Introduction

Findings

some of the key players

Force24

• Founded in 2010, Force24 is a Yorkshire, Leeds-based B2B company that provides marketing automation and related services.
•  Directors Adam Oldfield and Nick Washbourne represent the merging of the two worlds of data and marketing agency that create marketing automation.
• The company has raised total funding of £250K over one round on March 19, 2019.
• This was a debt financing round.
• The company is funded by NPIF–Mercia Debt Finance.
• Force24 has an estimated $1 million annual revenue.

Communigator

• Founded in 2005 and based out of Guildford, Surrey, Communigator has successfully moved upstream and repositioned itself as a marketing automation platform from an ESP (email services provider).
• The company has raised total funding of £8.2 million over one round on July 4, 2018.
• This was a private equity round.
• The company has an estimated $8.5 million annual revenue.

datasine

• Founded in 2015 in London, DataSine is an AI-enabled marketing technology startup. The company enables its customers to personalize their marketing communication in a scalable manner.
• DataSine employs ML or machine learning to gain a better understanding of the customers. The company thereby helps in delivering ad content that is much more targeted.
• The clients of this company include BNP Paribas, Hello bank! Belgium, and Tinkoff Bank.
• The company had secured £4 million in series A funding in February 2019.

How the market is changing

• According to PwC, 30% of jobs in the United Kingdom and 35% of jobs in Germany are automatable by the early 2030s.
• According to McKinsey, in Europe, nearly 54 million FTEs and over $1.7 trillion in wages are associated with automatable jobs in the five biggest economies namely, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom.
• On a global front, another PwC survey reported that 37% of workers are afraid of losing their jobs due to automation.
• The major factors driving the growth of workplace automation are the advancement in AI or artificial intelligence and robotics.
• According to the latest report released by the International Federation of Robotics, the average robot density in the manufacturing industries around the world is 74 units per 10,000 employees.
• With 71 units per 10,000 employees, the average robot density of United Kingdom is below the world average and ranks 22nd globally.
• With 309 units per 10,0000 employees, Germany is the most automated country in Europe and ranks third globally.
• France has an average robot density of 132 units and ranks 18th globally.
• EU member countries such as Sweden (223 units), Denmark (211 units), Italy (185 units) and Spain (160 units) possess a higher degree of automation as compared to France because their manufacturing sectors use industrial robots.
• By regions, Europe has the highest average robot density of 99 units followed by the Americas with 84 units and Asia, 63 units.

If competitors would find it easy to enter the space

• Workplace automation can be employed in various areas such as software testing, software deployments, data analysis, creating data backups, marketing automation, onboarding new employees, leave log management, live chat widgets, etc.
• It can be gauged from the above statement that the workplace automation space is highly diversified and would require specialized technology such as AI, and ML in addition to process know-how.
• According to an analysis done by the Marketing AI Institute using Crunchbase data, the range of funding for the top 10 highest funded AI-powered sales and marketing companies ranged from between $78.7 million to $251.2 million in 2018. Most of these companies were providers of sales and marketing automation tools.
• Therefore, it can be inferred from the above findings that entering the workplace automation market will not be easy for competitors without specialized technology, process know-how and a funding in the range of $78.7 million to $251.2 million.

Research strategy

Company overview

• Deployed.co gained existence on Oct 1, 2017. The company is currently innovating the workplace automation vertical and is trying to provide more accessible, tech-backed automation for the process of selling and buying of repeatable people-based services. The company is in its post beta testing phase; the product was launched in the market in April 2019. 
• It is a privately held startup, with two major investors, including Female Founders Programme and FFWD London.
•  Emma Rees and Jamie Gannaway jointly founded the company, and they currently serve as the CEO and Director of the tech startup.

Product overview

• Its product is centered around automating two crucial business processes, which include practical and efficient management of external workforce and simplified engagement between service providers and their clients.
• The product has completed its beta testing process and is currently under development. It is being developed with "a range of greenfield micro products." 
• The company has collaborated with Microsoft; most of the development stage for the product is being conducted on Asp.Net and Azure.  
• "The front-end for the company's greenfield micro products is currently being run on server-side Asp.Net Razor."
• The product aims at providing automated statements of work for corporate companies. Statement of work refers to a "contract between a consultancy firm and the company buying the service." In simpler terms, it is a document which contains details about the project deliverables, the timeline, project-specific descriptions, and several other important project management specifications.
• This process currently does not include any technology automation. However, the Deployed product will introduce workplace automation for statements of work.
• The product has a significant advantage over other similar products in the industry. The benefit is centered around the unique blueprint created by the company, which considers both the historical and the current statements of work. 

Business model

• Deployed is a business-to-business (B2B) enterprise working as a cloud-based service provider for the specially targeted audience in the SMEs, corporates, and the public sector.

• The business model of the company is structured effectively to provide data-led automation services to the project management companies that send and receive statements of work on a daily basis. With this business model, the company aims to generate multiple projects within a client company, which are likely to generate more revenue than its competitors.
• The company is providing automation services for a very crucial component of the project management sector: the industry seconds that need to have an automated tool for statements of work, rather than manually copy-pasted statements involving an externally paid workforce.
• Deployed achieved client savings amounting to 11-16% per project, which is an impressive figure for a developing startup.

Funding and Grants

• Deployed has received two grants from the UK government; the first grant was given for the innovative research and the design potential showcased by the startup, the other one was awarded for emerging and enabling technologies in the industry. The company has been using these grants for the development of its product and for building a user-friendly platform with high-end cloud-based technology.
• The company has won two Innovate UK grants, one in February 2018 and other in November 2018.
• The company has undergone two accelerated funding rounds. Deployed completed its first seed funding round in December 2018 and it was oversubscribed at the time of closing.