Decoupling the Enterprise: James Davies on User Experience, AI, and the Future of Orchestration

 In this episode of the BPM360 Podcast, Caspar and Russell welcome James Davies — CEO of Kinetic Data — for a deep dive into the past, present, and future of enterprise workflow orchestration. 

James shares his unlikely origin story: from a teenage helpdesk agent diagnosing dial-up modems to leading a platform used across major government and Fortune-2000 organizations. 

The conversation explores why Kinetic Data deliberately avoids rigid BPM standards, how it decouples user experience from systems of record, and why freedom to change is becoming mission-critical as organizations try to escape the gravitational pull of mega-SaaS vendors. 

James explains how his team designs human-centric workflows, enables modular front-ends, and reduces dependency risks that lock enterprises into a single platform’s UX, pricing, or AI strategy. 

The trio dig into real examples — from US Army data clean-up to COVID laptop distribution at scale — illustrating how orchestration can stay lightweight without becoming another monolithic “monster system.” They also tackle citizen development, governance challenges, and the rise of AI agents inside enterprise processes. 

 The episode closes with James’ outlook on the future: AI as a decoupled layer across the enterprise stack, easier integration, more low-code capability, and true citizen development grounded in guardrails rather than chaos. 

 A rich, energetic session packed with honest insights on data, orchestration, AI, and the evolving role of BPM in large enterprises. 

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