In this episode of Behind The Numbers, Dave is joined by Lamees Butt, the Senior Vice President of Global Alliances and Channels at Zoovu. Lamees joins us all the way from the UK to delve into the fascinating world of AI-driven product discovery.
With over 15 years in the tech industry, Lamees brings a wealth of knowledge and experience from both the corporate and startup worlds. She introduces us to Zoovu, an AI product discovery company that she joined in 2017. Zoovu’s mission is to connect customers with the products they need in the most seamless way possible, translating complex technical specifications into simple, human-friendly language.
Throughout the episode, Lamees provides a deeper understanding of what a product discovery company does. She uses relatable examples, such as shopping for a laptop, to explain how Zoovu’s technology simplifies the online shopping experience. Instead of being overwhelmed by endless product specifications, Zoovu helps customers find the right product through a digital conversation that mimics the experience of talking to a knowledgeable salesperson.
Lamees also discusses the technical aspects of Zoovu’s platform, including their use of ontologies to provide context and understand technical specifications. She highlights the company's partnerships, particularly with SAP, to help B2B customers streamline their complex product sales processes.
The conversation explores the importance of customer engagement and how both B2B and B2C companies use AI to enhance the customer journey. Lamise emphasizes the role of AI in capturing and optimizing sales conversations, ultimately driving better results and customer satisfaction.
The episode also features a deep dive into a case study with Draeger, a medical device manufacturer. Lamise explains how Zoovu helped Draeger digitize their complex product sales process, empowering their customers to make purchases online and unlocking new revenue channels.
In addition to discussing the technical and business aspects, Lamise shares her entrepreneurial journey, from her early days in the fashion tech space to her current role at Zoovu. She provides valuable insights into the importance of innovation and efficiency in doing more with less.
As the episode concludes, Lamees offers her perspective on the future of artificial intelligence and its potential to transform business processes. She encourages listeners to embrace AI as a tool to optimize and improve their operations.
For those interested in learning more about Zoovu or connecting with Lamise, she invites you to reach out on LinkedIn or visit Zoovu's website for a demo.
Don't miss this enlightening episode of Behind the Numbers to gain valuable insights into the power of AI in product discovery and customer engagement.
About our guest:
Lamees Butt is the SVP Of Global Alliances and Channels at Zoovu where she spearheads strategic technology partnerships and relationships. Sheis experienced in shepherding digital transformation efforts and forging partnerships at companies like Mercedes-Benz UK, Salesforce, and Zoovu.
Her passion for innovation in the digital space focuses on the belief that when technology is leveraged strategically its ability to create value for businesses and their customers is truly transformative
About the Host:
Dave Bookbinder is the person that clients reach out to when they need to know what their most important assets are worth. He’s a corporate finance executive with a focus on business and intellectual property valuation. Known as a collaborative adviser, Dave has served thousands of client companies of all sizes and industries.
Dave is the author of two #1 best-selling books about the impact of human capital (PEOPLE!) on the valuation of a business enterprise called
who is Senior Vice President of Global Alliances and Channels at Zoovu.
Hey, Lamees, welcome to Behind the Numbers.
(00:40):
It's a pleasure. I wouldn't miss it after all we've been through just to get
you here, but that's between you and me.
Nobody else needs to know that. Why don't you introduce yourself to the audience,
tell them a little bit about who you are and about Zoovu.
My name is Zumi, I've been in the tech industry for the last 15 years.
I see a bit of a journey through the corporate side of the world but also the startup side too.
(01:07):
Zoovu actually joined back in 2017 and we are a product discovery company,
an AI product discovery company. And really, our mission is to help connect
our customers with their customers in the most seamless way.
Okay, that's a great, great summary. But now I'm going to ask you to unpack
it a little bit more for us to help us all understand what exactly is a product
(01:30):
discovery company. What do you guys do?
And feel free to get a little tech wonky on us.
I think one of the easiest ways to explain it is through an example.
We've all shopped online, whether you're buying a washing machine or a bike,
or in my case, I'm actually in the process of buying a laptop.
And considering I work in a tech company, I should know how much CPU I need,
(01:53):
how much RAM I need, but I actually don't.
But I can tell you that I travel a lot.
I like to store everything on my laptop.
And I would probably want to go into the store and have that conversation with,
you know, an experienced salesperson who would recommend me the best laptop for my needs.
But actually, like most people, we're time-bought. And so what I have to do is I'll go online.
(02:15):
But whether you're shopping at Walmart, Best Buy, even Dell.com,
the issue that you have is you're being served with endless amounts of products
without really knowing which one is right for you.
And Ziggy solves that problem by taking all those technical specifications,
so the RAM, the CPU, and translating it into human language.
So that you can really have kind of a conversation in a digital way to drive
(02:38):
you to the right product.
Yeah, I want to ask you just to explain that a little bit further and give us
an example of that type of conversation, because as I'm listening to you and
thinking, so we could go in and maybe do some drop downs and click through on
different options for memory,
for example, CPU speed and things like that.
Talk a little bit about how you translate it into that human type conversation.
(03:03):
Kind of like uh back office taking it to the front office when you think about
your back office you think about where your products are stored so your pin
systems we connect agnostically to i would say pretty much all pin systems and
we take all of that technical data,
and actually so anyone listening who has a pin system probably thinking yeah
but my data is not in a great format and it's really messy incredibly unstructured
(03:27):
but actually that's been so part of or USP, we're able to take that kind of messy,
unstructured data set and transform it into what we call intelligent content.
So that one kind of source of truth that allows you to power these discovery conversations.
And the way that we translate that is through what we call ontologies,
which is a really fancy way of saying that it's using context to really understand
(03:52):
the words and the technical specifications that it's...
Yeah. And I guess maybe just the last piece on the technical side is talk a
little bit about some of the partnership arrangements that you have and,
and how do your, your customers interact with those various brands through those partnerships?
So we've been incredibly lucky, especially kind of on the B2B side,
(04:14):
to work with a partner, SAP, obviously a very well-known, incredibly large tech company.
And the beauty of the partnership that we have with SAP is a lot of their customers
are B2B focused and they all have a very, very similar problem.
They sell complex products.
And typically the only way that they were able to sell is through an account representative.
(04:35):
You had to call up on the phone and spend 90 minutes building a quote on the
phone. And actually, what we want to do is help these organizations,
future proofs themselves, to do more with less.
And so we work with SAP to help uplift only their commerce customer to really
help drive conversions through kind of integrations with EQ and back office
(04:55):
and push those discovery experiences onto their front office and to commerce
now. All right. Thank you.
We hear a lot about customer engagement. I'm going to ask you to help the audience
understand what does that mean, especially from the lens or the dichotomy,
if you will, of the B2B customer versus the B2C, business-to-consumer and business-to-business customers?
(05:17):
I think consumer engagement and I think B2C, there's a ton of platforms out
there and a ton of white-fingers articles that talk about understanding a customer
better and how to do that.
And I think there are some D2C brands that are really leading the way of how to do it well.
You know by really understanding that you've got customer personas are
treating the ball the same it's not going to actually yield the
(05:40):
results that you want as a business so being able to make
your customer base lands all shop differently is really important and when you
translate that over to b2b it's exactly the same your b2b buyers are really
no different you will have different customer persona types or how they would
like to buy uh the quantity or the level um of products that they need from you.
(06:01):
And so being able to understand how to serve them in the right way will actually
get you the results that you're looking for.
Yeah, and you're using artificial intelligence to help with all that, right?
We are. AI has been a bedrock in our platform since we've been in existence.
And actually, it's given us a bit of a, I'd say, an advantage in the sense that
(06:21):
AI really is large data sets that learn from each other and are able to be adapted over time.
And because we've been in business for so long, Those data vets are incredibly
large, and we've been able to use that really to help build and drive better
results for our customers.
Yeah, talk a little bit about how the B2B and B2C companies are using AI in
(06:42):
their day-to-day to help create engagement with customers.
It's a really good question. And actually, it's a question we find a lot,
you know, that we get from our customers, whether it's pre-sale or post-sale.
A lot of prospects have come to us and say, we really want to use AI. How do we use it?
And it's interesting because the way that I explain it is have a look at your
customer journey, kind of map out what that looks like from inception point
(07:05):
awareness all the way through to a conversion and pull out some of those pain points.
And wherever you're signing that stickiness or the hurdle or it breaks,
that's where there's an opportunity to use AI for better.
And what we're seeing with our customers is that actually, like I explained
earlier on, when you're having a conversation with a salesperson in store,
imagine that there was a way to capture that conversation, that conversational,
(07:28):
that best salesperson's conversation, and there was a way to optimize it,
use it, segment it, and really learn some of that data.
And that's exactly what we're able to do with the Zubu Conversation Optimizer,
we call it, which is an AI tool which allows us to look at the conversation,
that are performing best,
optimize them, push them out to different regions so we can start to see,
(07:51):
we know that different cultures operate and shop differently.
But if one conversation is working, we can actually see where it is kind of
having that sweet spot and apply that to the difference.
Yeah, and just to be clear, Lamees, are your customers coming to the Zoovu platform
to begin their search for whatever it is they're looking for?
Or is Zoovu embedded into the DNA, if you will, of some of the other platforms
(08:14):
that they may be doing their organic shopping on?
Yeah, so really what we mean is kind of that headless commerce approach,
kind of that composable commerce piece.
You don't know you're touching Zoovu as an end customer. So our customers like
Bosch, Dyson, do not know, their customers do not know that they're using the
Zubu platform when they're being served a Bosch power tool or a vacuum cleaner.
(08:37):
It feels native to the Dyson website and the Bosch website because that's how
we want the customer to feel.
It's really only kind of on the back end when you're configuring these experiences.
So when Bosch internally are configuring these experiences for their customer,
that's really the only moment that our customers would see the Zubu platform.
(08:57):
Yeah. And for the user experience, is it akin to a chatbot where you're doing
a search and you're getting prompted and responding to certain questions?
That's really one example. Yeah. And I think that the beauty of Zubu is that
we're a discovery ecosystem.
And what I mean by that is we're not just, you know, chat. We are guided selling,
(09:17):
kind of clickable question and answer assistance.
We're intelligent search. And we really kind of have that width and breadth
of how to serve customers in the right way.
We have visual configurators because we understand that actually,
you know, if you're wanting to configure a fireman's helmet,
for example, you actually want to see the product maybe in real life and do
a 3D flip reverse of it to really understand how the product's going to work,
(09:40):
which you can't always do in person.
Yeah. And when you talk about seeing the product, is there also a component
of augmented reality where if you're looking at that helmet to see how it looks on your head?
Absolutely, yes. So we call it our 3D configurator, which uses AR to simulate
(10:01):
kind of what that's going to look like to ensure the customer really gets a
close feel to what it would be like in reality.
That's awesome. Let me tell the audience how they can find you,
connect with you, work with you, or if they'd like to learn more about Zoovu,
what's the best way to do all that?
For sure. I am super active over on LinkedIn. So find me, Lamees,
(10:22):
Lamees Butt over on LinkedIn.
Also, if you're more interested in Zubu and kind of want to get to know more
and see a demo, hit us up at Zubu.com and you can get a demo there.
That's awesome. You know, we're going to have to take a commercial break here,
Lamees, but you sit tight. Don't go anywhere.
Folks out in the audience, don't go anywhere either. We will be right back on
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(13:49):
And welcome back to behind the numbers everyone my
name is dave bookbinder and today we're talking with lamees butt who
is senior vice president of global alliances and channels at zoovu uh hey let
me welcome back for round two i would like to kick it off with you basically
following on on where we left off in the first segment and maybe ask if you
could share an example with the audience walk them through a b2b process what's that look like.
(14:16):
So what we typically see is B2B organizations have one quite similar problem,
that they really would like to digitize their customer process,
but because of their complexity of products, they really do struggle.
So one of our customers that we work with is a company called Draeger.
(14:37):
And you might not have heard of Draeger, but I can almost guarantee that if you've ever
been to a hospital you will have come into contact with
one of their products they're a medical device manufacturer uh has
built it in germany operate in over 190
different countries and a lot
of what they serve is x-ray equipment equipment for
(15:00):
hospitals to help on maternity wards gas measurement
devices for firefighters and you
can imagine those products you know they require a lot
of complexity when it comes to building and configuring them you
might actually have you know six gas measurement devices
but each of those devices has possibly around 50,000 different combinations
(15:20):
because of the components and so you want to actually seek your salesperson
to actually get that you know the right order especially when lives are at play
right you're thinking about firefighters who are going and saving lives you
want to make sure they have the right equipment.
So it's definitely kind of high risk, high reward in that respect.
And what Draper was saying is, look, we want to be able to empower our end customers.
(15:43):
So all of the hospitals that are our customers, all of the firefighters that
are our customers, to actually be able to purchase online.
You know, we live in a digital world. Why aren't they able to do that?
We, you know, we want to be able
to do more with less. We can't hire more salespeople. So how do we do it?
And this actually comes into play with our partner, SAP, because they're a huge
(16:03):
SAP shop and they use a ton of their products.
They use Commerce Cloud, which is the website functionality.
And they use a ton of their products.
And also kind of the back office product management systems where they manage all of their products.
And the issue was, is that there was no way of actually exposing all of that
compatibility, those configurations and the rules to the end customer in a really
(16:24):
customer friendly visual way.
And so we came in as the partner to SAP to really take all of that complex data
that sat in the back end and transform it into a visual conversation.
So we would be asking questions to the customer, you know, what is the industry
that you're focused on? Is it hospitals? Is it firefighters?
What is it? And through a series of questions, we would actually get down to
(16:48):
the right product, in this case, a gas measurement device.
And then we would actually be able to help configure that to the exact right
requirements for that gas measurement device based on, you know,
the level of, let's just say, oxygen that was required or the level of gas,
the types of gas that they usually come into contact with. So that's quite technical.
(17:09):
But what it shows you is how important it was for a company like Draeger to
be able to serve their customers in a digital way to help almost unlock a new
revenue channel online that they didn't previously have.
Yeah, that's a great story. And just, I guess, to continue on that thread.
So I want to understand what they're doing to maintain or enhance the user experience
(17:33):
in that situation, right? Because consumers, you're at their website,
but you've got other options.
You could go somewhere else for a similar product.
But how are the brands basically creating an experience that get the customer engaged?
Because there's a huge investment at the back end of this, right?
They've got to get an ROI when someone shows up there. They like to get them
(17:53):
closed. How are they doing that?
What we, the customers that win are the ones that really understand,
number one, their customer personas, and two, the path in which their customers are using.
To discover and convert. And what I mean by that is, let's just say there's
(18:17):
an example of a dental manufacturer. We'll use a dental manufacturer this time.
And when you think about the types of personas, the people that are purchasing,
let's just say there are probably three different personas.
You've got the receptionist who works at the dentist, who's been handed a list
of products that they need to go and purchase.
(18:37):
So she's been given a list. She needs to go onto the website,
find these products, probably using the certify and just hit add to cart, add to cart.
Then you've got a dentist, somebody who's actually incredibly knowledgeable,
time poor, but really wants to be able to create a suite of products that are
probably going to fulfill maybe a number of surgeries that he's going to have this week.
(18:58):
And then you've got somebody else, which is, you know, an
accountancy-specific person who is maybe probably not
a subject matter expert in dentistry and so
it's understanding each of those customer personas and wanting
to know how they're using your website to discover the products so that actually
let's just say for the receptiveness if she was hitting the search branches
(19:18):
typing in the code of that product the best customer will power a asset or a
question in the search bar to Just say,
we can see that you're looking for this. Let us help you.
And through that click, we'll be able to power a discovery conversation that
allows the user to be guided through that journey, essentially get to the products that they need.
(19:40):
But it's really about understanding how to meet customers where they are,
capture them on that journey to help guide them through to convert.
Yeah. And okay, so we get to that spot where we've gone through all the entire
process, the interaction, the selection, and we've made the purchase decision.
And ostensibly, I'm going to be more satisfied with the product because of the
(20:02):
experience that I've had at the front end.
Does that always translate, Lamees or is there some potential gap there that
companies are still working on, on the customer satisfaction piece with the product?
I would say that we have seen, when using Zuby, a much higher rate in customer
retention for short and lifetime value.
(20:24):
And we've seen a huge reduction in returns when you use the discovery experiences through Zuby.
You can imagine the level of returns that were happening when you were buying
incorrect compatible products or just buying pieces or parts and they didn't
go together. And that was causing a huge issue for a lot of B2B companies as well.
(20:46):
Yeah. Let me tell folks out there how they can find you, how they can learn more about Zoovu.
You can catch me over on LinkedIn, let me start, or you can hit us up at Zoovu.com
and get a demo there. That sounds good. Quick and easy.
So since you're in the tech space, I want to ask you about doing more with less.
It's something that everybody hears in the workplace these days.
What's your take on that?
(21:08):
I think doing more with less is really about bribing efficiency.
You know, looking at your processes in your organization and figuring out how
and where you can optimize.
I think the innovation, you know, the very word itself, the genesis of it is
how can we do things differently and how can we do things better?
And so I always, when I'm speaking to customers, love to go back to their customer
(21:34):
journeys and love to look at their processes just to see, you know, how they're operating.
Because what you find is that there are tons of inefficiencies in those processes,
but actually there's better ways of doing things.
And, you know, even small tweaks
can make a seismic change in that kind of goal to do more with less.
Yeah, and you've got a fascinating background. I want to ask you to share a
(21:57):
little bit of that with the audience, if you don't mind. Tell us about your
entrepreneurial journey.
Yeah, I mean, I started, as I said, in tech from the age of 19.
Well, actually, probably even younger without me realizing it.
I was a kid that used to play with Lego.
And so I always considered myself a bit of a builder, not in the construction
scenario, but more of like the Lego type builder.
(22:20):
But I had my first startup at 19 where I identified a problem.
It was actually in the fashion tech space and created an app called My Mannequin. in.
And so, you know, built the app, got seed funding for it, completely tanked
it at the age of 20, which is totally normal.
And you fail fast is what I've learned.
And then went into the corporate world and did a number of roles across corporate,
(22:44):
Mercedes-Benz, The Times, Salesforce, just to really kind of finesse the skill set.
But what I realized is that at heart, I am a builder.
And so joining Zoovu, I was number two in their London office and truly didn't
even know if they They could make payroll at the time.
And I've been there now over half a decade, and it's been an incredible journey,
just like really seeing impacts in the way that discovery will help truly change
(23:08):
people's day and lives, because we're giving back time.
Yeah. And Lamees, we're getting down to the short strokes here.
It's almost the end of the program, but I want to give you a couple of minutes
just to share with us your thoughts on the future of artificial intelligence
and what's down the road for Zoovu as well.
All. I'm really excited about what the future holds from a technology standpoint.
(23:31):
I think that there's a lot of fear out there at the moment across different
industries, people nervous about will AI take my jobs?
And actually, I think it's a case of imagining that you're riding a horse and
you've really got to grab the reins of this and you've got to direct it and
let it serve you rather than the other way around.
(23:51):
And so my advice to anybody who's looking to explore AI and looking to figure
out how you can use AI to help serve you is go back to,
like I said, your processes, go back to your grassroots and figure out where
you've got sticking points or where you've got issues that are broken.
And let's see how AI can work to optimize your processes to make it better. All right.
(24:17):
Lamees unfortunately, we are out of time. It goes very quickly here.
I can't thank you enough for joining us today on Behind the Numbers.
Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure. We've been talking with Lamees Butt,
who's Senior Vice President of Global Alliances and Channels at Zoovu.
Definitely give them a look and definitely hit Lamees up on LinkedIn,
and she'll be happy to connect with you.
And you can always connect with me on LinkedIn. My name is Dave Bookbinder,
(24:38):
and I'm the one that my clients turn to when they want to know what their most
important assets are worth.
I want to thank Emma for running the board today. Great job over there in the
darkness out there, Emma.
I also want to thank you, the audience, for watching and listening.
We can't do the program without you thank you so much for your support that
is all we have for today folks we'll see you next time on behind the numbers take care.