else.
I feel blessed and spoiled that I’m here, and I come to work and believe that it’s more than a job. When you work at Form.com, you’re committed to helping the people around you because you like the people you’re working with. That’s what defines the culture and experience here.
When I look to hire someone, my first question is “What will it be like sitting beside this person for the next six years?” Because people stay here for a long time, and I think that’s a good thing. It’s a wonderful place to work, and I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.
