START-UP CORNER:
Helping gets the best out of employees
Worxogo’s AI-based product uses neuroeconomics and behavioural science to help drive performance. NIRMALYA BEHERA writes
Employees’ performance, especially in sales, is key to an entity’s success. But not every day they give their best of the ability. But, a simple nudge from the manager can motivate an employee to perform better.
And, to help companies to improve the productivity of their employees, Worxogo, a Bengaluru-headquartered tech start-up, is offering a personal cognitive AI (artificial intelligence) coach. “We believe that behaviour is the next frontier in driving performance at organisations. We found Worxogo’s concept unique in how it uses AI and behavioural science to augment and help drive employees’ performance using one-on-one ‘nudges’ (or mobile notifications/messages),” says Sumi Vivek, CIO, Diageo India.
The company has recently raised a Series-A investment of ~165 million by venture funds Inventus India and Ideaspring Capital. The fresh funds will be used primarily to expand operations in the US.
Launched in 2015, the start-up has six co-founders: Ramesh Srinivas, Anant Sood, Sivaramakrishnan, Suneel Aiyar, Sudha Bhamidipati and Ravi Bhamidipati.
“Creating a truly engaged workforce has been one of the biggest challenges faced by companies across the world. Most performance products focus on company processes, but organisations fail to recognise that every employee has a unique behaviour. Worxogo’s AI coach Mia (a mobile application) is a pathbreaking product that applies the power of nudge, and neuroscience to coach every employee and the organisation,” said Naganand Doraswamy of Ideaspring Capital.
Until the new investments, the company was bootstrapped.
Product concept
“Companies suffer when employees do not perform up to their potential. Not every employee in the sales or any other team receives daily mentoring or coaching from the manager. Mia fills this gap and helps businesses and employees achieve their goals,” said Ramesh Srinivas, CEO and CoFounder, Worxogo.
According to the start-up, the cognitive AI coach helps improve an employee's performance using principles of behavioural science, neuroscience and predictive analytics to motivate them to achieve their maximum potential. “We are not looking at replacing employees but how to help people perform better,” Srinivas said.
Using proprietary algorithms and predictive analytics, Mia analyses what sales outcomes could each salesperson achieve and finally, coaches them in respect of their key performance indicators by sending visual and cognitive nudges to drive action.
The company claims that Mia is a unique AI engine that does not only focus on giving more information, analytics and trends to managers or salespersons. “Our clients witness a significant impact on sales within three months, including 25 per cent sales increase and increased productivity by up to two times,” the CEO said.
Opportunities
According to the co-founder, the market for such products is growing at a rate of 15 per cent year-on-year and its potential size is upwards of $3 billion.
The company claims it has no competition. “No other product or company is addressing this space from the perspective of behavioural science, neuroeconomics and predictive analytics... Worxogo is unique in this space,” Srinivas said. “Our plan is to grow organically and through a partnership model where we tie-up with other service providers.”
The company currently has 35 deployments across five countries — India, the
US, Singapore, Malaysia, and Sri Lanka. Mia coaches over 100,000 users every day.
Some of the company’s clients include Titan, ICICI Bank, Tanishq, Piramal, PwC, L&T, TVS Motors and Sutherland Global Services.
Its target customers are enterprises with a large, distributed workforce.
Revenue model
Wroxogo, a B2B SaaS company, sources its revenues from software licenses on a per user per month basis.
With the new investments coming in, the company aims to break-even in the next 18 months. It also plans to have 100 customers in the same period.
Challenges
The biggest challenge the start-up is finding early adopters in an enterprise set-up. “While the concept excites organisations, adopting it is always challenging. As clients see the value and hard business impact, they expand the scope of work across teams and functions. Our approach to pilot the applications for a short period before a long-term commitment has worked very well for us, and we have a conversion rate of over 90 per cent,” the co-founder added.