AI agents help Harri automate repetitive sales work, speed up proposals and free up more time for customers. Read the story.
As a child Harri had an interest in computer games and was curious as to how he could beat the game.
We were some kids who played the classic game Boulder Dash and at some point we hacked the game to get infinite lives. That’s probably where my interest in exploring the potential of technology started.
Despite this interest in technology, Harri doesn’t work with technology directly but with sales.
My role is to work with customers to identify the best-fit solution for their needs, demonstrating both the business value and practical impact of Vivicta’s approach.
You might assume sales is mostly about customer conversations, but in reality, a significant part of the work happens behind the scenes.
We spend a lot of time on reading requirements in RFPs (request for proposals), cost calculations, co-ordinating answers from various departments, proof-reading – you name it. As a result, less time is available for direct customer conversations.
That’s why Harri has spent the last months trying to automate himself, or at least a big part of the mundane back-office tasks.
I had been playing around with AI since the first LLMs were launched, and the real shift came around Christmas. It’s as if the stars aligned and I could suddenly see the end of the era where basic programming required extensive technical know-how. Up until then we had used AI as an assistant, but since then we have been able to make a big shift.
The big shift is using AI agents to automate time consuming and somewhat boring tasks.
We can get RFPs from customers with 50 attachments, and normally salespeople, finance and legal have to read them and discuss our delivery. That can take weeks.
With the use of agents, this process is done in minutes.
I have developed AI agents that sift through all the information and give me a draft for a proposal to the customers. I have fed the agent several RFPs and adjusted its answers so they better reflect our strategy, capabilities and Nordic tone, while also staying realistic about what we can and want to deliver. This makes the agent better every time.
The results are so far staggering.
Normally we salespeople spend around 80 % of our time in back-office, and I’m looking to automate 80 % of that. We’re not talking that the agents can do these tasks 30 % faster, but rather 20-30 times faster. It’s borderline insanely good.
Harri wants to automate himself but doesn’t think he will be made obsolete – quite the contrary.
With these agents I can spend more time on interaction with clients. It’s more fun for me and a better use of my time.
He does acknowledge that many will experience changes due to AI that can be difficult.
I think we need the same amount of salespeople in the future, but perhaps not all traditional salespeople want to change to the new paradigm. The good thing at Vivicta is that we have a very positive outlook on both change and technology. Ever since I started experimenting with AI and agents, my colleagues have been very eager to learn and explore with me. We salespeople are normally very open, which is a big plus when adapting to change.
Title: Strategic Sales Executive
Education: M.Sc. Computer Science from University of Turku
Started at Vivicta: 2019
Office: Espoo
Fun-fact: Looks after two cabins and two boats on top of his own house.