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The news that Foxconn, the world’s biggest contract electronics maker, is developing industrial robots to target 30% automation in its Chinese factories by 2020, has shaken the manufacturing industry. As machines and robotics become more sophisticated and specialised than ever, we can’t help but ask: will manufacturing soon be taken over entirely by robots?

Automation is not just impacting manufacturing; business process outsourcing (or BPO) services are vulnerable too. Companies such as Mattel, Apple and Facebook are well along the road of exploring AI and working out how to transform today’s inferior chatbots into leading-edge, messenger-based interfaces. Experts are predicting this is the kind of digital disruption with the potential to upturn industries. After all, a chatbot messaging service could replace the most common interfaces we currently use on connected devices, completely revolutionising the way consumers connect with companies online and offline in customer service departments. Will it be long before they replace human workers in contact centres?

This IDC Retail Insights Perspective discusses cognitive technology trends in retail and introduces Larry, an enterprise software application based on cognitive analytics developed by Complexica to help retailers increase their revenue, margin, and customer engagement. Artificial intelligence (AI) and business intelligence (BI) have been with us for decades, but this time, the reality almost matches the rhetoric, driven by the exponential growth in technology capabilities, smarter analytics engines, and the surge in data, especially in the retail sector. This perspective is a review of several of these trends and how Larry solves complex analytical tasks and workflows

A software robot with an algorithm-based persona is being used to help companies make data-driven decisions in real time.

South Australian company Complexica has developed Larry, the Digital Analyst, which is basically a set of algorithms tuned to complex problems to quickly generate answers that would otherwise take people a very long time to work out. Big Data software algorithms are taking decision-making to a new level, delivering solutions and efficiencies like never before. The global Artificial Intelligence market is forecast to exceed USD $5 billion by 2020.

The Internet of Things will create a ‘world of perfect knowledge', which will drive adoption of artificial intelligence and have a profound impact on white collar jobs. Complexica CEO Matthew Michalewicz said the cost reduction of sensors, transmission rates, and computing power are leading to ‘sensorisation’ of the world.

“You’ve got entire cities being built that are sensorised from the ground up as they’re constructed, sensorisation of traffic flows, sewage water, and of how full a trash bin is, for example,” Michalewicz said at the recent Digital Strategy Summit in Sydney. This is an enormously powerful trend, and I believe we will enter a world of perfect knowledge in the not-too-distant future because of the sensorisation of all the things around us.”

Complexica Pty Ltd, a leading provider of Artificial Intelligence software for optimising sales & marketing activities, announced today that Anna Pojdynec has joined the company as Pricing and Elasticity Specialist.

 Having worked in numerous international markets including USA, Asia, and Europe, Anna has vast experience in different commercial and cultural settings. Her experience includes senior pricing roles at Treasury Wine Estates (as the Global Strategic Pricing Manager), Goodyear and Dunlop Tyres, BP Australia, Coles and Jetstar. This broad exposure across multiple industries and markets helps ensure that all variables are factored into pricing decisions including category dynamics, shopper missions and occasions, as well as consumer behaviour.

Complexica Pty Ltd, a leading provider of Artificial Intelligence software for optimising sales & marketing activities, announced today that it has signed a contract with Coventry Group (ASX: CYG) for the delivery of its cloud-based Order Management System (OMS). Coventry will use OMS along with Larry, the Digital Analyst® to provide its telesales operators and in-field reps with intelligent quotation and guided selling capabilities.

“The goal of modern sales & marketing is to provide the right offer to the right customer at the right time using the right channel. This problem is not easy to solve and requires a lot of analytics,” said Peter Caughey, CEO of Coventry Group. “Rather than building out an internal analytics team to investigate and analyse countless data sets, we have engaged Complexica to provide our sales reps with the answers they need, when they need them, on a fully automated basis through their cloud-based Order Management System. We are excited about the benefits that OMS and Larry, the Digital Analyst will deliver to our business.”

Artificial intelligence (AI) – and robotics –  has been around for a long time but it has not yet disrupted white collar work very much yet – or has it? And surely our sales profession is safe – no robot could ever sell – or could it? As it turns out AI development has accelerated in recent year and it is now contributing considerably to the sales world and influencing significant change.

Salespeople are great with relationships… Relationships are a value; the problem today is that relationships alone are not enough. We need to have great relationships, and bring insight, and bring value to customers. People don’t want a relationship with an AI entity or a computer or an algorithm, they want a relationship with a person, but the person needs technology to bring more value to the table.

Complexica Pty Ltd, a leading provider of Artificial Intelligence software for optimising sales & marketing activities, announced today that Matthew Michalewicz will join Hon Christopher Pyne MP, Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, and CJ Halvorson, General Manager, Oracle Australia, as a panelist at the AMCHAM Business Lucheon "Innovation Driving Prosperity" held on 8th April 2016 at the Adelaide Convention Centre.

For more information, please visit: http://amchamsa.on.net/events.php

ComOps Limited (ASX: COM) (ComOps), the leading workforce management solutions company, is pleased to announce the appointment of Mr Matthew Michalewicz as a non‐executive director of ComOps Limited.

Matthew has more than 20 years of experience in starting and running high-growth tech companies, especially in the areas of predictive analytics and optimisation. He is currently the CEO of Complexica, a provider of Artificial Intelligence software for helping large organisations increase revenue, margin, and customer engagement through automated analytics: www.Complexica.com 

Watch the Sky News interview with Peter Switzer and Complexica's Managing Director, Matthew Michalewicz, as they discuss the background of Complexica, and how the company's flagship product, "Larry, the Digital Analyst"®, is used by sales and marketing departments to capture gains in revenue and margin:

Investing in innovation as a precursor to new products and markets was apparent in late 2015 when a survey by consulting firm Deloitte identified new products or markets, along with organic growth, as the most popular growth strategies for the year ahead. Nearly 60 per cent of the surveyed CFOs said this was their most likely option. Indeed it seems that enterprises in the Australian middle-market are increasingly investing in innovation to boost their profits.

Matt Michalewicz, an entrepreneur and author with experience in the fields of technology, commercialisation and supply chain management, has established and sold several businesses in his career. His latest venture is Complexica, a provider of artificial intelligence software. Fronted by the quaintly-named Larry, The Digital Analyst®, the software automatically captures new revenue and margin opportunities through real-time customer analytics, insights and recommendations. And by automating complex analytical tasks and workflows, it claims to reduce labour costs.

Interview with Marcus Evans Summits:

“Sales and Marketing departments can dramatically improve the effectiveness of telesales operators, in-field sales reps, promotions, and campaigns by utilising technology based on the latest advances in artificial intelligence,” comments Matt Michalewicz, Managing Director, Complexica Pty Ltd. “These days, Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) need to understand customers at a very deep level, to provide the right information, offers and price to them,” he adds.