MARKET REPORT AI and Machine Learning
“In the years to come, we will have bots that are indistinguishable from conversing with a human, but we’re still
at least five years away from that.” Emily Nerland, Channel Director EMEA, Masergy
hardware maintenance services
which is underpinned by the
company’s InventoryAssure
services product.
Lynn says, “Agilitas has
a variety of dedicated sales
specialists, who provide the
company’s channel partners
with access to a multi-vendor
workplace, server, storage and
networking product portfolio,
delivering maintenance services
and hardware sales.
AssureMeNow is a quote tool
that links directly into Agilitas’
systems, ensuring seamless
integration when a customer
order is placed. e tool provides
a personalised dashboard for
customers, where users can see
their total number of overall
quotes, the number of quotes
won with their associated value,
as well as any lost quotes.
e portal provides an easy
step-by-step quote tool which
allows partners to select what
type of service they are looking
for, sorting by technology type,
vendor type, product type,
service level, engineering and
parts options, as well as the
duration of their contracts.
Once a partner has selected
all preferences and chosen its
speci c service, all selected
contracted products are placed
Shaun Lynn, CEO at Agilitas
into a shopping basket, to enable
the ordering process to be simple
and seamless.”
e output from the tool is
in PDF form, which can also
include the partner’s logo and
branding. It also allows partners
to apply a percentage uplift,
meaning partners can use the tool
to quote their end user customers
directly. Partners previous quotes
will all be saved on users’ personal
dashboards, ensuring they can
access any previous ones, easily
and e ciently, if and when
needed.
ED SAYS…
Whenever we look at topics that include the use of AI and machine learning
there is inevitably a line to be drawn between what we can do now and what we
may be able to do in the future. By and large most resellers are only interested in
selling their customers solutions that are tried and tested rather than those still
in the ether of development.
However, the use of Chatbots is a rapidly growing market and one where
success is being gained in terms of increased productivity and improved
customer services. We just have to keep our feet on the ground and not expect
the impossible today, or even tomorrow but someday soon-ish.
Meanwhile we would recommend that channels keep abreast of developments
and maximise the potentials of the very good portals already tried and tested
and on the market today.
talking about a customer issue.
Empathy, humour, etc., can
all be designed in with varying
levels of success, but that will
develop, as technology does. In
the years to come, we will have
bots that are indistinguishable
from conversing with a human,
but we’re still at least ve years
away from that.
Some even disagree with
that prediction and that the
complexities of the human
brain and condition will mean
that computers will never be
able to reproduce a ‘human’
conversation accurately.
However, the human brain is
just an information processor
and with computational power
increasing and the ability to map
the human brain increasing in
accuracy, it won’t be long before
we can replicate that structure
within a computer.”
Meanwhile…
Today, reseller customer portals
are led by rms such as VanillaIP
and their Uboss system of
integrated con guration,
provisioning and billing with
other rms continuing to
announce their own o erings.
Agilitas, for example,
launched their own
AssureMeNow portal in August,
with CEO Shaun Lynn claiming
it to be a rst of its kind.
Essentially this is a channel
services online pricing tool for
32 | Comms Business Magazine | December 2019 www.commsbusiness.co.uk
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