Book trade READO cooperates with MVB – Interview with MVB Managing Director Ronald Schild
With the help of artificial intelligence, the startup READO and MVB, a subsidiary of the German Publishers and Booksellers Association, are currently revolutionizing the book industry. Instead of automated book recommendations, the AI-based analysis of customer reviews and buying motives will be decisive in the future for which reading suggestions customers receive. In this interview, MVB Managing Director Ronald Schild reports on the unique cooperation from his personal perspective.
Ronald Schild, Managing Director : Marketing and Publishing Service of the Book Trade
READO was named 2021 Content Start-up of the Year and subsequently received not only an innovation bonus, but also an intensive support program at the CONTENTshift-Accelerator. What do you see as the most important progress the startup has made since then?
Personally, I have been very impressed by the speed with which READO’s founders have professionalized their strategic approach. The business idea and its technological implementation were convincing from the very beginning. At the same time, READO has focused enormously in a very short time and adapted its business model to market requirements. The value proposition is now immediately apparent, as can be seen in the company’s rapid growth.
What excites you personally about READO?
The founders not only burn for their idea, they pursue it with a professionalism that is second to none. In meetings, READO gets straight to the point, agreements are always kept, new requirements are immediately implemented as prototypes.
READO analyzes reader needs with the help of artificial intelligence. Many people are still somewhat uneasy about such new technologies – especially when it comes to something as personal as personal preferences and emotions. How do you overcome these reservations?
Artificial intelligence does indeed often cause unease. However, READO’s approach is based on the evaluation of reviews (written by humans) and existing metadata. These are anything but ‘artificial’ but rather very real.
Meanwhile, MVB and READO are cooperating together with the Swiss software company bpm. Can you briefly explain for our readers what their goal was in doing so and how the cooperation is specifically structured?
The goal of the cooperation is to professionalize the independent book trade. Automated book recommendations are still based on the principle of ‘customers who bought this book also bought that one’, even on large Internet platforms. This is a very crude approach. Combining READO’s approach of analyzing customer reviews with our data on readers’ motives for buying generates book recommendations that are much better in quality. Booksellers can use this functionality in-store, in call centers, and in their online stores.
From your point of view, what were the biggest challenges at the start of the cooperation and how did you overcome them together?
The compatibility of the different approaches was challenging. On the one hand, the hands-on mentality of a start-up with rapid prototyping and trial and error, on the other hand, the demand of one of the most important infrastructure service providers in the global book industry to provide mature, reliable products with the highest performance. This required intensive communication combined with a high degree of understanding for the other position.
Against this background, what is the most important current trend for the book industry from your perspective? What should decision-makers be open to?
The topic of AI is currently on everyone’s lips, and rightly so. Because especially in the area of the written or spoken word, AI will take on an enormously important role. It starts with the analysis of manuscripts and their editing, with the generation of the right metadata, all the way to the automatic creation of customer-specific book descriptions. And it ends with the precise recommendation of the right book by retailers.
Contact
Website: mvb-online.com
LinkedIn: Ronald Schild
Read also: Bookselling: READO cooperates with MVB – Interview with READO CEO Jonathan Mondorf
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