Thought Leaders in Artificial Intelligence: Martin Neale, CEO of ICS (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: The text-to-voice technology is from Nuance?

Martin Neale: It’s not. It might be from Nuance at some point, but Microsoft is already doing their own telephony integration. We use another vendor’s technology for the telephony piece.

Sramana Mitra: Talk to me about the healthcare public service case studies. What kinds of applications and use cases are you using these chatbots around?

Martin Neale: Mental health is a very interesting area for this technology. It is able to provide direct assistance to service users. It can provide self-help. In most other branches, the assistant isn’t really providing a solution but just connecting to someone who can. Mental health is obviously is a key and growing area. 

Sramana Mitra: What kind of mental health engagement is the software capable of handling?

Martin Neale: Often the services are very difficult to get hold of. The barrier to entry is high. It’s providing a mechanism for people who would otherwise have no access to help. It is also providing an accelerated referral engine based on complex criteria. It can move you through the system a lot more smoothly and quickly.

We’re currently working on self-help technologies which we haven’t launched yet with the local authorities. This will be for service users to go through a variety of materials that can provide them with approaches to managing mental health problems.

Sramana Mitra: I’m going to switch gears a little bit and ask you some questions about how you are able to work with Microsoft within their ecosystem. Do you get leads from them? Is there a marketplace that you’re plugged into?

Martin Neale: Yes, there is a marketplace. Our experience is that you only get back what you put in. We focus our efforts on engaging with their sellers who are directly-focused in the areas that we are. We make sure that our offerings are aligned to their objectives. We regularly communicate with the sellers who are engaged in that space.

Sramana Mitra: I’m not sure I understand. You are a seller in the marketplace. Wouldn’t you be communicating with the buyers?

Martin Neale: I’m talking about the Microsoft sellers. Microsoft employs its own field sales force. 

Sramana Mitra: Got it. You are well-integrated with the Microsoft sales force that’s selling into the UK public sector. You sell through them.

Martin Neale: That’s right.

Sramana Mitra: What percentage of your leads are coming through Microsoft?

Martin Neale: I would guess about 20%. The leads that we get from them are of a much higher quality.

Sramana Mitra: Interesting. We have a terminology that we use called Bootstrapping by Piggybacking. I actually encourage our entrepreneurs to explore working with a PaaS that has a good marketplace where you can take advantage of a technical stack and not have to reinvent the wheel at every step. I also encourage accessing the leads and sales channel of the platform provider. That helps tremendously in going to market.

Do you have other tips for entrepreneurs who want to do that?

Martin Neale: The first thing is, you have to be realistic about the relevance of what you do to Microsoft. Microsoft only provides direct sellers to large customers. If you have a mass-market technology, it would be very difficult to get the buy-in. 

This segment is part 3 in the series : Thought Leaders in Artificial Intelligence: Martin Neale, CEO of ICS
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