Abstract:
A system for automatically automatic workflow triggering using real-time analytics, comprising an analytics server that receives and analyzes interaction information and a workflow server that produces workflow events based on the analysis, sends workflow events to handlers for processing, retrieves workflow-related data, and produces workflow reports for review, and a method for automatically automatic workflow triggering using real-time analytics.

Description:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS 
       [0001]    The present application is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/193,055, titled “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR INTELLIGENT SALES MANAGEMENT”, filed on Jun. 25, 2016, which claims the benefit of and priority to U.S. provisional application Ser. No. 62/304,926 titled “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR INTELLIGENT SALES ENGAGEMENT” filed on Mar. 7, 2016, the entire specification of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. 
     
    
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     Discussion of the State of the Art 
       [0002]    Business-to-Business (B2B) selling has a long history spanning over half a century. The 1960&#39;s were dominated by in-person sales pitches, the 1990&#39;s and the growth of the internet saw the introduction of email selling and, in the late 1990s, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems were deployed. The first decade of the 21 st  century has witnessed the rise of social networks and social media being used as a new channel to generate leads. 
       The Purchase Funnel 
       [0003]    The concept of managing a sales process through a set of pre-defined sales funnel or pipeline states dates back to the late 1800&#39;s. In both of these tools, customers are envisioned to enter the funnel possibly with little or no knowledge of the product and progress through stages such as but not limited to deciding whether the product loosely fits into their business needs, gaining more specifics about the product, deciding to purchase the product in principle, negotiating price, and committing to a quote and purchasing the product, among multiple other steps familiar to those skilled in the art. Certain percentages of potential customers are lost at each stage of the progression which is the root of the funnel like visualization and customers, naturally may be treated quite differently at each stage of the process as potential customers with only mild interest in the product drop out and the probability of a sale then increases. 
         [0004]    Recently, B2B companies have routinely used software and basic analytics to manage the sales pipeline, practicing management-by-exception for prospects that fall outside the bands of expected sales stage durations. 
         [0005]    However today, as customers become more empowered with on-line knowledge and as sellers become more empowered with vast amounts of data about prospects the process is no longer linear. Prospects can enter a funnel at almost any stage and can remain in a stage for long periods of time or jump backward and forward between stages. In both B2B and B2C businesses, customers are doing their own research both online and with their colleagues and friends. Prospects are essentially navigating themselves through the funnel. 
       The Customer Decision Journey 
       [0006]    In an attempt to account for this nonlinear nature of the sales process, an alternative to the linear funnel is the Customer Decision Journey popularized by McKinsey. In this model the journey is circular and prospects move through an ongoing set of touch points before, during, and after a purchase. 
         [0007]    The circular Customer Decision Journey is an improvement over the traditional funnel, but it is incomplete for several reasons. One reason is that the state change target from the customer point of view is the experience and not the purchase. The focus is still on the transaction but the goal differs between customer and sale representative. So the Customer Decision Journey is essentially only a circular funnel. 
       The Customer Engagement Journey 
       [0008]    In an attempt to shift the focus from the transaction to the relationship the circular model has more recently been replaced by the Customer Engagement Journey. In this engagement-focused model, transactions occur in the context of the relationship rather than relationships in the context of the transaction. The focus is more on engagement than decision. This can be taken even a step further by considering a User Experience Journey in which opportunities for transactions are strategically inserted. 
       Need for a New Platform 
       [0009]    The Customer Decision Journey, the funnel and other “topologies” described above are widely used today and work satisfactorily in specific cases. However software vendors provide platforms that can handle only certain types of flows and require significant amounts of human design upfront each time they are implemented. These characteristics make them rigid and difficult to adapt to new behavioral patterns and experiences that are rapidly emerging through new means of engagement and transaction on the internet via mobile devices and social networks. As customers become more empowered with on-line knowledge and sellers become more empowered with vast amounts of data a new kind of platform is required to manage the complexity of the sales processes in a more automated way that requires less individualized, up-front human planning and configuration and can dynamically evolve automatically in a way that may be matched by human redesign of programming written for one specialized set of parameters hastily then being retooled for another. 
       SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
       [0010]    The current invention is a platform that embodies recent advances in machine learning and optimization technology to automatically learn, evolve and optimize journeys of arbitrary topology within reduced human input. The platform can be pre-configured with predefined topology flows such as pipelines, funnels, decision circles, engagement journeys or other topologies decided in advance by a human. But the system can also learn a topology flow from data or evolve an existing flow to a better one. It can, if permitted, dynamically evolve over time. It is left to the human only to define what a better outcome actually is, and to define the constraining experiences, the evolution and the resources to be consumed. 
         [0011]    The three core components of the invention are (i) a flexible mathematical graph software module for accumulating real world events and representing them as transitions that occur between states and manipulating the graphs, (ii) a machine learning module for building predictive models for the transitions between states on the graph, finding anomalies and simplifying the graph, and (iii) an optimization framework for generating decisions and real world actions that increase the value of the overall business objective to be maximized by the platform given a set of business, experiential or financial constraints 
         [0012]    Of specific importance is that the platform disclosed can self learn and then derive a sales process that strikes an optimal balance between focus on experience, engagement and transaction. 
         [0013]    According to a preferred embodiment of the invention, a system for intelligent sales engagement, comprising: a pre-integrated graph module comprising at least a plurality of programming instructions stored in a memory and operating on a processor of a network-connected computing device, a machine learning module comprising at least a plurality of programming instructions stored in a memory and operating on a processor of a network-connected computing device and an optimization module comprising at least a plurality of programming instructions stored in a memory and operating on a processor of a network-connected computing device. The pre-integrated graph module: monitors and captures events from source systems and constructs an event graph of multichannel interactions and attributes including firm demographics and sales rep attributes, automatically reduces the graph to the significant state transitions, effectively reverse engineering the sales process from available actual event data, runs in an adaptive mode where reducing the graph happens periodically or continuously, and supports different pre-defined topologies of funnel, decision circle and engagement journey. The machine learning module: trains a family of predictive machine-learning models (e.g. Distributed Random Forest, Deep Learning) for any transition of interest (or for all transitions) of the reduced graph and performs validation of the accuracy (AUC) of each predictive machine learning model, chooses different model types for different transitions based on model with highest accuracy, model then estimates the conditional probability of the transition from the starting to ending state potentially including all known input attributes at the starting state, accepts variable numbers of input attributes of different types on each state transitions, runs with either full state history with attributes, Markov approximation or hidden Markov model or a hybrid mode; and supports a hidden Markov model to represent the hidden “intent” state of the contact or lead. The optimization module: creates a set of visualizations showing the various resulting performance metrics including conversion rate, representative utilization percent, and total value in the pipeline, uses the trained predictive models as input to an automated optimization phase which recommends specific actions (interactions) to take to optimize the business outcome of prospects flowing through the reduced graph subject to constraints, supports optimization under uncertainty; schedules interactions between agents and prospects to maximize an objective, and configures, in addition to existing model optimization, optimization experiments that are executed and is then able to run experiments, analyze the results and self-learn giving rise to increased utility. 
         [0014]    According to another embodiment of the invention, the expected sales process may be entered as input to guide graph reduction and/or highlight deviations from expected flows. Wherein the graph may also represent B2B flows and B2C flows. The machine learning module may learn or reverse engineer a process based on historical data. The machine learning module may account for the multi-dimensional nature of social influence, and the role of advocates who aren&#39;t customers. The machine learning module may shift to ongoing relationships beyond individual transactions. The machine learning module runs in an adaptive mode where retraining happens periodically or continuously The optimization module can use the trained predictive models can be used to support a “what-if” user interface for human users to understand the effect of change of attributes or graph structure. 
         [0015]    According to another preferred embodiment of the invention, a method for intelligent sales engagement, the method comprising the steps of: (a) monitoring and extracting sets of customer relationship sales data from source systems into a pre-integrated graph module comprising at least a plurality of programming instructions stored in a memory and operating on a processor of a network-connected computing device. (b) constructing an event driven relational graph of multichannel interactions and attributes including firm demographics and sales representative attributes using the pre-integrated graph module. (c) reducing the graph to the significant state transition occurrences, effectively reverse engineering the sales process from available actual event data expressing the resultant graph in one of a plurality of pre-defined topologies such as: funnel, decision circle and engagement journey using the pre-integrated graph module. (d) training a family of predictive machine-learning models, such as Distributed Random Forest, Deep Learning for any transition of interest (or for all transitions) of the reduced graph and performs validation of the accuracy (AUC) of each predictive machine learning model using a machine learning module comprising at least a plurality of programming instructions stored in a memory and operating on a processor of a network-connected computing device. (e) choosing different model types using the machine learning module for different transitions based on model with highest accuracy, chosen model then estimates conditional probability of the transition from the starting to ending state potentially including all known input attributes at the starting state. (f) running either full state history with attributes, Markov approximation or hidden Markov model or a hybrid mode using the machine learning module. (g) creating a set of visualizations showing the various resulting performance metrics including conversion rate, rep utilization %, and total value in the pipeline using the optimization module. (h) using the trained predictive models as input to an automated optimization phase which recommends specific actions (interactions) to take to optimize the business outcome of prospects flowing through the reduced graph subject to constraints using the optimization module. 
     
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING FIGURES 
         [0016]      FIG. 1  is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary platform architecture used in an embodiment of the invention. 
           [0017]      FIG. 2  is a flowchart illustrating an exemplary business to business (B2B) optimization process according to an embodiment of the invention. 
           [0018]      FIG. 3  is a diagram illustrating an exemplary graph of state transitions, according to an embodiment of the invention. 
           [0019]      FIG. 4  is diagram showing an exemplary of simple conditional transition probability between two states, A and B, according to an embodiment of the invention. 
           [0020]      FIG. 5  is flow diagram illustrating virtual transition probability between states A and B according to an embodiment of the invention. 
           [0021]      FIG. 6  is a block diagram of an exemplary state model for contact and opportunity, according to a preferred embodiment of the invention. 
           [0022]      FIG. 7  is a flow diagram of exemplary opportunity state changes according to an embodiment of the invention. 
           [0023]      FIG. 8  is a flow diagram of opportunity state changes according to an embodiment of the invention. 
           [0024]      FIG. 9  is a flow diagram of exemplary contact state changes according to an embodiment of the invention. 
           [0025]      FIG. 10  is a flow diagram of a second aspect of contact state changes according to an embodiment of the invention. 
           [0026]      FIG. 11  is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary hardware architecture of a computing device used in an embodiment of the invention. 
           [0027]      FIG. 12  is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary logical architecture for a client device, according to an embodiment of the invention. 
           [0028]      FIG. 13  is a block diagram showing an exemplary architectural arrangement of clients, servers, and external services, according to an embodiment of the invention. 
           [0029]      FIG. 14  is another block diagram illustrating an exemplary hardware architecture of a computing device used in various embodiments of the invention. 
       
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
       [0030]    One or more different inventions may be described in the present application. Further, for one or more of the inventions described herein, numerous alternative embodiments may be described; it should be appreciated that these are presented for illustrative purposes only and are not limiting of the inventions contained herein or the claims presented herein in any way. One or more of the inventions may be widely applicable to numerous embodiments, as may be readily apparent from the disclosure. In general, embodiments are described in sufficient detail to enable those skilled in the art to practice one or more of the inventions, and it should be appreciated that other embodiments may be utilized and that structural, logical, software, electrical and other changes may be made without departing from the scope of the particular inventions. Accordingly, one skilled in the art will recognize that one or more of the inventions may be practiced with various modifications and alterations. Particular features of one or more of the inventions described herein may be described with reference to one or more particular embodiments or figures that form a part of the present disclosure, and in which are shown, by way of illustration, specific embodiments of one or more of the inventions. It should be appreciated, however, that such features are not limited to usage in the one or more particular embodiments or figures with reference to which they are described. The present disclosure is neither a literal description of all embodiments of one or more of the inventions nor a listing of features of one or more of the inventions that must be present in all embodiments. 
         [0031]    Headings of sections provided in this patent application and the title of this patent application are for convenience only, and are not to be taken as limiting the disclosure in any way. 
         [0032]    Devices that are in communication with each other need not be in continuous communication with each other, unless expressly specified otherwise. In addition, devices that are in communication with each other may communicate directly or indirectly through one or more communication means or intermediaries, logical or physical. 
         [0033]    A description of an embodiment with several components in communication with each other does not imply that all such components are required. To the contrary, a variety of optional components may be described to illustrate a wide variety of possible embodiments of one or more of the inventions and in order to more fully illustrate one or more aspects of the inventions. Similarly, although process steps, method steps, algorithms or the like may be described in a sequential order, such processes, methods and algorithms may generally be configured to work in alternate orders, unless specifically stated to the contrary. In other words, any sequence or order of steps that may be described in this patent application does not, in and of itself, indicate a requirement that the steps be performed in that order. The steps of described processes may be performed in any order practical. Further, some steps may be performed simultaneously despite being described or implied as occurring non-simultaneously (e.g., because one step is described after the other step). Moreover, the illustration of a process by its depiction in a drawing does not imply that the illustrated process is exclusive of other variations and modifications thereto, does not imply that the illustrated process or any of its steps are necessary to one or more of the invention(s), and does not imply that the illustrated process is preferred. Also, steps are generally described once per embodiment, but this does not mean they must occur once, or that they may only occur once each time a process, method, or algorithm is carried out or executed. Some steps may be omitted in some embodiments or some occurrences, or some steps may be executed more than once in a given embodiment or occurrence. 
         [0034]    When a single device or article is described herein, it will be readily apparent that more than one device or article may be used in place of a single device or article. Similarly, where more than one device or article is described herein, it will be readily apparent that a single device or article may be used in place of the more than one device or article. 
         [0035]    The functionality or the features of a device may be alternatively embodied by one or more other devices that are not explicitly described as having such functionality or features. Thus, other embodiments of one or more of the inventions need not include the device itself. 
         [0036]    Techniques and mechanisms described or referenced herein will sometimes be described in singular form for clarity. However, it should be appreciated that particular embodiments may include multiple iterations of a technique or multiple instantiations of a mechanism unless noted otherwise. Process descriptions or blocks in figures should be understood as representing modules, segments, or portions of code which include one or more executable instructions for implementing specific logical functions or steps in the process. Alternate implementations are included within the scope of embodiments of the present invention in which, for example, functions may be executed out of order from that shown or discussed, including substantially concurrently or in reverse order, depending on the functionality involved, as would be understood by those having ordinary skill in the art. 
       Conceptual Architecture 
       [0037]      FIG. 1  is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary platform architecture used in an embodiment of the invention  100 . Some data may be received by the platform  110  from a variety of real-world sources such as, but not limited to a customer relationship manager as time-stamped events  130 . Other data is not event-like, consisting of descriptive attributes. One feed of data comes from transcripts of voice telephony and multi-channel communications infrastructure such as a contact center  131 . Other data comes from external platforms that serve as a data repository for known information regarding contacts, leads, opportunities and accounts 130. Other data sources provide information about a sale prospects such as firmographic data (in the B2B case) or demographic data (in the B2C case)  132 . All data entering the platform from other sources  120 , enter a formalization module  101  to remove incomplete or nonsensical data and to format the incoming data such that it may be reliably added to the existing graphical representation. 
         [0038]    The graph module  102  takes each event and adds it as a new edge on a directed graph corresponding to a transition between 2 states represented by the event. The additional available data attributes are attached as attributes to either the new edges or to vertices in the graph. The raw event graph (constructed from these raw events) can be large and but be persisted to permanent disk storage  103  if necessary. 
         [0039]    The graph module  102  is also responsible for reducing or simplifying the raw event graph to a level that is appropriate for representing significant states and transitions of interest. While continuous reduction saves space and computational overhead, reducing the graph periodically may add endpoint accuracy and speed up the overall operation. By significant we mean states or transitions that capture an important experience, interaction or transaction that is part of the optimization objective or constraint. Two modes are supported. One in which the system statistically determines which experiences, interactions or transactions are present and therefore to be used in subsequent calculations using supervised machine learning (details provided later). The other approach is for a human administrator to provide an “Assumed Sales Process Graph”  108 , which defines what is currently believed to be the important states and transitions of interest (and therefore the corresponding experiences, interactions, transactions and value contributions). These constraints may, at the analyst&#39;s request, use machine pre-defined programming attempt to fit the data to graph topologies for funnel model customer sales, where many customers may enter at the “top,” some will exit at each transaction stage of the process, each of which may require some stage specific action on the part of the seller or the buyer and a number will complete the process by purchasing the product; pipeline where the transaction process is modelled as a plurality of stages which the customer passes through and at which a customer may exit prior to the sale, on the way to the sale with certain actions again, possibly attached to specific stages; the decision circle model, much like the funnel only more focused on buyer relationship experiences as stage demarcation than sales related transactions and the engagement journey model graph which is constructed much the same as the funnel model graph but has the customer focused on relationship experience while the salesperson is focused directly on the sales transaction resulting in specific parameters that must be fit differently than either the funnel or decision circle model. 
         [0040]    The machine learning module  105  uses the historical data in the reduced graph to build predictive models of the conditional probability of transition between these states of interest. Baselines are originally acquired by running a plurality sales processes for which the intermediate stages and interactions within them are well defined. This is continued until the analyst determines that the machine is correctly predicting the interactions that should occur in test sales processes correctly, possibly through the use of additional training cases. The system may then be run such that it draws solely upon the training data to predictively analyze new sales cases and predictively suggest the best actions to be taken a specific a stage or multiple stages in an ongoing sale. Changes to the machine predictions will only occur upon the manual addition of further training cases. The system may also be run in an adaptive mode where after predictions are made, the system continues to monitor the status and progression of sales introduced to it. Unexpected the data from results, either negative or positive in a case tracked in this way will be incorporated automatically into the module&#39;s range of data for subsequent use when other parameters indicate case similarity. Adaptive mode may also be further modified such that it only re-visits case with specific entering parameters. As a simplified example, one customer company may be considered the standard in sales process and thus only cases pertaining to that one company are re-inspected and possibly details incorporated creating a much more periodic training schedule. This is, of course an extremely simplified example, the system is designed to accept one or parameters from the set known as useful to those skilled in the art. Once trained, the system, using the analyzed data may create a sales process when given just the data that resulted from it. 
         [0041]    Module  106  is the optimizer, which takes as input (i) a list of decision variables the optimizer is allowed to manipulate, (ii) an objective function definition to be optimized by changing the decision variables and (iii) a list of constraints (rules) that must not be violated by the output from the optimizer. The optimizer than uses these inputs to form predictive interaction recommendations designed to optimize the sales process arising from them. It should be noted that Optimization problems of this scale may not be solved by traditional linear solver engines, so, optionally, a solver based on Approximate Dynamic Programming (ADP) is used by some embodiments. 
         [0042]    The outputs  107  include the values of the decision variables chosen by the optimizer  106 , together with various performance metrics calculated by the analyzer  104   
         [0043]      FIG. 2  is a flowchart illustrating an exemplary business to business (B2B) sales optimization process according to an embodiment of the invention  200 . B2B sales related data may be retrieved from a plurality of external sources such as a company&#39;s CRM, the sales employee personality records in HR, notes made about individuals who are prospective customers during meetings, transcripts made from phone conversations with individuals of interest, records of previous sales and public prospect financial disclosures among a great number other sources not listed here but know to those skilled in the field which the invention may also process  201 . As the full spectrum of data retrieved comes from a wide set of divergent sources, it may be expected that such data may require formalization to remove un-usable records and normalize data format to a point usefulness in subsequent steps in the optimization process  202 . In the example embodiment, the formalized data is plotted graphically with the parties present in the B2B sales process under study forming the vertices of the graph and the relationships between them forming edges  203 . One of two pathways can be followed depending on whether the current dataset is highly analyzed control data meant to train the system and form a baseline for the novel data to be analyzed. The steps performed are at first quite similar graph preparation and only differ in what is ultimately done with the graphed data  204 . In the case of control data  205  the entire baseline graph which is very large and complex may be reduced in complexity (see  FIGS. 10 and 11 ,  FIGS. 12 and 13 ). The resulting graph may then be optimized to remove vestiges of the reduction process  206  and that resulting graph may be used to teach the machine learning module to recognize important stage markers in successful and unsuccessful sales processes  207 . The resulting baseline control graph may then be persistently stored  211 . In the case of an experimental data graph which has been submitted for analysis of contained sales process progress, again the complex graph of the full experimental dataset is reduced  208  and the graph optimized  209 . The optimized, reduced experimental graph is then subjected to system analysis  210  and the results of analysis both presented to the analyst  212  and persistently stored for later use  211 . 
         [0044]      FIG. 3  is a diagram illustrating an exemplary graph of state transitions, according to an embodiment of the invention  300 . Vertices represent communities, labelled groups in standardized stages of the B2B sales process placed on the graph by the embodiment which may include stages such as, but not limited to: “inactive”  301 , assignment  302 , “Known”  320  where contact information has been exchanged but not much else about the contact is known, “opportunity”  303 , where subsequent contact has been made and at least some interest on the part of the contact is expressed, “lost”  321 , where subsequent contact generated no interest, “Opp-Discovery”  313  which represents a status similar to “opportunity,” “Opp-active dialog  317 ” and “Opp-meeting  316 ” are again very close in meaning, “Opp-Qualification”  314  is an umbrella for  324  “marketing qualified lead and  323  “sales accepted lead” although SAL  323  requires more foreknowledge of the customer  305 , “Opp-proposal”  306  signifies that dialog has progressed to the point where the possible customer wants a sales plan and quote put together for their evaluation  311  with the last steps being “Opp-negotiation”  308  and then, eventually “Opp-Closed Won”  310  if a sale was made or “Opp-Lost”  312  if the opportunity soured and the sale was lost. “Qual-Out”  319  failure of the customer to qualify, perhaps due to finances, perhaps due to geographical location, may also occur as does “Recycle”  322 , signifying a temporary cessation of the sales process with a known pick up timeline set. The edge weights  304 ,  307 ,  309 ,  315 ,  318  are based on transition probability and/or value. The filters are on edge weights, counts, % or % of log(count). It is possible that different cases may progress differently through the pre-defined stages with some progressing through more and others progressing through less. The invention is designed to accept case determined numbers of input attributes of different types on each state transition. The graph shows attributes on edges or vertices. 
         [0045]      FIG. 4  is diagram showing an exemplary of simple conditional transition probability between two states  400 , A  401  and B  403 , according to an embodiment of the invention. The simple case of a transition between two states where there is only one possible path is shown. A supervised machine learning model can be trained using historical examples of this transition that include the N attributes x 1 , x 2 , . . . , xN known on input at state A  404 . Cases that arrived at B  403  are labeled success. The machine learning model can then be used to compute the probability of an entity in state A  401  transitioning to state B  403  for various values of x 1 , . . . , xN  404  with that probability represented P(B|A,X)  402 . 
         [0046]      FIG. 5  is flow diagram illustrating virtual transition probability  500  between states A  501  and B  507  according to an embodiment of the invention. A more typical case is shown. Where there are many possible pathways between A  501  and B  507 . Note that the direct transition A  501  to B  507  may not occur in the historical data. Nevertheless, by taking all historical data cases that started at A  501  and labeling those cases as successful that completed in B  507  then we can again train a supervised machine learning model to compute the transition conditional probability P ALL  from A to B given the known parameters X at A. But of course P ALL (B|A,X)  520  says nothing about how the cases that did not make it to B are distributed across states (A  501 , C  503 , D  505  and E  509 ). The probabilities of transition between each of the alternate pathways are expressed in equations  502 ,  504 ,  506 ,  508 ,  515  and are once again based on the value of X progressive over N states  511 . In the case where the X are the same on all states then this reduces to a Markov Chain. 
         [0047]      FIG. 6  is a block diagram of an exemplary state model for contact and opportunity, according to a preferred embodiment of the invention  600 . As an example of one of many possible applications of the platform we focus in this section on a B2B use case of customer interactions in the pre-pipeline. By interactions we mean here information exchange events such as a human-to-human phone call, an email, text message, customer initiated product investigation, customer use of social media contacts to explore both the product and the manufacturer&#39;s performance, etc. In this “pre-pipeline” case we wish to optimize the interactions that take place between a selling agent and an individual prior to the first human face-to-face meeting in the sales process. The post-human-meeting sales pipeline is well understood and there is considerable prior art in this area. 
         [0048]    Here we start with the onset of customer/sales contact where the customer is known  602  in that some amount of contact information but nothing else has transpired  601 . The known contact may then become a marketing qualified lead  603 , so may be further contacted  613 . After some initial phone conversations where the contact may express interest in the solution being sold  605  the new customer may be designated as sales accepted (SAL)  604 . If something goes wrong, for example the customer may not express interest in the product the contact may be removed from the sales process completely  612  or may be recycled if the product is, for example, a PBX phone system and the contact currently has 2 employees but is expanding quickly  611 . After one or more further phone interactions where positive progress is made towards a sale, the relationship may be designated an opportunity  606 ,  607 . It is at this time that the contact may be assigned  608  to an opportunity object  620  until the opportunity is either won  609 , a sale is made, or lost, the contact moves on  610 . For tracking purposes, the possible customer is assigned, in turn, to progressive, labeled, trackable stages: Active dialog  621 , Meeting  622 , Qualified  623 , Discovery  624 , Evaluation  625 , Proposal  626 , Negotiation  627 , and Won  628 . These stages are part of the pipeline that is officially tracked. 
         [0049]    Good “pre-pipeline” management requires a deeper linkage between more traditionally separate sales and marketing responsibilities. Providing the correct information in an appealing manner on the company&#39;s web site, tracking independent reviews and buyer criticisms and attempting to resolve the issues, confirming service after the sale interactions are positive and fruitful are all important factors towards building social media community advocates in the internet age. Those just listed in addition to other marketing and sales factors known to influence sales success by those skilled in the art. The platform is designed to capture and incorporate the influence of all of these internet related marketing factors as pre-pipeline stage data in predictive analysis of a sales case during optimization of the graph. In essence the platform represents the application of the next generation of sales operations techniques in the of domain sales development. 
         [0050]      FIG. 7  is a graph diagram of exemplary opportunity state changes according to an embodiment of the invention  700 . Good “pre-pipeline” management really requires a deeper linkage between more traditionally separate sales and marketing responsibilities. In essence the platform represents the application of the next generation of sales operations techniques in the of domain sales development. Shown is a transition graph generated by an embodiment of the invention as shown previously, pre-pipeline groups, under standardized labels become the vertices of a graph. Those standardized labels include, non-exhaustively Active dialog  701 , Meeting  702 , Qualification  703 , Discovery  704 , Evaluation  705 , Proposal  706 , Negotiation  707 , and Closed Won  708 . As these terms have already been defined  100 ,  600  and are somewhat self-explanatory, they are not re-defined here. The value of the system here is found in the edges of lines between the vertices. The system draws the weight of those edges  721 ,  722 ,  723 ,  724 ,  725 ,  726 ,  727  according to the likelihood of the transition between them to occur under the experimental conditions that have generated the data and therefore shows what activities done at what stage are likely to result in success. 
         [0051]      FIG. 8  is a graph diagram of opportunity state changes according to an embodiment of the invention  800 . In this use case the ISEP platform provides the insight, modeling and optimal management of the interaction sequences and interaction types to drive the creation of a B2B meeting or opportunity. This simplified graph includes many of the previously mentioned sales pipeline stages  801 ,  802 ,  803 ,  804 ,  805 ,  806 ,  807 ,  809 ,  810  with focus placed on the early stages of the process  801 ,  802 ,  803 ,  804 ,  805 . The graph then shows the strength of the transition state probabilities between those stages  821 ,  822 ,  823 ,  824 ,  825 ,  826  with the highest affinities (line weight) being  821 ,  822 ,  823  and  824  between Active dialog  801 , and Meeting  802 , Meeting  802  and Qualification  803 , Qualification  803  and Discovery  804  and Meeting  802  and Lost  805 . The other transition affinity edges  825  and  826  are weaker, lesser line weights. 
         [0052]      FIG. 9  is a graph diagram of exemplary contact state changes according to an embodiment of the invention  900 . The output decision variables are configurable but would typically include the sequence of activities (interactions) to perform and the individual sales reps to be assigned to the interactions. Shown is a contact state transition graph generated by an embodiment for sales leads given to a specific sales person, in this example “Anne Brookes”  901 . It can be seen that the salespersons known contacts  902  transition predominantly  921  to the Recycle state  903  which is not optimal with some going to MQL  905  and others to Customer  908 . A lesser number go to Opportunity  907 ,  922  and a significant portion go from Opportunity  907  to  924 , Lost  909 , again, an unfavorable outcome. Other stages such as SAL  906 , Qualified Out  904  and inactive  910  are also depicted but transition probabilities to and from these are much lower as represented by lines of lesser weight  925 . 
         [0053]      FIG. 10  is a flow diagram of a second aspect of contact state changes according to an embodiment of the invention  1000 . Certain interactions lead to opportunity conversion % by lead source. Certain interactions lead to opportunity conversion % by segment. Certain interactions lead to opportunity conversion % by region. Certain interactions Lead to opportunity conversion % by tenure of sales rep. The graph measures hit rate (as previously defined), by lead source by segment, by region. Target Rollover % (% of value of opps with a close date in a period that roll into the following period) by segment, by region and by sales person  1001 ,  1002 ,  1003 ,  1004 ,  1005 ,  1006 ,  1007 . 
       Hardware Architecture 
       [0054]    Generally, the techniques disclosed herein may be implemented on hardware or a combination of software and hardware. For example, they may be implemented in an operating system kernel, in a separate user process, in a library package bound into network applications, on a specially constructed machine, on an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), or on a network interface card. 
         [0055]    Software/hardware hybrid implementations of at least some of the embodiments disclosed herein may be implemented on a programmable network-resident machine (which should be understood to include intermittently connected network-aware machines) selectively activated or reconfigured by a computer program stored in memory. Such network devices may have multiple network interfaces that may be configured or designed to utilize different types of network communication protocols. A general architecture for some of these machines may be described herein in order to illustrate one or more exemplary means by which a given unit of functionality may be implemented. According to specific embodiments, at least some of the features or functionalities of the various embodiments disclosed herein may be implemented on one or more general-purpose computers associated with one or more networks, such as for example an end-user computer system, a client computer, a network server or other server system, a mobile computing device (e.g., tablet computing device, mobile phone, smartphone, laptop, or other appropriate computing device), a consumer electronic device, a music player, or any other suitable electronic device, router, switch, or other suitable device, or any combination thereof. In at least some embodiments, at least some of the features or functionalities of the various embodiments disclosed herein may be implemented in one or more virtualized computing environments (e.g., network computing clouds, virtual machines hosted on one or more physical computing machines, or other appropriate virtual environments). 
         [0056]    Referring now to  FIG. 11 , there is shown a block diagram depicting an exemplary computing device  10  suitable for implementing at least a portion of the features or functionalities disclosed herein. Computing device  10  may be, for example, any one of the computing machines listed in the previous paragraph, or indeed any other electronic device capable of executing software- or hardware-based instructions according to one or more programs stored in memory. Computing device  10  may be configured to communicate with a plurality of other computing devices, such as clients or servers, over communications networks such as a wide area network a metropolitan area network, a local area network, a wireless network, the Internet, or any other network, using known protocols for such communication, whether wireless or wired. 
         [0057]    In one embodiment, computing device  10  includes one or more central processing units (CPU)  12 , one or more interfaces  15 , and one or more busses  14  (such as a peripheral component interconnect (PCI) bus). When acting under the control of appropriate software or firmware, CPU  12  may be responsible for implementing specific functions associated with the functions of a specifically configured computing device or machine. For example, in at least one embodiment, a computing device  10  may be configured or designed to function as a server system utilizing CPU  12 , local memory  11  and/or remote memory  16 , and interface(s)  15 . In at least one embodiment, CPU  12  may be caused to perform one or more of the different types of functions and/or operations under the control of software modules or components, which for example, may include an operating system and any appropriate applications software, drivers, and the like. 
         [0058]    CPU  12  may include one or more processors  13  such as, for example, a processor from one of the Intel, ARM, Qualcomm, and AMD families of microprocessors. In some embodiments, processors  13  may include specially designed hardware such as application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), electrically erasable programmable read-only memories (EEPROMs), field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), and so forth, for controlling operations of computing device  10 . In a specific embodiment, a local memory  11  (such as non-volatile random access memory (RAM) and/or read-only memory (ROM), including for example one or more levels of cached memory) may also form part of CPU  12 . However, there are many different ways in which memory may be coupled to system  10 . Memory  11  may be used for a variety of purposes such as, for example, caching and/or storing data, programming instructions, and the like. It should be further appreciated that CPU  12  may be one of a variety of system-on-a-chip (SOC) type hardware that may include additional hardware such as memory or graphics processing chips, such as a Qualcomm SNAPDRAGON™ or Samsung EXYNOS™ CPU as are becoming increasingly common in the art, such as for use in mobile devices or integrated devices. 
         [0059]    As used herein, the term “processor” is not limited merely to those integrated circuits referred to in the art as a processor, a mobile processor, or a microprocessor, but broadly refers to a microcontroller, a microcomputer, a programmable logic controller, an application-specific integrated circuit, and any other programmable circuit. 
         [0060]    In one embodiment, interfaces  15  are provided as network interface cards (NICs). Generally, NICs control the sending and receiving of data packets over a computer network; other types of interfaces  15  may for example support other peripherals used with computing device  10 . Among the interfaces that may be provided are Ethernet interfaces, frame relay interfaces, cable interfaces, DSL interfaces, token ring interfaces, graphics interfaces, and the like. In addition, various types of interfaces may be provided such as, for example, universal serial bus (USB), Serial, Ethernet, FIREWIRE™, THUNDERBOLT™, PCI, parallel, radio frequency (RF), BLUETOOTH™, near-field communications (e.g., using near-field magnetics), 802.11 (WiFi), frame relay, TCP/IP, ISDN, fast Ethernet interfaces, Gigabit Ethernet interfaces, Serial ATA (SATA) or external SATA (ESATA) interfaces, high-definition multimedia interface (HDMI), digital visual interface (DVI), analog or digital audio interfaces, asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) interfaces, high-speed serial interface (HSSI) interfaces, Point of Sale (POS) interfaces, fiber data distributed interfaces (FDDIs), and the like. Generally, such interfaces  15  may include physical ports appropriate for communication with appropriate media. In some cases, they may also include an independent processor (such as a dedicated audio or video processor, as is common in the art for high-fidelity A/V hardware interfaces) and, in some instances, volatile and/or non-volatile memory (e.g., RAM). 
         [0061]    Although the system shown and described above illustrates one specific architecture for a computing device  10  for implementing one or more of the inventions described herein, it is by no means the only device architecture on which at least a portion of the features and techniques described herein may be implemented. For example, architectures having one or any number of processors  13  may be used, and such processors  13  may be present in a single device or distributed among any number of devices. In one embodiment, a single processor  13  handles communications as well as routing computations, while in other embodiments a separate dedicated communications processor may be provided. In various embodiments, different types of features or functionalities may be implemented in a system according to the invention that includes a client device (such as a tablet device or smartphone running client software) and server systems (such as a server system described in more detail below). 
         [0062]    Regardless of network device configuration, the system of the present invention may employ one or more memories or memory modules (such as, for example, remote memory block  16  and local memory  11 ) configured to store data, program instructions for the general-purpose network operations, or other information relating to the functionality of the embodiments described herein (or any combinations of the above). Program instructions may control execution of or comprise an operating system and/or one or more applications, for example. Memory  16  or memories  11 ,  16  may also be configured to store data structures, configuration data, encryption data, historical system operations information, or any other specific or generic non-program information described herein. 
         [0063]    Because such information and program instructions may be employed to implement one or more systems or methods described herein, at least some network device embodiments may include nontransitory machine-readable storage media, which, for example, may be configured or designed to store program instructions, state information, and the like for performing various operations described herein. Examples of such nontransitory machine-readable storage media include, but are not limited to, magnetic media such as hard disks, floppy disks, and magnetic tape; optical media such as CD-ROM disks; magneto-optical media such as optical disks, and hardware devices that are specially configured to store and perform program instructions, such as read-only memory devices (ROM), flash memory (as is common in mobile devices and integrated systems), solid state drives (SSD) and “hybrid SSD” storage drives that may combine physical components of solid state and hard disk drives in a single hardware device (as are becoming increasingly common in the art with regard to personal computers), memristor memory, random access memory (RAM), and the like. It should be appreciated that such storage means may be integral and non-removable (such as RAM hardware modules that may be soldered onto a motherboard or otherwise integrated into an electronic device), or they may be removable such as swappable flash memory modules (such as “thumb drives” or other removable media designed for rapidly exchanging physical storage devices), “hot-swappable” hard disk drives or solid state drives, removable optical storage discs, or other such removable media, and that such integral and removable storage media may be utilized interchangeably. Examples of program instructions include both object code, such as may be produced by a compiler, machine code, such as may be produced by an assembler or a linker, byte code, such as may be generated by for example a JAVA™ compiler and may be executed using a Java virtual machine or equivalent, or files containing higher level code that may be executed by the computer using an interpreter (for example, scripts written in Python, Perl, Ruby, Groovy, or any other scripting language). 
         [0064]    In some embodiments, systems according to the present invention may be implemented on a standalone computing system. Referring now to  FIG. 12 , there is shown a block diagram depicting a typical exemplary architecture of one or more embodiments or components thereof on a standalone computing system. Computing device  20  includes processors  21  that may run software that carry out one or more functions or applications of embodiments of the invention, such as for example a client application  24 . Processors  21  may carry out computing instructions under control of an operating system  22  such as, for example, a version of Microsoft&#39;s WINDOWS™ operating system, Apple&#39;s Mac OS/X or iOS operating systems, some variety of the Linux operating system, Google&#39;s ANDROID™ operating system, or the like. In many cases, one or more shared services  23  may be operable in system  20 , and may be useful for providing common services to client applications  24 . Services  23  may for example be WINDOWS™ services, user-space common services in a Linux environment, or any other type of common service architecture used with operating system  21 . Input devices  28  may be of any type suitable for receiving user input, including for example a keyboard, touchscreen, microphone (for example, for voice input), mouse, touchpad, trackball, or any combination thereof. Output devices  27  may be of any type suitable for providing output to one or more users, whether remote or local to system  20 , and may include for example one or more screens for visual output, speakers, printers, or any combination thereof. Memory  25  may be random-access memory having any structure and architecture known in the art, for use by processors  21 , for example to run software. Storage devices  26  may be any magnetic, optical, mechanical, memristor, or electrical storage device for storage of data in digital form (such as those described above). Examples of storage devices  26  include flash memory, magnetic hard drive, CD-ROM, and/or the like. 
         [0065]    In some embodiments, systems of the present invention may be implemented on a distributed computing network, such as one having any number of clients and/or servers. Referring now to  FIG. 13 , there is shown a block diagram depicting an exemplary architecture  30  for implementing at least a portion of a system according to an embodiment of the invention on a distributed computing network. According to the embodiment, any number of clients  33  may be provided. Each client  33  may run software for implementing client-side portions of the present invention; clients may comprise a system  20  such as that illustrated above. In addition, any number of servers  32  may be provided for handling requests received from one or more clients  33 . Clients  33  and servers  32  may communicate with one another via one or more electronic networks  31 , which may be in various embodiments any of the Internet, a wide area network, a mobile telephony network (such as CDMA or GSM cellular networks), a wireless network (such as WiFi, Wimax, LTE, and so forth), or a local area network (or indeed any network topology known in the art; the invention does not prefer any one network topology over any other). Networks  31  may be implemented using any known network protocols, including for example wired and/or wireless protocols. 
         [0066]    In addition, in some embodiments, servers  32  may call external services  37  when needed to obtain additional information, or to refer to additional data concerning a particular call. Communications with external services  37  may take place, for example, via one or more networks  31 . In various embodiments, external services  37  may comprise web-enabled services or functionality related to or installed on the hardware device itself. For example, in an embodiment where client applications  24  are implemented on a smartphone or other electronic device, client applications  24  may obtain information stored in a server system  32  in the cloud or on an external service  37  deployed on one or more of a particular enterprise&#39;s or user&#39;s premises. 
         [0067]    In some embodiments of the invention, clients  33  or servers  32  (or both) may make use of one or more specialized services or appliances that may be deployed locally or remotely across one or more networks  31 . For example, one or more databases  34  may be used or referred to by one or more embodiments of the invention. It should be understood by one having ordinary skill in the art that databases  34  may be arranged in a wide variety of architectures and using a wide variety of data access and manipulation means. For example, in various embodiments one or more databases  34  may comprise a relational database system using a structured query language (SQL), while others may comprise an alternative data storage technology such as those referred to in the art as “NoSQL” (for example, Hadoop Cassandra, Google BigTable, and so forth). In some embodiments, variant database architectures such as column-oriented databases, in-memory databases, clustered databases, distributed databases, or even flat file data repositories may be used according to the invention. It will be appreciated by one having ordinary skill in the art that any combination of known or future database technologies may be used as appropriate, unless a specific database technology or a specific arrangement of components is specified for a particular embodiment herein. Moreover, it should be appreciated that the term “database” as used herein may refer to a physical database machine, a cluster of machines acting as a single database system, or a logical database within an overall database management system. Unless a specific meaning is specified for a given use of the term “database”, it should be construed to mean any of these senses of the word, all of which are understood as a plain meaning of the term “database” by those having ordinary skill in the art. 
         [0068]    Similarly, most embodiments of the invention may make use of one or more security systems  36  and configuration systems  35 . Security and configuration management are common information technology (IT) and web functions, and some amount of each are generally associated with any IT or web systems. It should be understood by one having ordinary skill in the art that any configuration or security subsystems known in the art now or in the future may be used in conjunction with embodiments of the invention without limitation, unless a specific security  36  or configuration system  35  or approach is specifically required by the description of any specific embodiment. 
         [0069]      FIG. 14  shows an exemplary overview of a computer system  40  as may be used in any of the various locations throughout the system. It is exemplary of any computer that may execute code to process data. Various modifications and changes may be made to computer system  40  without departing from the broader scope of the system and method disclosed herein. Central processor unit (CPU)  41  is connected to bus  42 , to which bus is also connected memory  43 , nonvolatile memory  44 , display  47 , input/output (I/O) unit  48 , and network interface card (NIC)  53 . I/O unit  48  may, typically, be connected to keyboard  49 , pointing device  50 , hard disk  52 , and real-time clock  51 . NIC  53  connects to network  54 , which may be the Internet or a local network, which local network may or may not have connections to the Internet. Also shown as part of system  40  is power supply unit  45  connected, in this example, to a main alternating current (AC) supply  46 . Not shown are batteries that could be present, and many other devices and modifications that are well known but are not applicable to the specific novel functions of the current system and method disclosed herein. It should be appreciated that some or all components illustrated may be combined, such as in various integrated applications, for example Qualcomm or Samsung system-on-a-chip (SOC) devices, or whenever it may be appropriate to combine multiple capabilities or functions into a single hardware device (for instance, in mobile devices such as smartphones, video game consoles, in-vehicle computer systems such as navigation or multimedia systems in automobiles, or other integrated hardware devices). 
         [0070]    In various embodiments, functionality for implementing systems or methods of the present invention may be distributed among any number of client and/or server components. For example, various software modules may be implemented for performing various functions in connection with the present invention, and such modules may be variously implemented to run on server and/or client components 
       Details of the Supervised Machine Learning Models 
       [0071]    The platform supports several supervised machine learning algorithms including:
       Distributed Random Forest   Deep Learning   Generalized Linear   Gradient Boosted Machine   Naive Bayes       
 
         [0077]    In addition, Stacking Ensemble learning is supported whereby a second-level “meta learner” is applied to a group of base learners. For example, a meta learner using the Generalized Linear Model can be applied on top of an ensemble of Deep Learning, Random Forest, Gradient Boosted Machine, and Generalized Linear Model. 
         [0078]    Stacking is a way to build the most accurate predictive model for the probability of a transition between any two nodes of the reduced graph. 
       Inclusion of “Hidden” (Unobservable) States 
       [0079]    In some cases, a state of the graph may not be directly observable (definable) using the input event data, but knowledge of such a state may be very important from the business point of view. An example of such a hidden state is the intent of the prospect. A skilled sales person will infer the intention from human interactions but there is no direct measure of “intent” available in the data. However, the platform supports the definition and computations with such hidden states in the graph by use of a Hidden Markov Model. This allows the hidden state(s) to be included in the reduced graph. 
       State Survival Analysis 
       [0080]    The supervised machine learning models described above capture the probability of the state transition. However, unless state dwell time is included as an input attribute, they don&#39;t provide insight on the temporal character of the transition and do not take into account that the data is right-censored in time. A common approach is simply to look at the distribution of dwell times in a specific state. However a deeper insight and proper treatment of data censoring can be gained by applying statistical time-to-event or “Survival” analysis. In this point of view, a prospect “lives” in a certain state for a period of time before experiencing a “death” of instantaneous classification into another state. This enables a deeper stratification study of which attributes influence the time to transition and these can be used to accelerate the transition or select prospects who will transition more quickly. 
         [0081]    As well as being able to compute survival function, hazard function and density, log-rank tests can be used to test the null hypothesis that the survival functions of any two groups of prospects are different for this particular transition. 
       Optimization Model 
       [0082]    The optimizer is configured by the administrator to define the decision variables, objective function and constraints. Examples are provided below 
         [0083]    Decision Variables
       Which specific agents to assign to specific prospects   The specific time and channel on which to contact a prospect   A specific message to give to a prospect   A specific experience to push to a prospect   A specific transaction to propose to a prospect   A specific state transition to recommend to a prospect       
 
         [0090]    Discussion of Constraints
       Maximum concurrent capacity of each sales representative. Typical sales reps cannot handle more than 8 concurrent opportunities.   Balance utilization of sales reps.   An upper budget limit may be posed as a constraint       
 
         [0094]    Discussion of Objective Functions
       E.g. expected profit (sales revenues less costs incurred)       
 
         [0096]    Optimization Algorithm 
         [0097]    The optimization problem here of sequential (multistage) stochastic optimization is extremely challenging. The platform uses a generic Approximate Dynamic Programming (ADP) framework with options for four different classes of optimization policy functions as listed below. Terminology in this area is quite fragment in both academia and industry but we point out that this approach is general and includes reinforcement learning and optimization by simulation as limiting cases. 
         [0098]    Myopic Policies
       Optimize cost now but don&#39;t use forecasts or representation of future decisions       
 
         [0100]    Look-Ahead Policies
       Explicitly optimize over a future horizon with approx. future info and actions       
 
         [0102]    Policy Function Approximations
       Directly return an action in a given state (no imbedded optimization or forecast of future info)       
 
         [0104]    Value Function Approximations (Greedy Policies)
       Approximation of the value of being in a future state as the result of a decision made now. Impact on future is solely in the value function       
 
         [0106]    Benefits of ADP Algorithm
       Scalable   Can be used for decision under uncertainty   Can be used where the utility function is not available in a closed for expression but is the result of simulation.       
 
         [0110]    The skilled person will be aware of a range of possible modifications of the various embodiments described above. Accordingly, the present invention is defined by the claims and their equivalents.