From Desktop Automation to Artificial Intelligence - A journey

In my previous post i.e. Do you really need RPA in your Business? I stated the high level criteria for any enterprise automation seeker to classify  a process as eligible for automation or not. 

Automation can also be classified into various stages. Some process automation only require partial automation or automation of certain steps within a workflow which is now popular by the name of desktop automation or RDA (Robotic Desktop Automation), Where as other business cases are more of enabling the organization wide systems with power to take autonomous rule based decisions which is popularly know as AI or Artificial Intelligence. 

The objective of this post is to understand the stages in the journey from RDA to AI and what are the criteria to achieve each state. 

1.     RDA (Robotic Desktop Automation):

The basic need for any enterprise that is very new to automation is that it wants to reduce the redundant work for its work force or increase the output of the workforce. This need is generally answered b automation of certain steps in the tasks which are conducted by the workflow. These steps may still need human intervention as the decision making is done by human beings. 

• RDA is process driven
• Manual intervention is needed as trigger is human initiated
• Decision making is done my humans
• Some steps in a workflow are automated to reduce tasks which were earlier done by human beings
• Examples are copy pasting data from excel to form or vice versa

2.     RPA (Robotic Process Automation): 

The next obvious step is to allow the process to take decision to trigger the event so that human intervention is reduced even further. Thus this level of automation intends to automate not just few steps but move towards increasing the level of automation in the entire workflow or process to achieve a final state of complete process automated with minimal or no human intervention

• ·          RPA is also process driven
• ·          Triggers are digital and self serviced
• ·          Intent is to automate the end to end workflow
• ·          Triggers are rule based
• ·          Examples are digital customer journey for opening of a new bank account

3.     ML (Machine Learning):

The next successive state for any enterprise in this journey is to allow the system do make decsions based on previous decisions made by humans. The in the previous two states we have seen that the triggers or decision are either made by humans or based on rules made by humans. This state however takes it to a new level where the decisions are made based on the data and decision rules are selected by machines based on the data.

• ·          ML is data driven
• ·          Perspective analysis and decision engines are at the heart of this stage
• ·          Triggers are based on historic data, rules are made based on historic data
• ·          Its not focused on one workflow but is capable of enterprise wide transformation
• ·          Examples are running decision engines and data analysis on customer journey’s and repeat purchase to come up with decision on product positioning and marketing mix

4.     AI (Artificial Intelligence):

The ultimate state for an enterprise is to be able to create intelligent systems which can not only make decisions but are also able to assist its stakeholders in making intelligent decisions. Intelligent systems can not only make decisions based on historical data but also are capable to deducing future events based on current set of steps and information from past.

• ·          AI data driven
• ·          Deductive analysis is the heart of this stage
• ·          System is intelligent to guide humans to take certain steps
• ·          Examples which I can think of “Jarvis” from Age of Ultron

Categorizing Social Media presence enablers

If you are a small business then it is highly likely that you would have thought of  putting your business on social media. As discussed earlier, this can be done in a variety of ways, in this post we will discuss how can we categorize various in which a business can be social media enabled. Broadly these can be classified into 3 possible categories

1. Direct Social Media Channels
2. Channel Consolidators
3. Channel and Account Consolidators

Moving away from Apps towards Atomization

Creating a smartphone app is becoming more of a hygiene factor in today's world. Pick up any industry vertical and you will find that top player in this vertical are vying for client attention on his/her smartphone screen. That said, as per the Dunbar number there there can be only a limited number of apps which a user uses on his/her phone. Thus true winners in this space are those businesses who are atomizing their services, it is clear that business can not meet the ever increasing and changing expectation, thus atomization of services means providing interfaces for other services or businesses to interact with digital platforms and thus create various new and contextual user experiences. 

Outsourcing Social Media presence - myth or reality?

Before you start reading this post, I want you to Google following "social media presence maintenance"

The result you see is a proof that it is possible to outsource social media presence or at least this is how it appears.

Before jumping to any conclusions, lets first understand what is meant by outsourcing social media presence for a business. Lets take an example of a small business as they are easier to understand and visualize. Say I own a coffee shop, I sell gourmet coffee, cakes etc. I do most of my operations on my own and this do not get time to ensure that my brand is actively present on various social media or may be I do not know how to handle my brands presence on social media.

One day some one comes to my shop and asks me if I would like some help on making sure that my brand is actively present on social media, he/ she also tells me that by doing so I would be able to do the following things which would help my brand

1. Marketing of new / existing products

2. Sales and promotions

3. Maintain relatinship with my clients and gain feedback on my products

I say yes (obviously :D ), he/ she then tells me what all he can do for my brand and what would be the price of the same.

I agree and get into a contract, now this person makes sure that my brand is actively posting on Twitter, Facebook, etc. by making accounts on these websites and representing my brand on these sites. He/ She actually logs into FB as administrator of the Pages and posts latest about my brand. How does He/ She comes to know about what happening in my coffee shop? He calls me daily and asks me about what’s happening in the coffee shop? what are the cakes we are selling today? which products are on discount etc.

After some time as the number of followers for my brand increase and they start interacting with my brand it becomes difficult for this person to make sure that he is answering all the questions and thus he has to hire more people to do so and so he increases the price of hi services to me.

After some time i realize that i can do it inhouse if my wife learns to handle social media presence and does it for my coffee shop and thus my wife takes a training on social media presence and starts doing it for my coffee shop. I no longer take service from this person. My wife act as the page administrator now.

After some time I realize that it would be better if my wife helps me in preparing coffee, making cake etc. as we have no loads of customer in our shop so I call up this person and ask for his services again.

End of story...

So what I could understand from this example is that answer is "Yes" and "No"

it depends on what you want to do with your brands social media presence. Please share your views in comments below!

CRM, Social Media and Social CRM L0

What is CRM?

In three words : Marketing,Sales and Support

All the big names involved in developing CRM software, implementing CRM systems and using CRM systems play around these three words. Each activity, task, functionality in a CRM system touches one or more of these three aspects i.e. Marketing,Sales and Support

What is Social Media?

If your are reading this then probably you know this, so I am not wasting time on this one.

What is social CRM?

The integration pf a traditional CRM system with social media platforms is called Social CRM (Duhh.....)

So why do we need it? again the three magical words(Marketing,Sales and Support)  Brands can integrate CRM and Social Media to ensure better sales, marketing and support opportunities. How?

Customers are active on social media, companies can gain knowledge about them using social media sites and thus can offer them related products, offers, etc : Say a 19 year old would be interested in knowing venues for parties where as a 30 year old would be interested in knowing more about how can he reduce is car insurance cost. Targeted action can be taken using social media to focus marketing and sales efforts towards these individuals or demographics.

All brands need to provide customer support, no matter is you are a technology giant or a small coffee shop. Social CRM provides one of the quickest and engaging channels for customer support.

So again going back to the basics, social CRM stands on same three pillars : Marketing, Sales and Support

B2B enterprises going social in India!

Would love to share with you two live examples of how B2B enterprises are coming up with innovative ways to interact with individuals over the web, what is the motto behind their initiative, may be you can understand this better once you see their pages.

First example is Commtel Networks, a B2B enterprise in the telecom field which turnkey provider of converged communication, surveillance and related technology solutions based out of Mumbai, They have their own Facebook page, this page updated on average of around 2 times a day with posts ranging from latest news in telecom, whats happening at Commtel, trivia and useful tips.Till date they have received 841 likes which is a substantial number considering that it is a B2B enterprise.

Another example of B2B enterprise going social is Telemeet, which offers conferencing solutions to businesses, they too have their Facebook page and keep updating it with News, Trivia and other updates, they also have around 34 likes. Here is there FB page 

I am sure there would be many more examples of B2B going social but here in India, the trend is just catching up! Sure businesses in India have started understanding the potential of going Social :)

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