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My B2B Bot

by Matt Manning

The last holiday season was replete with the sound of ads for Amazon Echo, Apple Home, Google Home, and Microsoft Cortana. All these products promise their owners the ability to speak aloud and have the receiving device trigger specific actions such as turning on the heat or reading the results of a web search. These devices are still buggy but improvements in natural language recognition performance and artificial intelligence-driven mechanisms portend a near-term future where voice commands can trigger all manner of multi-stage activities.

What will enable the next generation of voice-driven personal assistant “bots” is the proliferation of APIs that allow secure access to transactional database services. The AI converts a voice request into API calls that perform very complex queries quickly and include purchase functionality. The simplest example often cited is the one-button “buy again” mechanism for things like printer cartridges and laundry detergent often used as an example of how the Internet of Things can make a consumer’s life easier.

In this simple case, the purchasing mechanism is configured on the Internet or via a downloaded app’s preferences and then triggered by the device. The next stage of these bots’ evolution will be to include more purchase decision-making steps in cases where the goods and services offered are more variable.

For instance, you will soon be able to send a command to your personal assistant to “Book me on a flight to Bangalore on April 23rd” that communicates with your pre-configured travel bot, which will contain frequent flyer preferences and general flight preferences such as window seat or no more than one layover. The bot will make a tentative reservation via an air carrier’s booking API, send an alert to get a “yes” or “no” to the chosen flight, and then either buy it or try again.

As convenient as these new personal services would be, there are much larger opportunities for B2B supply chains and enterprise resource planning (ERP) services that incorporate similar automated alert and purchase mechanisms. Algorithms or routines that can automatically assemble an order for industrial supplies based on historical seasonal production data and contractual parameters could be built fairly easily, allowing managers to place an order in advance to take advantage of volume discounts or early-bird pricing and ensure just-in-time arrival of raw materials.

Advanced custom mechanisms for these sorts of things have been built for years but the commoditization of AI, the proliferation of APIs for shipping, travel, and other services along with the increasing sophistication of calendar and communication apps will make the next steps toward automation far faster, cheaper, and easier to implement. When we turn this corner, vast swathes of support positions at organizations of all kinds will be permanently displaced. Meanwhile, the job of those who build and maintain information services will be a critical one to the inevitable automation of complex B2B workflows.

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posted by Shyamali Ghosh on February 14, 2017

Resistance is Utile

by Matt Manning

The news that Dun & Bradstreet has acquired Avention brings to a close one of the more interesting chapters in the annals of company information services. The firm came into being as OneSource, a CD-ROM company data aggregator that took the Internet plunge early and had more recently morphed into a $60MM hybrid product/service firm.

My career and the 30-year history of OneSource have crossed paths a few times over the years. IEI worked with Avention on and off. I worked with ex-OneSource execs at NetProspex. My former employer, Hoover’s, licensed data to them back in the 1990s.

Of course I’ve crossed paths with D&B more than once as well. I was a fan of the marketing masters at iMarket (acquired 2001), I worked for Hoover’s (acquired 2003), and I worked with the folks at NetProspex (acquired 2015). D&B also bought marketing automation player Indicee (now Stych) in 2014, so they’ve spent a good deal over the years on talent-spotting in the aggregated company data space.

Which all begs the question: Is D&B helping or hindering innovation in the company data business, or is it simply killing off competitors to the detriment of true innovation? All the acquired firms seem to be repurposed as simple marketing channels to sell more of the same, less than stellar, data after acquisition, while many other firms are still finding creative ways of making money in this space.

Among these are big established firms under new management such as InfoGroup and data.com, profitable maturing start-ups like DiscoverOrg and InsideView, and sleek new business models under the hoods of well-financed companies, including Unomy and Owler. Mixed in with these players are a sea of specialized information services and software offerings that make this market as large and dynamic as it is.

Will any of these push the envelope of quality, usability, and integration into workflows so far that they can take a run at the top dog in company information? Or will D&B, like the relentless Borg of Star Trek The Next Generation, just keep on absorbing every firm in their space that hits a certain revenue threshold? Of course, D&B’s corporate mission is about improving the ROI for their shareholders and not pursuing innovation for its own abstract sake and increasing top line revenues is certainly a valid means to that end, but can’t both growth and innovation go hand-in-hand? Perhaps it will take spinning off the company data business from D&B for it to play less the spoiler and more of a positive role in leading innovation in this multi-billion dollar market.

I don’t know what the future holds for D&B, but I am pretty sure that the real innovators in the growing company information space will continue to reap rewards one way or the other: either through their own success or by being absorbed by the Borg.

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posted by Shyamali Ghosh on January 30, 2017

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