Periodic Reporting for period 1 - INCMAK (Incomaker - intelligent marketing management automation for SME) Reporting period: 2016-07-01 to 2016-12-31 Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project Today there is huge amount of data all around. It is estimated that every second, megabytes of digital data are created about each of us nowadays. On the other hand, companies and institutions struggle with such immense amounts of data. Just about 2-3% of data is leveraged in businesses. In business management and particularly in marketing we see a big shift to the automation and personalization, but human professionals are still necessary for most of the marketing work. We can see that an important part of human work and decision making in marketing could be turned into automated processes. This situation is the same for all sizes of businesses, but it is worse for SMEs than for corporations due to their more difficult access to capital, and human and other resources. Among other problems, SMEs often lack experts and professionals in marketing and business management, what creates their substantial market disadvantage.This issue is very important for European society. Greater efficiency of large companies leads to the concentration in many industries and narrowing of opportunities for small companies. In the same time, although SMEs create a smaller part of countries' GDP, they are by far the biggest employer in most countries. SMEs also bring diversity and often pioneer innovations. Therefore, a way how to improve the performance of European SMEs and narrow down the gap between their efficiency and the efficiency of large corporations could have a great impact on European jobs, innovation, consumer satisfaction and international competitiveness.The objectives of Incomaker are to become a European leader in advanced data analysis systems for digital marketing optimization. Incomaker can leverage huge amounts of data to automate the company processes and this way it improves their maturity and companies' performance. Our ambition is to make the marketing efficiency of larger companies available to SMEs. Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far 1) Technical feasibility evaluation was successfully finished. We verified the working prototype in real environment and evaluated whether the system is ready to be deployed in production. It included among other a simulation of the stability of the system, user-experience testing, and a pilot deployment of the system).Results: on the basis of testing, dozens of improvements were implemented that made the system mature and market-ready.2) Market feasibility evaluation was finished successfully. We did market validation with potential and actual users of the system, we verified the ergonomics of the system and prepared a pricing model. Freedom to operate analysis was elaborated.Results: the market validation confirmed that the there is a real problem that should be solved, that Incomaker brings a solution of the problem and that the solution is marketable, i.e. there is a willingness to pay for it. Moreover, we got valuable ideas and requests for further development. The verification of ergonomics of the system and system user interface allowed us to improve the user experience and set up a plan for user training. It helps us to make the system available to a wider audience. Finally, a pricing model was developed which is a crucial input for the business plan and for the commercialization of the product.Freedom to operate analysis is important for market penetration to avoid potential legal risks coming from intellectual property rights. Our analysis confirmed that there are no substantial risks in that field now, however, identified potential risks that could appear and suggested a plan how to deal with them.3) Financial feasibility evaluation was done. It - among others - consisted of financial planning and the planning of capital requirements.Results: financial planning consists of the plan of costs, revenues, and cashflows and the forecasted financial statements. On the basis of these figures, forecasted performance indicators were calculated and the capital requirements of the company were determined. They are critical for financial management of the company and for raising venture capital.4) Business plan elaboration - on the basis of the afore mentioned documents and other inputs, a comprehensive business plan was elaborated. Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far) Contemporary marketing automation solutions consist of a set of tools to improve marketing performance and the automation of certain marketing actions. They help to manage quantity and workload, but they still require skilled human professional to bring any results to the company. Incomaker is focused on process quality. It replaces actual human work by artificial intelligence algorithms. Instead of human professional using the computer, the computer guides a human user, no matter the level of previous marketing experience he or she has. This way it could accelerate processes, replace human work by an automated process, save considerable costs and increase sales and the performance of the company. Incomaker works with artificial intelligence leveraging big data and it is able to decrease the need for human work by up to 80%. This way we help SMEs to boost their performance and market position. It has a positive impact on competitiveness and diversity on the market and jobs creation. big-logo.png
