Speechmatics attend virtual workshop as part of the ING Labs Brussels 2020 cohort

Earlier this month, Speechmatics announced that we had secured a place in the ING Labs Brussels 2020 cohort to demonstrate the value of innovating with voice.

Speechmatics were one of seven companies selected to support the development of new services and a Proof of Concept (PoC).

This was a great reflection of the team’s hard work and the broad applicability of our speech recognition technology. CEO, John Milliken commented:

“Speechmatics’ selection to this program is a validation of our world-class technology and teams that are enabling global businesses to innovate with voice.”

Pieter Goderis from ING’s Center of Expertise Artificial Intelligence and sponsor of Speechmatics within ING Labs Brussels said:

“ING is expanding virtual assistants not only in its chat and messaging channels but also towards voice channels. The partnership with Speechmatics will help us accelerate our journey to become a data-driven bank.”

After the announcement, ING invited us, along with the other cohort companies, to attend a 2-day virtual workshop.

The workshop is the next step in the ING Labs Brussels 2020 process. I attended with Senior Sales Executive, Tom Rimmer and had a great time collaborating with some of the other companies, speaking about the partnership with ING and the importance of working together.

Key takeaways from the ING virtual workshop

As a Product Marketing Manager there are three key pieces of information that are critical to gaining a deep understand of your business:

1. Knowing your market

2. Knowing your customer

3. Knowing your product

With these three elements you can understand your product’s value and communicate how it delivers value to your target market by solving key pain points. Additionally, with this knowledge, a product-market fit can be achieved. A product-market fit enables customers to leverage solutions that deliver on their business needs while providing value to their customers.

Speechmatics was selected as one of seven companies from over 350 on the shortlist. We were successful in demonstrating the value of innovating with voice and powering applications that require mission-critical, accurate speech recognition. While the event was conducted virtually due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, being part of the ING cohort enabled Speechmatics and ING to work in partnership like never before.

The event provided the opportunity to share in-depth information. We were able to dive into some unique requirements to address key challenges within the financial sector (the market), to understand and develop use cases across the ING organization (the customer) and to articulate how accurate speech recognition can enable ING to innovate with voice (the product).

The process: next steps

It was a really insightful workshop and I’m looking forward to the next phase of the partnership. Following an extensive RFI process, this will involve developing PoC plans to be presented in June.

Alex Fleming, Speechmatics