SalesTech Star Interview with Kulmeet Bawa, COO at Resulticks

Tell us more about your journey into Marketing and Sales technology. How did you arrive at Resulticks?

I have spent more than 14 years in the enterprise technology space and have the cross-functional experience of steering business transformations for clients across industries. I have been driven by a mission of helping brands catalyze their growth through successful Digital Transformation.

Before Resulticks, I was the Vice President and Managing Director, South Asia at Adobe and have earlier taken on leadership positions with Microsoft and Sun Microsystems. Prior to my corporate career, I am proud to have served in the Indian Army (Armoured Corps) for more than a decade.

What is Resulticks and how does it stand out from other Marketing Automation platforms?

Resulticks is the world’s fastest-growing real-time Marketing Conversation solution. Our experts in Marketing, Technology, and Business Strategy built it organically from the ground specifically to enable true, Big Data-driven Omnichannel customer engagement. The capabilities that distinguish Resulticks most are the qualities that marketers value so highly— scalable, measurable, attributable, secure customer engagement.

To elaborate a bit on those qualities, our robust AI and Machine Learning layer combined with an intuitive user interface equips brands to orchestrate seamless, hyper-targeted experiences across both online and offline channels— social, email, extended systems, voice assistants, call center, chatbots, mobile, web, paid media, and QR codes. It also enables marketers to respond contextually in real-time and to attribute revenue contribution at the segment-of-one level.

With proprietary tools like Resulticks’ Smart Duo and our Omnichannel rules engine, brands can execute individualized customer interactions at scale. We also offer a unique hybrid deployment option that allows critical customer data to be hosted securely on the client’s premises while enabling access to the full benefits of a Marketing Cloud – especially critical to meeting the needs of brands in highly regulated industries such as Banking, Financial Services, and Healthcare.

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How is Resulticks driving transformation in the Marketing space?

Innovations occur at breakneck speed constantly in almost all aspects of the industry. We consolidate the best of those—including a good number that we developed ourselves—into a unified system that’s greater than the sum of its parts.

Indeed, Resulticks has emerged as an innovator and leader in helping brands worldwide achieve the Digital Transformations that empower them to compete successfully at the new frontier of marketing as defined by real-time relevance, Omnichannel experiences, and individual insights.

On the frontline of innovation, Resulticks introduced the world’s first Marketing Blockchain and recently launched our AI-powered Omnichannel Orchestration capability. Initiatives such as these exemplify our commitment not only to maximizing the impact of technology across the entire organization but in fostering a more collaborative, future-forward ecosystem that benefits all.

Which industries are using your products? Which geographies have been adopting your solutions?

Resulticks has had a great impact on meeting the Marketing needs of brands in Telecom, Healthcare, BFSI, Travel and Hospitality, and Retail, with especially strong traction across the latter three. We continue to see growth and interest from the B2B and B2C sectors as well as from B2B2B and B2B2BC companies.

In terms of markets, Resulticks is a global brand. We’re headquartered in Singapore and have experienced strong growth across Southeast Asia. The recent launches of offices in Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Malaysia have accelerated our momentum in APAC.

We also have a significant presence in India, engaging with major brands such as HDFC Bank and UTI Mutual Funds. The United States has recently become a big focus for us, and we are also expanding our presence in Australia and New Zealand.

What are the key trends in Omnichannel Marketing? 

Based on our latest data in Southeast Asia, brands in the region have indicated that real-time Marketing and Omnichannel delivery and engagement are their top two priorities for 2019. In terms of Marketing channels, social, website, and email continue to be the most common channels used by brands, with over 70 percent using at least one.

It’s interesting to note that technologies that bridge the gap between physical spaces and digital systems are becoming increasingly common, with 23 percent of brands using beacon technology and 32 percent of brands using QR codes. That combined with the fact that 71 percent of brands have indicated they plan to invest more resources in omnichannel readiness signals an increasingly strong demand for Omnichannel solutions in those markets.

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How is AI technology going to be driving better Sales Enablement?

The power of AI technology lies in how it helps identify the relationships among data and then derives actionable insights. While Sales and Marketing professionals have historically employed this type of data analysis, AI expedites the speed and scale of execution, which paves the way for Omnichannel, real-time customer engagement. AI, when incorporated into a Marketing solution, enables better segmentation, identifies new audiences, harnesses deeper insights, and identifies opportunities to better optimize Marketing campaigns.

Take for example an online travel company. Even without AI, marketers today can look at data correlations between purchase behavior and other internal and external factors—travel destinations, seasonal timing, and airfare prices—by aggregating relatively large groups of consumers. Doing this kind of analysis at the individual traveler level would be much more useful, of course, but also incredibly time-consuming, unsustainable, and cost-prohibitive.

With AI, brands can capture that truly valuable granular analysis at scale and with far more efficiency. This allows for real-time Marketing, where relevant messaging and highly individualized interaction can occur as soon as the right triggers or conditions are met, ensuring customers are engaged at the most optimal time and in context.

What roles do Sales professionals play in an Omnichannel strategy?

While it may sound like Automation will soon take over the roles now filled by many Marketing and Sales professionals, the truth is that Automation platforms are equipping these professionals with tools that allow them to focus on more value-added work and achieve greater outcomes. For example, while AI and Data Analytics can identify relationships at scale, the tools still need human intervention to know what type of data to be analyzed, the “what” to look for, and the creativity to act on it.

Sales professionals, particularly those at the frontline of customer interactions, can fuel the analytic engine with their intrinsic understanding of what customers want. They would have a first-hand understanding of what triggers consumer action and can then work with Digital Marketing professionals to integrate their insights into a scalable digital campaign.

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What is your advice to Sales and Marketing professionals looking to leverage Omnichannel? 

Top management buy-in is imperative. An effective Omnichannel solution spans multiple business functions and requires the support of multiple teams. With senior-level buy-in, securing a commitment from other internal stakeholders becomes infinitely easier.

In terms of planning, we always recommend companies start with a comprehensive assessment of their customer data.—what data is available at what level of granularity and what gaps need to be addressed. At this stage, it’s also important to clearly articulate what the brand wants to achieve and the key metrics and benchmarks for measuring success. This helps map out the overall approach, including marketing channels and how the campaign can be optimized.

This integrated approach has two distinct advantages: First, a consolidated data pool allows for a more holistic analysis of customer data. Second, brands can engage with customers faster across multiple channels with more relevance and impact.

From there, brands can focus on gaining both qualitative and quantitative insights to help guide when and how to engage in the most relevant way possible. Throughout this entire process, having the right technology partner to work with is essential. Ideally, the brand will choose one that has not just technical expertise, but also the ability to partner strategically and to see big-picture business goals. 

What is Resulticks strategy to help develop the local Marketing industry?

Change in the Marketing Technology space happens at breakneck speed. What’s interesting is that despite these changes, many of the fundamentals of Marketing and Sales remain the same.

Aside from the innovations we’ve outlined above, we also work to drive greater awareness of the capabilities and possibilities of all these new tools and technologies are unlocking. What has already been exciting is working with customers to discover ways not previously imagined to use our capabilities to engage with customers, secure brand loyalty, and drive topline growth.

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Thank You, Kulmeet, for answering all our questions. We hope to see you again, soon.