In a world powered by cutting-edge technology, where business landscapes and consumer behaviours shift and change at a moment’s notice, it is imperative for companies to be able to make well-informed decisions in the shortest possible time to ensure lean and profitable performance.
With an ever-expanding abundance of big data, as well as strenuous external factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic, commercial firms in the MENA region are in need of a tool that provides data-based recommendations that will help streamline the decision-making process.
Revenue.AI’s cloud platform, powered by a proprietary, state of the art AI algorithm, helps empower marketing managers to be able to make faster and more accurate decisions to boost revenue growth while reducing the resource overhead required to make revenue decisions to a minimum. Sifting through tons of data, Revenue.AI helps decision-makers cut costs, identify optimum product pricing, improve ROI, and more under the umbrella of one holistic platform.
“Organizational internal transparency, the ability to communicate between departments for speedy reaction on the market, the ability to grow as fast as strategy requires - these are the challenges that traditional organizations face,” Istvan Czilik, CEO, Revenue.AI, said, in an interview with the Abu Dhabi SME Hub. “And compared to tech giants like Amazon or Apple, they need to step up the game to automate processes much better.”
Czilik shares insights about the origins of his company, how AI can improve the decision-making process for companies, and how Revenue.AI’s tool fits within the framework of the UAE’s AI strategy.
In a world powered by data, what are the advantages of a tool like Revenue.AI that assists with the decision making process?
We are still in the early stages of adopting AI widely into our lives. People think AI is a myth, but the reality is that tools in the cloud like Revenue.AI can easily automate things that use simple algorithms and can even tackle more complex challenges.
Take a simple example: how do I price a product? It is a complex question, especially if you need to take into consideration all the competitors of your product, the buyers who are shopping in the given store (traditional or digital, it makes no difference). A cloud-based AI solution will give you not just one recommendation to think about, but several scenarios. It can also provide you with recommendations on what the best alternatives are for pricing. So you will be able to consider many more alternatives than before regarding potential market changes.
Another example is, how can AI train new employees simply by knowing the market? Role changes are still frequent and actually, a well-equipped AI persona can help act as a “buddy” in the first few months of any career, and then later act as a coach on recommending solutions that can be used on the market. In this way, a new colleague, or a colleague with a new role, will be more effective and much faster than before.
What are some of the greatest challenges that companies face with revenue management?
External challenges are the classical ones, but in a more competitive environment with many more products and players: How do I price? How do I promote? What kind of packaging should I use? How should all of this be executed? How do I grow not only my product, but the category as well?
Internal challenges are extremely connected to how an organization can execute their strategy. Organizational internal transparency, the ability to communicate between departments for speedy reaction on the market, the ability to grow as fast as strategy requires - these are the challenges that traditional organizations face. And compared to tech giants like Amazon or Apple, they need to step up the game to automate processes much better.
What led you to create Revenue.AI? What business problem were you trying to solve?
I have led global analytics programs for Fortune 100 companies in pharma, CPG, insurance and many other industries. I have seen that the journey that revenue management embarks on (i.e. data-driven decision making) is great. However, the implementations are mostly terrible. I have seen that this can be changed simply with the possibilities that technologies offer today like AI, the cloud, chatbots, RPA, etc. I started to believe that if we use a totally new approach, we can reduce implementation times to 10% of what they used to be, and increase organizational transparency and agility to a level that is today only possible in the tech companies I mentioned before.
Why is there a need for Revenue.AI's technology in the UAE today?
I believe that in the UAE, organizations can adapt very quickly to the recent challenges that have been happening: digital retail; the appearance of newer brands and products from global organizations; automation of decision-making. We have lots of data that can be turned into information and automated recommendations/decisions almost immediately. And Revenue.AI has the possibility to help here.
In many ways, the UAE was at the forefront of welcoming AI technologies with open arms. The country was the first in the world to have a minister for AI and launched a complex strategy to use AI in solving current and future issues. This will turn AI into reality in the not so far off future; we already see where it changing the landscape of how we do business completely. Especially in a country such as UAE that is technologically savvy and already using cutting edge tools, it’s crucial that AI is implemented into the decision making process if you want your company to maintain a leading position in the market.
What are some of the lessons you have learned as an entrepreneur?
Work hard, and if you think working sixty hours a week is a lot, then you still have much more to give! If you are hungry enough, you can do it; no one knows your business more than you do. I always gave this extra effort in moments of great opportunity and crisis when I needed to be ready to invest double the energy.
Accept failures and negative feedback with grace. If everyone loved what you do and the way you do it, then it would not cause disruption. Disruptive ideas are never welcomed by everyone; they breed negative feedback and enmity as much as success. Still keep on believing in what you do. It is extremely easy to be demotivated by negative feedback coming from the outside. But if you allow yourself to be pulled down by people, you will never get to achieve your dreams.
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