Artefact helping bridge digital divide that developed during the pandemic

As big data and artificial intelligence have thrived in recent years, companies providing data-related services have sprung up worldwide.

Among them is France-based Artefact, which was founded eight years ago. It is a new kind of consulting enterprise, offering end-to-end data services and digital transformation solutions.

Edouard de Mezerac, Asia-Pacific CEO of Artefact, said while most multinationals may not be digital or data "native", they need to quickly transform to keep on winning and remain competitive.

Clients usually ask Artefact to define and support their data strategy and increase their marketing and promotion efficiency, he added.

The company helps them to intelligently use consumer data, complying with Chinese laws and regulations on personal data and internet information service algorithms, to target the right consumers with the right content at the right time.

Mezerac said: "Artefact has the ability to both 'frame' and 'implement' digital transformation as it boasts a good combination of professionals — data consultants, consumer data experts, data scientists, data engineers and creatives."

He started using AI techniques in 2015 and since then, the possibilities offered by AI have exponentially increased, although he believes they are still in their infancy.

A surprise this year is the speed at which content-generating AI has developed, with ChatGPT, an AI chatbot, and others winning worldwide attention. Open AI recently released GPT-4, which is able to process eight times more words for each prompt compared to GPT-3.

Businesses should embed such technology in their daily tasks and customize some applications to fit their business needs, Mezerac suggested.

For the supply chain of a retailer, Artefact has built a machine-learning model that predicts sales volumes by product and by store eight weeks in advance. It has proved itself with a 10 basis points higher accuracy than human prediction, allowing it to maintain stock supplies and avoid shortages.

For a company with a large sales force, it has embedded a recommendation engine of the "best next action" in WeCom, Tencent's enterprise communication platform, to help sales teams prioritize their time and convert more potential consumers to real consumers.

Artefact closely collaborates with tech ecosystems in China. It co-hosted an event with Tencent on WeCom: Customer Engagement, explaining the opportunities Artefact offers to digitalize and optimize the application's sales function, both for business-to-consumer and business-to business companies in Shanghai on March 23.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, its business in China grew 40 percent per year. Globally, as well as in China, it aims to triple its size over the next four years.

Post-COVID China is more digital and data-driven, and therefore is more challenging, said Mezerac. He added that business prospect in China is still strong but the engine required to win is different.

Few boards nor executive committees have visited China in the past three years, he said, adding it is urgent to bridge a widening gap in the understanding of China and its business context in those multinationals' headquarters.

Regarding data and tech, Artefact is helping more clients in China explain to their headquarters what is happening, what should be localized (mostly consumer-related data applications) and what should use group solutions involving data governance and data architecture frameworks.

The company has 150 employees in China and more than 1,200 worldwide. For Chinese companies that plan to expand abroad, it can connect them with the Western digital and tech ecosystems, thanks to its global network of teams in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, the Americas, Europe and Africa.

songmengxing@chinadaily.com.cn