Speaker 1: Now barrierkut is managing director Marketing Focus. Always good to
Speaker 1: catch up with Barry. Well, we talk to Barry in
Speaker 1: a regular basis. Good morning, Good morning, Tony. I'm fascinated
Speaker 1: with as many are, and we're trying to get our
Speaker 1: heads around for those a little older and infinitely more wise,
Speaker 1: not necessarily always more wise, by the way. But the
Speaker 1: new big thing is that AI. How do we I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just going to be. It's moving so quickly, I think, Barry,
Speaker 1: isn't it?
Speaker 2: It has been, Tony, But to a large extent, a
Speaker 2: lot of people use that as a collective noun AI
Speaker 2: artificial intelligence. It's anything but artificial. In fact, when you
Speaker 2: think about it, it's programmed intelligence because to a large extent,
Speaker 2: for them to come up with any conclusion with an
Speaker 2: algorithm or a computer algorithm type basis, you've got to
Speaker 2: have some sort of basis on which to come to decisions.
Speaker 2: So we have had for a long time, right back
Speaker 2: to the days of the IBM golf boil typewriter, that
Speaker 2: was a form of artificial intelligence and technology. It's just
Speaker 2: been a progressive development of that type of situation. It's
Speaker 2: just that its growth has been exponential in the last
Speaker 2: three to four years.
Speaker 1: Makes sense. Let me give you an example. So I'm
Speaker 1: not wild about social media, don't fully understand it, particularly Facebook,
Speaker 1: and I particularly like it at all for a range
Speaker 1: of reasons. Put that to one side for a moment.
Speaker 1: On LinkedIn, I just happened to cruise into my LinkedIn
Speaker 1: site and in LinkedIn to reply to some of the
Speaker 1: lovely greetings that I saw some days after my birthday
Speaker 1: last week. And all you've got to do is start
Speaker 1: to type one word, and it almost does it for you.
Speaker 1: By way of thanking people who considered it a lovely
Speaker 1: gesture to send a birthday message. I hardly had to
Speaker 1: do anything. Hit a little button. It says thank you
Speaker 1: for your lovely note.
Speaker 2: Almost well anticipated intelligence. That sort of thing says scripting
Speaker 2: that your texts, and you were saying that you want
Speaker 2: to have to rest onto everything. Well, that's a very
Speaker 2: easy collective way of doing it, because the important thing
Speaker 2: is at the bottom. It's got a name, Tony McManus.
Speaker 2: It's the personalization rather than the impersonalization of artificial intelligence.
Speaker 2: It's a label that really the means and I think
Speaker 2: you as a consultant and a person who speaks of
Speaker 2: many conferences on customer service. When you've got technology interspersing
Speaker 2: and interrupting personal communications, you really are fracturing relationships. So
Speaker 2: you've got to utilize artificial intelligence, whichever mode or model
Speaker 2: it is, into the fact that you don't replace humanity.
Speaker 2: You complement humanity by using that. Because artificial intelligence improves
Speaker 2: internal efficiency, it does not enhance external effectiveness. That's the
Speaker 2: critical issue to remember it all the time.
Speaker 1: Corporations need to be aware, are aware, they're sensitive to it.
Speaker 2: They're spending too much money on saying we'll hold on.
Speaker 2: We've got to be in on this. You know, I'm
Speaker 2: an older person. I'm fifty and sixty years of age.
Speaker 2: I run this business. I've been the managing director for
Speaker 2: ten years. My staff tell me I'm an analog manager
Speaker 2: and we're now in a digital era, so I'm out
Speaker 2: of tup. So I'm going to spend a lot of
Speaker 2: money making sure that we've got access to all the
Speaker 2: capital equipment for artificial intelligence. And that's the problem. In
Speaker 2: many instances, You've got artificial intelligence, so you've got capacity,
Speaker 2: but you haven't got capability. What we need to do
Speaker 2: is to make sure that internal to companies, You've got
Speaker 2: a lot of situations where people within the organization can
Speaker 2: use the technology or artificial intelligence to the advantage of
Speaker 2: the business and more importantly, to the advantage of the
Speaker 2: existing past and prospective customers.
Speaker 1: So in terms of shopping out shopping habits where in
Speaker 1: the day you look at maybe the specials that were
Speaker 1: printed in the local newspapers, you look at those specials
Speaker 1: tick maybe things that were at that stage reduced, and
Speaker 1: that's where you would go to shop. A lot of
Speaker 1: that now is so easy to do using I don't
Speaker 1: know what it's AI, but you can do that's pretty
Speaker 1: much on your phone as you're walking into the store
Speaker 1: planning well.
Speaker 2: And truly, Yes, this is the latest MOLL coming out
Speaker 2: of the United States of America agency purchasing or I
Speaker 2: agency purchasing, and it's about four percent, or you know,
Speaker 2: marginally less than three percent, but it's growing to about
Speaker 2: four percent of the market. So Tony McManus wants to
Speaker 2: buy a product. It might be a microwave, it might
Speaker 2: be a television so it might be a new radio.
Speaker 2: It'll be a digital radio that he wants to listen
Speaker 2: to on three AW or it might be six PR
Speaker 2: or you know five am that sort of thing. So
Speaker 2: but the point is is he getting the right prices
Speaker 2: the right value? What you can now do and this
Speaker 2: is what the Americans are doing with this augenic purchasing.
Speaker 2: So the AI becomes your agent. You give them a
Speaker 2: brief of what you want to buy, what you're looking for,
Speaker 2: what are the brands, what's the price range that is
Speaker 2: tolerable to you, and they will go out search, select,
Speaker 2: choose nomination and actually be able to transact the business
Speaker 2: and organize delerlavery for you across the board. Now you
Speaker 2: can see what's having the problem there. You've now got
Speaker 2: artificial intelligence acting as the agent for the consumer talking
Speaker 2: to the algorithm of the department store, the retail operation
Speaker 2: and everything else has been marginalized. So there's no relationships,
Speaker 2: there's no personal loyalty, there's no repeat business. And so
Speaker 2: a lot of businesses are saying, I don't know whether
Speaker 2: I want to become a fulfillment center for artificial intelligence.
Speaker 2: So this is a great new model. And look, here's
Speaker 2: the point. If you look at it and say, let's
Speaker 2: take away the pursuit of what's the cheapest price and
Speaker 2: say what is the one thing that annoys many people
Speaker 2: when they're buying products. Now you are talking about Paul McCarty.
Speaker 2: Now paor McCartney's tickets sold very very rapidly. Let's take
Speaker 2: that as the case. It's employed. What you can now
Speaker 2: do is you go to your artificial intelligence, you develop
Speaker 2: them as an agent, give them a brief. So Paul McCartney,
Speaker 2: Taylor Swift, or whoever else it may be, is coming
Speaker 2: to Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney, Brisbane or Warn and Bull and
Speaker 2: say what I want is some tickets. I'm prepared to
Speaker 2: pay this price. I would like that range, and I
Speaker 2: want it on mat night. And so you can give
Speaker 2: them a brief. And so rather than you waiting online
Speaker 2: on a telephone, online with the social media, or more
Speaker 2: particularly physically waiting in a queue trying to get tickets,
Speaker 2: artificial intelligence can take all the toxicity and the frustration
Speaker 2: and annoyance by simply saying, hold on, I'll do that
Speaker 2: on your behalf. And that is AI agency purchasing used
Speaker 2: in the most appropriate manner because it's saving you time,
Speaker 2: which is time is money. Therefore, the value proposition is
Speaker 2: greatly enhanced when you use artificial intelligence intelligently.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a beautiful observation. The great band Credit House
Speaker 1: doing some shows. Credit House, it was, and I just
Speaker 1: thought you I'd love to see that. Sure enough soon
Speaker 1: as I said at that loud Credit House as something
Speaker 1: hits the phone. They're doing a series of concerts I think,
Speaker 1: in the beautiful Yarra valley here in Victoria. They're going
Speaker 1: all around Australia, but here a valley here in Victoria.
Speaker 1: And I looked at the thing, and you can play
Speaker 1: one hundred and thirty one hundred and eighty dollars a
Speaker 1: ticket or something. But then you have a selection of
Speaker 1: going into a restaurant or a cafe or a certain section,
Speaker 1: and the prices are all structured accordingly. It's just it's
Speaker 1: a different it's a completely different way to maybe you
Speaker 1: and I might be used to going to Melbourne Sports
Speaker 1: Depot to buy a ticket all those years ago.
Speaker 2: Yes, And of course the point is it's now pricing. Yeah,
Speaker 2: if there's five people wanting that particular ticket, the price
Speaker 2: goes up inordinately high. What you've got to do is
Speaker 2: have the artificial intelligence, you know, acting as your agent,
Speaker 2: say well, this is the price range that I want,
Speaker 2: and these are the seats that I will go into.
Speaker 2: I won't take on the wings. I want to be
Speaker 2: more on the center aisles and that type of situation.
Speaker 2: And people are very very happy with that type of situation. Now,
Speaker 2: a lot of people say that is the future, and
Speaker 2: therefore there's going to be you know, you've got to
Speaker 2: get onto that. Interestingly enough, the bigger businesses like the
Speaker 2: department stores, discount department stores, the global retailers, even the
Speaker 2: platforms like TikTok Amazon, they're saying, we don't know whether
Speaker 2: we're losing control of our supply chain. We'll use it selectively,
Speaker 2: but we're not going to make it randomly available because
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, the whole equation of relationships of business,
Speaker 2: the value of brands, well, you've lost all of that
Speaker 2: type of situation because Tony, you're old enough as I'm
Speaker 2: old enough to remember that when you were went into
Speaker 2: the workforce and you went into sales, and they will
Speaker 2: always say, the important thing is what is the lifetime
Speaker 2: value of your customers. With artificial intelligence and agency purchasing,
Speaker 2: it's transaction by transaction. That's fine if you're a president
Speaker 2: of the United States or the name of Donald Joe Trump,
Speaker 2: you don't need to be transaction or what you need
Speaker 2: to do is to develop relationships and so all the
Speaker 2: time utilize it to improve and complement the human quotion.
Speaker 2: But never deal out of the equation the human quotion,
Speaker 2: because that's not going to be the future of businesses.
Speaker 2: Because many small business owners here today their whole superannuation
Speaker 2: fund is geared to one day I'm going to come
Speaker 2: and say, no, that's it. I want to sell my business.
Speaker 2: If all the transactions are done by online with algorithms
Speaker 2: and artificial agency purchases, there is no business to sell.
Speaker 2: So never step back and say, well, I'll allow technology
Speaker 2: to run my business because it's the most efficient way
Speaker 2: to do it. It can be unquestionably, and it's proving to
Speaker 2: be right now, a false economy.
Speaker 1: False economy. We'll leave it there. Always good to talk
Speaker 1: to you, Barry. Thank you, Barry. You could manage your
Speaker 1: director marketing focus Bricks and water. It's and curious. I
Speaker 1: don't know what you saw on the news last night
Speaker 1: about Australia posts on all the news services Australia posts
Speaker 1: they're slightly new experience of picking up a parcel. At times,
Speaker 1: they are a change in m