The biggest mistake a commerce site can make is to think that a package can reduce the number of people they need in marketing. It's obvious if you think about it for a minute. The more finely tuned you want your marketing and sales to be, the greater the number of categories. Computers can't create the categories any more than they can determine the conditions under which a customer belongs to one of them. A human being has to do it and input it into the system.
People also have to create the business rules for the various special offers.
That's the key problem with personalization - it requires people. There's no getting around it. So remember that the next time you buy a computer book online and it suggests a Grateful Dead album to go with it. Somebody had to decide they go together. He is also a respected industry expert and a consultant with a leading Internet service company.