Most of the big technology companies are doubling down on Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the form of Smart Assistants. Apple’s Siri, Google’s Assistant, Microsoft’s Cortana and Amazon’s Alexa are all examples of these so-called Smart Assistants. The main goal of these Smart Assistants is to help users with everyday tasks and questions.

The special thing about these Assistants is that they utilize a concept called Machine Learning to continuously improve their solutions and answers. These assistants should become better over time, to the point where they can start predicting pre-emptively what you need from them. If you ask for a weather update at 9:00 pm every day, over time the Assistant will have it ready for you without even asking. In a world that continues to become more complex, the Smart Assistants will hopefully become a piece of your life that simplifies this complexity.

The future looks bright; as Smart Assistants become more open towards third party applications their functionality increases tenfold. It won’t be long until most daily smartphone operations can be done via Smart Assistants.

However, there are still hurdles to overcome. Ask yourself, how many times a day do you use Siri and would you really feel comfortable talking to your phone out loud during the day? According to a recent study, only three percent of all iPhone users use Siri in public, mainly being too embarrassed to share the small items in their daily life with everybody. Also, there are some major privacy concerns to be considered when using the technology. If these Smart Assistants can learn about your habits, schedule and interests, what is there to keep them from using that data for other purposes? Those databases can also get hacked, allowing criminals with access to your daily operations.

Are Smart Assistants the future and would you feel comfortable more or less allowing your whole life to become intertwined with this technology?

Further reading

http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/19/11712608/android-awareness-api-google-io-2016

http://www.vox.com/new-money/2016/10/5/13081058/marc-andreessen-ai-future

http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/06/06/study-most-iphone-owners-are-too-embarrassed-to-use-siri-in-public/

Mediacenter is a communication company based out of Rotterdam.

The core business of Mediacenter is to offer online and offline communication services within the B2B market. Currently, their major operations are focused on delivering print and press work. Mediacenter realized that revenues were declining for printing services with 10% per year and therefore it started to focus more on online communication. They founded a company called BrandSync. This company focuses on providing digital communication solutions for its clients.

After interviews with several employees of we identified the following research question:

How will MCR remain profitable within the offline communication industry and increase market share within the total communication industry?

The proposed disruptive technology that could transform Mediacenter’s business is a transformation to an e-commerce environment. E-commerce could help Mediacenter to reduce the number of process steps needed for ordering a product. At this moment, the ordering process normally goes in the following way: first, the potential customer needs to contact Mediacenter for an appointment, by phone or by email. During that meeting, a specification will be made regarding what the customer wants and subsequently a quotation will be created. By using e-commerce, all -mentioned steps could take place online and be done by the customer itself without physical interference of any person. The customer could decide via the website-interface what he wants, upload the design and order it.

The e-commerce platform will use the Coolblue approach. This means that a main website (for example Communicatiecenter.nl) will serve as the initial landing page on which the different services of the company are offered. Once a customer selects a product, he will be forwarded to the specific “shop” that houses the product’s detailed offerings (like Comminucatiecenter.nl/printshop). All shops will have the same corporate identity, even though on the back end the offering can be facilitated by one of Mediacenter’s corporate partners. This results in an easy-to-use and consistent product presentation.

Data in the form of orders is sent from the consumers to the e-commerce platform. Those orders then end up in the management level, also called the back end of the sytem. This is where the ERP system regulates the incoming orders, sending price information, product possibilities and product characteristics back to the e-commerce platform. The ERP system is the home of all the data that is in the system. It serves as a central access point for management and IT to alter any data, get sales reports or analyse the company finances. It also divides the incoming orders, sending the order to the correct company. Currently, Mediacenter has its own ERP system, XGram. However, we advise further analysis to determine if the system provides enough scalability and functionality to function properly inside the project.

Our report discusses the feasibility of the implementation of the proposed digital strategy. The feasibility of the project can be summarized as follows: the solution is operational feasible when all companies represented in the holding work together as a business network and apply internal pricing to avoid over and under capacity of the offline printing services. It is technically feasible due to the in-house knowledge of BrandSync specialized in building portals and websites. This also supports the financial feasibility which was calculates using three seperate scenario’s in which we model for changes in market situations, increase in revenues and decreases in personnel. Finally, several practical managerial recommendations were made.