theCUBEd Awards | Raju Malhotra, Certinia

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Raju Malhotra

Chief Product & Technology Officer

Certinia

play_circle_outline Certinia Wins 2026 CUBEd, Named IEDC Leader as Agentic AI Drives PSA Inflection and Rapid AI Adoption

play_circle_outline Certinia builds SaaS agentic layer on Salesforce to sell, deliver, and manage services.

play_circle_outline Single Salesforce Record: Orchestrating People, Work, and AI for Unified Customer Visibility Across Sales, Service, and Success

play_circle_outline Augmented Service Delivery: Hybrid Teams and the Roadmap to Autonomous Digital Agents

play_circle_outline Staffing agent automates staffing and restaffing, reducing hours-long tasks to minutes.

play_circle_outline Trust is central: security, privacy, role-based permissions, guardrails, and human-in-the-loop controls.

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Raju Malhotra, Certinia

Raju Malhotra

Chief Product & Technology Officer Certinia

This theCUBE Conversation spotlights the Certinia Professional Services Cloud after Certinia receives the 2026 Tech Innovation CUBEd Award and recognition in the IEDC marketscape for AI-enabled professional services automation, referred to as PSA. Raju Malhotra of Certinia provides product and engineering leadership grounded in prior roles at Microsoft and Salesforce. Malhotra discusses how Certinia applies agentic artificial intelligence, referred to as AI, to professional services automation. They explain staffing agents, hybrid delivery teams and the value... Read more

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How is agentic AI reshaping the professional services automation (PSA) market, and how does Certinia’s Professional Services Cloud on Salesforce address the need to intelligently orchestrate people, work, and AI agents? add

How would you describe Certinia, who its typical customers are, and how it helps professional services organizations sell, staff, deliver, and manage their services business? add

How does a handoff from sales to professional services to customer success work in practice, and how does using a unified, on-platform master customer record with AI support change what those teams can and cannot do compared with working off-platform with separate records? add

Will this industry remain primarily a “people business” despite agentic AI tools, and how are delivery teams changing (e.g., becoming hybrid with digital workers/agents)? add

How does the staffing agent you built work, and what benefits does it provide to staffing managers in staffing and restaffing projects? add

What role does trust play in achieving ROI from AI agents, and how do you ensure agents deliver measurable, predictable, and secure outcomes with appropriate guardrails (e.g., attribution, privacy, role-based permissions, and human oversight)? add

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Raju Malhotra, Certinia

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Scott Hebner

>> Hello everyone. Today, we're back with the special edition CUBE Conversation spotlighting the Certinia Professional Services Cloud, which was just recently named the winner of the 2026 Tech Innovation CUBEd Award for most innovative collaboration solution. And this award comes right on the heels of Certinia being named a leader in the IEDC marketscape for worldwide AI-enabled professional services automation, better known as PSA. So, a really great start for Certinia, I would say. All this recognition comes as we approach a clear market inflection point in the PSA marketplace. The professional services operating model is totally being reshaped by this rapid innovation that's occurring with technology, and especially agentic AI and decision automation, which is focused on knowledge workers. In our most recent Agentic AI Futures Index, 62% of organizations said they plan agentic workflows focused on knowledge work over the next 18 months. And IEDC's data underscores the urgency, with 48% of organizations playing to invest in AI-powered PSA and nearly 4 in 10 saying they may replace their PSA solution if it's not quickly enabled to AI. So, in other words, PSA is becoming a strategic control play for services execution, for margin and collaboration-driven customer outcomes. And that is where our guest comes in. He'll explain why the answer to better collaboration in the services is not just to add another communications layer, and why it's really about intelligently orchestrating people, work and AI agents from a single system of truth natively on Salesforce, so sales and services and customer success operate from one master customer record. Joining me today is Certinia's chief product and technology officer, Raju Malhotra, to give us a deep dive in all this. And welcome Raju, how are you doing?

Raju Malhotra

>> I'm doing very well. Thanks for having me, Scott.

Scott Hebner

>> You bet. Congratulations on all the recognition you got so good so early in the year, right?

Raju Malhotra

>> Thank you.

Scott Hebner

>> You bet. So, just tell us a little bit about your journey to where you are now as the CPTO for Certinia and just a little bit of background on who Certinia is, who you serve and why it matters?

Raju Malhotra

>> Yeah, great. Again, Scott, thanks for having Certinia and thanks for having me on this. And by the way, great job describing the importance of collaboration within professional services. So-

Scott Hebner

>> I did my homework.

Raju Malhotra

>> You did a fantastic job, better than I could have done, so that was a perfect setup. I lead our product and engineering team at Certinia. And my journey to Certinia over the last few years, I've worked at large companies like Microsoft and Salesforce in product technology roles. I've also worked at startup companies within Bay Area. Certinia, if I were to describe it, I think maybe a good way to describe Certinia is through the lens of the customers we serve. We are in the professional services industry. And on one hand, we serve customers, let's just say quote-unquote, pure-play services organizations like IBM, PwC, KPMG that have a large number of human consultants that are working on some key projects for their clients. And on the other hand, we also have professional services organizations that are part of larger technology companies like Salesforce, Google, AWS, Phillips, Cisco, HPE, and many others. And really, the way Certinia helps these organizations is in helping them sell, deliver and manage their services business. I mean, as you can imagine, services business has a lot of unique aspects too when it comes to growing the business and the growth. And it requires a certain type of sales approach because you want to be able to sell your resources and your teams based on availability and skills that you have. You also require a specialist way to manage those resources, staffing. And then, of course you want to be able to close the financials in the right way. So, that's really what Salesforce platform allows us a foundation, but Certinia has really a software-as-a-service and agentic layer on top of it to deliver that for our customers at enterprise scale.

Scott Hebner

>> Yeah, sounds like you're delivering a domain expertise in this space based on the Salesforce foundation, right?

Raju Malhotra

>> That's right.

Scott Hebner

>> Yeah. And I heard you mention IBM there. I spent 34 years there, and I can tell you over all my years there, the missing ingredient was always the word collaboration. How do you get teams working together? People have different data, they're not really in sync all the times. It was something that was always strived for, but hard to achieve. But at the same time, when you hear the word collaboration solutions, most people think of communications tools. And so, I ask you, what did the CUBEd Award judges recognize as the real collaboration problem in services? And what does collaboration actually mean inside of a services lifecycle? I think it's more than just communications, right?

Raju Malhotra

>> That's right. That's right. And first of all, by the way, thank you for the CUBEd judges to judge us on that criteria. We are very grateful and excited about that recognition. You're right, collaboration is more than communication, even though communication is a big part of it. Services business, as many businesses are, but because services business is such a human-centric business, is very collaboration focused at its roots. So, it's really a team sport all the way from selling the services that are available to be delivered, that can be delivered, to managing the staffing of those projects to actually driving the financials really requires a level of collaboration that is unprecedented compared to many other industries. So, really, collaboration is at the heart of professional services and professional services automation that Certinia focuses on and that's why I think it's such a distinct honor to be awarded in that category.

Scott Hebner

>> Yeah. And one of the things I've seen from you guys, you've been really emphasizing this notion that real collaboration, particularly in services, starts with a unified customer record. So, can you just walk us through a concrete example of a handoff from sales to professional services to customer success? And what has now become impossible when all three teams operate in the same master record on-platform with AI support, versus the way it used to be done, which is off-platform and not on the same record?

Raju Malhotra

>> Yeah. So, I would basically say that everyone who's involved in any services project or many of the businesses, their intention is to collaborate. I think sometimes the tools and the processes, the methodologies create hurdles in that collaboration. And oftentimes it comes back to a lack of system of record, lack of a single source of truth. And when it comes to selling something, knowing what is actually available to be solved at what time, that is important. That's part of the source of truth. So, you can actually win that opportunity to then when it comes to delivering, making sure that there is a clear alignment between bid versus bid. So, what was bidded actually is something that we are doing. And then, when we basically collaborate in terms of the financial margin analysis, utilization, all the KPIs that services businesses care about, having a single source of truth is very important. So, I think it goes without saying that is the foundation for making sure the teams that are spread across different time zones, different functions and different roles are actually working off of the same sheet of music, so to speak. So, I think that's really a key advantage of what Certinia delivers. It operates on the customer relationship management, the single source of truth that is about a prospect becoming a customer, and then the customer having a number of projects or portfolios or relationships that get carried over time by a number of individuals within the services organization. I think everyone being able to real time see what the status is, what the issues are, what their role is in addressing those issues becomes really critical to making that customer engagement successful.

Scott Hebner

>> So, let me ask you a more holistic question that puts his all in context. And interestingly enough, when I was researching and preparing to talk with you, I found that for the first time in a long time, many industries are already seeing services revenue growth outpacing product growth. And so, services obviously are doing quite well, professional services as an industry or as a domain. So, compared to where we are today, what is possible if firms can actually seamlessly cross-team collaborate and they can reduce the execution gaps, they can grasp the complete picture of exactly what's going on at any time. You would have to imagine that services can become so much more profitable and generate so much more revenue, and in turn, better serve the customer as a result.

Raju Malhotra

>> That's right. I think the business impact is very, very clear when you think about the power of having that collaboration and single source of true. The connectivity between a sales organization, delivery organization, finance organization, all on the same page. And that business impact, I think you already alluded to it. There are some clear KPIs around revenue growth, the top-line growth. There are KPIs benefits around the margins, the better utilization, better predictability of what is actually coming in terms of cash flows for the organization. But I think the most important here is the services businesses are realizing that they are very much a relationship businesses. Because fundamentally, if you think about services is a very project delivery business where you come in, you have a transaction, there's a finite timeframe and that you move on, but the reality is there is a recognition that this is really more about long-term relationships where you're not just doing project in, project out and people are shuffling back in and back out, but it's really an ongoing relationship. So, that creates a cross-sell renewal opportunity for the company. So, I think the business impact on all those metrics really comes down to the level of the unification of the data that actually drives that collaboration that makes each of the characters working in different roles almost work very, very close to each other and provide a unified view to their end customers.

Scott Hebner

>> Yeah, you can only just imagine that it's very much a people's business, right? You got people working with people and the better they can collaborate, the more they can reduce any execution gaps or even strategic gaps and just have a complete picture of what's going on at any point in time. I can only imagine the efficiencies and the gains that that's going to bring. And then, you add AI, which is going to give people superpowers. They're going to be to do so much more at quicker timelines, things of that nature. And it really looks like it's a disruptive force in the PSA marketplace.

Raju Malhotra

>> That's right. I think you hit the nail. I think it is actually the people business, but the people business is getting transformed quite rapidly in front of our eyes. We still believe it would primarily be a people business, by the way, even with a lot of agentic tools coming into the picture. But one of the key trends we have seen is that the delivery teams increasingly are becoming hybrid delivery teams. So, it actually is not just the people, but it is also digital workers, agents. And I would say many of the AI tools right now work at a agentic level. Over time, they would become, similar to being a digital worker, when the capabilities have more autonomy to it, not just the automation of workflow. But I think we see that writing on the wall, and many of our customers are already using tools from Claude, Cursor, Lovable, and many other organizations to actually really augment the power of their human teams, drive a level of quality, predictability, growth for their customers and their business. So, I think that hybrid business is already looking like it's more of a reality, which you're right. It's fundamentally a people business, but that's also transforming quite fast.

Scott Hebner

>> Yeah. In our Agentic AI Futures Index, interesting enough, it found that nine in 10 leaders believe that the rise of digital labor is inevitable and that today's leaders are probably going to be the last to manage human only workforces. But interesting enough, only one in 10 thought it was going to have any material impact on the number of employees. So, I think that the view is this digital labor transformation really is about giving superpowers to your workforce. And it's not necessarily, in most cases, especially in the knowledge work in professional services, and it's not about eliminating people, it's about giving them more ability to do faster things that are more impactful, which is good.

Raju Malhotra

>> Yeah. And I think we need to really think about the peel the onion part of it because the numbers, I actually do agree. At the end of the day, I think it would have a profound impact on the business. The number of employees may actually not be as much affected, but what they do and what exactly the role they play in making their customers successful, I think changes in a quite transformational, in fact, very disruptive way in many ways. So, that is a step change from a skill perspective, from a role perspective, especially as we move towards the hybrid environment. But I think it actually does create a net-new opportunity for us. That is really our thesis for this, but it really requires a level of investment and a different mindset to realize that opportunity. So, it's not necessarily an incremental change. I think it's a significantly step change in how the service delivery organizations are thinking about their role in serving their customers going forward.

Scott Hebner

>> Yeah, you're right. Because I think the bottom line here is, and I know there's a lot of fear out there, but I don't think AI is going to replace workers, particularly in the knowledge space and our knowledge workers. It's going to be people that know how to use AI that are going to replace people that don't. So, you're right about the change and the nature of the profession. And I think it's going to be really exciting for most people because they're going to get to do higher-value things and not so much of the redundant, mundane things. So, I think it's going to be a real positive change over time. But anyhow, let's jump into what you are doing now with the new agentic AI capabilities and the road ahead for your customers. And I know you started with staffing agents, so can you just talk a little bit about what do they do? What decisions can they help automate today? What outcomes are you seeing from the staffing agents?

Raju Malhotra

>> Yeah. So, you're right. I think we basically went to the crux of where the opportunity was based on the customer feedback we were receiving. And we started on this journey, actually, a little over a year ago on building our initial agents. And the staffing agent really think of this as assistance to some of our staffing managers. And what they do, a staffing manager on a day-to-day basis within services organization would look at what are the projects that are coming up for delivery. In fact, some of them are actually being bid on, so they're not quite closed deals yet. And some of them are actually the deals that are closed based on, and they need to be staffed. And what they're doing actually is thinking about who are the right people who have the right skills, who are available, who are in the right time zone, et cetera, et cetera, and they basically use Certinia as a tool to actually deliver on that project. And then, once you staff some project on a daily basis, when you have a project with say a few hundred delivery consultants, things change. Someone gets sick, someone changes their job, someone moves around, et cetera. So, that becomes a very constant change. So, the staffing agent effectively not just automates a number of those tasks in assigning the right individuals and then managing any changes, it actually provides a level of autonomy on a number of tasks to the staffing manager. So, for example, one of the common thing that happens in the staffing scenario is about, which is quote-unquote restaffing, because the moment you start a project and you start executing on it, you basically may need to be restaffed something, something changes, things are actually very dynamic, et cetera. On a day-to-day, week to week basis, you basically... Staffing agent actually helps you restaff that in a way that may have taken, in some cases, hours for a human to literally minutes. And in fact, that's the feedback we're getting from some of our customers who are using it in their business and they're seeing hours to minutes type of transition, so it's very impactful.

Scott Hebner

>> That's great. And that's just the start, right?

Raju Malhotra

>> That's right.

Scott Hebner

>> You guys have a roadmap ahead, which is going to be exciting to keep an eye on. I got a question for you on what I think is... If I had to describe the state of enterprise AI in one word, I would use the word trust. And if you think about these hybrid digital workforces that we've been talking about, as they come online, humans must trust these new digital partners that they're going to be working with. And trust, like in the staffing agent example, trust that those tasks that they're taking on are going to be done correctly and have the right outcomes. What are you guys doing to really help break down that trust barrier because it's so key to getting ROI out of these?

Raju Malhotra

>> Yeah, you're right. By the way, trust is the foundation of breaking down that ROI barrier, as you said. And just to be clear, I think trust is probably one of the largest barriers for ROI, but there are many other barriers too for ROI. Just being able to measure the ROI, attribute it, and assign that this is actually something that is causing that ROI versus some other factors. That is a relatively complex exercise that we've actually done for a long time within Certinia, and now we're making it really come to life with an agent. So, I think coming back to the point about trust, trust really comes by having predictable outcomes. In fact, predictable outcomes, even in some cases that are delightful, they're predictably delightful, if I may say, because they are actually able to not only automate something that a workflow automation tool could do, but at the end of the day, the power of an agent is to actually provide a level of autonomy and have you deliver some surprise and delight, just like a human would do in some cases. But keeping that within the guardrails requires a number of things that we take extreme care of. First part really is about security, privacy, making sure the role-based permissions for that agent are consistent with the corporate policy for what they're supposed to be doing, what they have access to, what they don't have access to, and their behaviors are actually very much at par with the best employee that you have. So, just think about that idea that in an organization of hundreds of thousands of humans, there's always this parade of principle of X percentage may drive significant value and there's different levels of that. An agent actually can really mirror some of your best employees on their every single outcome, every single behavior. And I think that is the opportunity which is exciting as long, as we do that with the right type of guardrails that we take pains to make sure that is happening. And throughout all this process, by the way, human is in the loop. So, we are also having that layer of confidence that drives trust over teammate.

Scott Hebner

>> Yeah. And it's always been my observation that the best teammates are the ones you trust and vice versa, and it's going to be the same with these digital agents. And I love the fact that you guys are very, very focused on the guardrails and the trust elements of all this. I think it's refreshing to see a company, like you, really doubling down on that issue, because I do think it's something that ultimately is going to need to get addressed for all the workers to actually use these things and use them effectively. So, we're getting short on time here. One last question for you to end our conversation and that would be, what would be your advice for execs out there that want to start moving down this path? What is the best first step and perhaps the second step? How do they get started with this?

Raju Malhotra

>> It's interesting, Scott. If you had asked me that question maybe six months ago, I would've given you a different answer. And the answer would've been, "Let's get your hands dirty. Experiment. Try it out." And I think that's almost like a cliche at this time. And frankly, if someone hasn't done that yet, I don't think my advice is going to change much. Maybe, whatever reasons, I think if someone is not really embracing the AI tools on a personal level, trying to put this in pilot and at least seeing how those pilots move to production, I think that becomes even more challenging for where we are right now because the pace of change has been tremendous. So, I think at this stage, really my advice is not to think about AI as something your board asks you to do, maybe our boss asks to do or some customers ask us to do. We're really thinking about the agentic capabilities and AI as part of the means to an end to the problems that we know we have to solve. And I think that means different things for different customers and different situations. But to me, it is probably the most important tool to actually accomplish anything that we are trying to accomplish on a personal, on a business, on a corporate enterprise, different levels. And I think that really requires not just playing around with it, experimenting with it, we're really thinking about ROI in production. And I think that's really where we are, where we are right now, as opposed to the experimentation and pilot, which by the way, we all should be learning, we all should be experimenting. There are new things coming up, that is absolutely fundamental and critical. But at the same time, I think the puck is moving so fast that I think progressing it beyond just simply experimenting to really attributing some value is becoming really important.

Scott Hebner

>> Yeah, it's a really good point. I mean, the game's played on the field, not in the dugout. And if you hang out in the dugout too long, you may never get back at it on the field, right? So, good advice. Well, look, Raju, it was great to meet you, great to have you on theCUBE, and thanks so much for joining us today. And more importantly, congratulations, again, to Certinia for both the Tech Innovation CUBEd Award and for the IEDC recognition. I think that's just great.

Raju Malhotra

>> Thank you, Scott, for this conversation and thank you, CUBEd, for the recognition. Really appreciate it.

Scott Hebner

>> You bet. And I would just say to our audience, Certinia's right, it's clear that the PSA market is entering a new AI-driven era and it's going to be powered by a unified customer record, and I think that's a very strong blueprint for what's going to happen next. So, thanks to everyone for joining us on the special edition of theCUBE Conversation. For more coverage and analysis, make sure you visit thecube.net. We'll see you on the next show. Bye, everybody.