SF Transform Tour 2019 Recap

By Calvin Smith

On Wednesday, September 11th, Aragon Research hosted our third stop on the Transform Tour. The evening’s event was held at the Wayfare Tavern in San Francisco, CA. 

Aragon CEO Jim Lundy kicked things off with an insightful briefing discussing the rise of chatbots and how we can start to prepare for the shift to digital labor. Following the briefing, Aragon VP Research Betsy Burton moderated an informative guest panel featuring Sri Srinivasan, SVP at Cisco Collaboration; Patrick Morrissey, CMO at Altify, Shawn Farshchi, CEO at Topia; and Ryan Duguid, Chief Evangelist at Nintex. 

The evening concluded with a complimentary cocktail hour complete with delicious appetizers and wonderful conversation. 

To learn more about what transpired Wednesday night, read on to get the insights shared at Transform Tour 2019 San Francisco! 

The Chatbots Are Coming

Jim Lundy focused his presentation on discussing the rise of chatbots and how we are entering an era of digital labor. 

As it was noted during the briefing, according to our research, the market for chatbots in 2018 was just over $1.7 billion. By year 2024, Aragon expects the chatbot market to reach just under $7 billion. 

One of the misguided notions that we as chatbot users or developers have is the expectation for chatbots to perform and carry out unlimited tasks. Lundy informed the audience that chatbots are most effective when they are assigned very specific tasks—much like humans. 

As chatbots become more intelligent and versatile, we will enter the era of digital assistants. Digital assistants will be able to process full language and action (context awareness). Lundy illustrated this evolution by referencing Jarvis from Iron Man. However, it’s important to note that we are still “years and years” from this type of capability. According to Aragon’s AI maturity model, digital assistants phase two will come online by 2023 and phase three will occur by 2024. 

Lastly, Lundy stated that an industry where chatbots are most prevalent and have received a high level of acceptance is in the ecommerce sector, where they are being used to augment the customer journey into a more streamlined process. Employee-facing and customer-facing experiences are two key places to start when it comes to digital labor. 

Automating the Customer Experience

VP Research Betsy Burton moderated an insightful guest panel who provided great examples of how their respective companies are helping to shape the customer experience with automation.

Ryan Duguid kicked things off by discussing how Nintex is providing a seamless experience for both customers and providers within the financial industry and also life sciences. In financial services, one example is how banks are transforming paper-based systems with advanced workflow technology to enable seamless communication between branches, and automating these processes makes customers happier because they’re getting a faster and better experience. In life sciences, the approval for new medication requires patient testing at different stages so that medications can be approved for public use. Nintex is helping patients discover  potential trial opportunities through a seamless digital process. 

When it comes to sales within the financial industry, Patrick Morrissey discussed how the adoption of a customer revenue optimization (CRO) strategy helped a large and well-known bank increase their sales rates by more than 30%. Furthermore, their top performing reps had only been with the company for less than a year and were performing at a high rate due in large part because of the adoption of CRO. This speaks to the success of the emerging category that Aragon recently identified. 

Sri Srinivasan discussed how Cisco is improving the automation and collaboration space in both the financial and health industries through web and video conferencing. One example provided by Srinivasan was the improvement in collaboration efforts involving the Innsbruck Clinic in Austria. Here, doctors from all around the world are able to collaborate with each other to improve the future of healthcare via seamless communications and collaboration. 

Lastly, Shawn Farshchi established how Topia is helping to improve the global mobility and relocation efforts for employees across national and international boundaries. Relocation is more than just picking up and moving for a new job—it impacts the employee’s spouse, kids, social life, their hobbies, finding a house, and more. Taking the pain out of a big move can help the employee more easily transition into their new life, which helps them to do better in their job.  Farschi’s message to the audience was to remember to keep data and technology in the background and to keep employees and customers at the forefront. 

Future Transform Tour Events

Aragon will conclude the Transform Tour with our biggest event of the year on December 5th, Aragon Transform 2019, and we hope you can join us! 

Aragon analysts will kick off their presentations at 4:30 pm, followed by two exclusive guest panels. Tickets for the complimentary briefing are extremely limited, so reserve yours today. 

At 6:30, we encourage you to join us for the awards ceremony portion of the evening, where we will recognize Hot Vendors, Innovator, and Women in Tech award winners. The ceremony will start promptly at 7:15. You can register here to save your seat. 

Finally, we’d like to thank our Global Diamond Sponsor Nintex, and Gold Sponsors Fuze and HelloSign, for their sponsorship of Aragon Transform 2019. Stay tuned for more Transform Tours in 2020!