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Let the Market Decide,with information inside.

Overflow, of information. Then filter, and digest. You do this, every single day. Your coworkers, too. Each one of us gets exposed to a unique blend of information, from both people and data sources. Then we enhance it, with our own experiences and knowledge, to finally shape a unique personal insight. Yes, there lies a lot of value, but how do we come up with collective insights? If this stands as an unsolved problem for your organization, we think we came up with a decent solution.

You need to aggregate information and insights, not just collect raw data. Directly from

the source, namely those who possess the scattered bits of information, not any middlemen around. And push approaches (call it surveys, or meetings) tend not to work. What missing is an engaging, yet less biased way to pull this information out, then filtering and balancing it, in real time, to finally give shape to an aggregated insight.

Guess what. There is a solution, and it’s simpler than what you may imagine. Actually, you use it, in various different settings, on a daily basis. Enter askmarkets services. And set up your own, private or public marketplace, within a minute. Then, invite your fellow workers, partners, and clients to join. Or anyone who you think may

contribute insights of value on the topics of your interest.

Now, you are able to turn your questions into markets, their possible answers into stocks and finally let anyone put their (play) money where his mouth is. You may also call it a friendly bet, or just a game; in any case, it’s equally fun, and useful, yet more engaging and less biased than every other tool you have ever tried.

Most importantly, our marketplaces works as probably the most efficient tool for information aggregation out there. So, you’d better stop wasting resources, and potential. Collective insights and your information marketplace are now just a few clicks away, at askmarkets.

Pulling the pieces apart is risky. Why don’t you just put them together? Aggregate distributed information with the power of markets.

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What is it about?Where do you go to find out the best answer

to the question “What is the value of Walmart?” You probably go check it’s current stock price, right? What about the next football match winner? You typically turn to the current betting odds. Expected price of, let’s say, oil in the next quarter? It’s the futures market. Or even the value of an old gadget of yours? You just enter the local flea market, it goes on.

When it comes to aggregating all of the information out there, or finding the most accurate of estimations, the answer always includes the term “market” as its second element. And this fact is anything but random. Over time, markets have proven to be the most efficient mechanism for aggregation and transmission of information. Dynamic and evolutionary by nature, markets typically tap on self-selection and proper incentives to leverage on collective intelligence, or what we are lately referring to as the wisdom of crowds.

However, when it comes to topics different than the ones described above, no similar solution exists. Let’s say that you are very much interested in your sales figures for the next month, or the probability of meeting a critical deadline, or any other critical question tight to a future event, not covered by existing and well-positioned market institutions. Where are such markets? We think we have come up with a proper solution, within askmarkets.

How does it work?It’s simple, really. 1. You enter askmarkets services and create

your very own information marketplace, in the subdomain, say http://acme.askmarkets.com, or else. The whole process takes up to a minute, while you gain full admin rights and customization options (change all colors, add your own logo etc).

2. You invite your employees and partners, your clients or whoever may provide valuable information, to join. Marketplaces can be private (invite-only), or public (open to everyone). Each user who signs up receives 10,000 of our play-money currency to start trading.

3. You turn your critical questions into markets, tight to a future event. Potential answers are the stocks traded within this market, while their current price indicates their probability of turning correct.

4. So, if anyone considers an answer as underpriced, he is able to buy some shares of the corresponding stock, under the prospect of future profit. By this, the stock price goes up, and the market communicates the relevant information. Both trading into a market, or creating a brand new market are two-step straightforward process.

5.This is it. Your very own information marketplace is up and running, consisting of the traders you picked, and the market questions you and your traders shaped. Collective insights are now at your fingertips, you may leave all the rest to askmarkets.

One Stop Shopto your information marketplace

Markets bring people together, transmitting information through prices.And askmarkets is the simplest way to put market power at your fingertips.

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Retailex Corp. is a very healthy and profitable organization that imports, stores, distributes and finally sells a wide range of products. With capable and experienced employees, next to an extended network of salesmen and distributors,

Retailex is a well-structured and efficiently functioning enterprise, optimized to deliver great products to its customers and value to its shareholders. Digging into its main cost drivers, one comes up with inventory and transportation costs throughout the supply chain, the management of which finally ends up to the estimation of future demand and the communication of early indicators that may arise across the various parts of the chain.

The company is using a couple of methods to forecast its sales and manage its logistics in a more efficient way. The tools in use track the weekly or even daily sales using an advanced ERP (which costed a really significant amount of money) and attempt to extrapolate the given data to come up with proper estimations, while surveys of the managers’ perceptions are performed quarterly to get a feeling about what’s coming. However, it seems that these approaches do not meet the company’s needs. Shortage of various products is a usual case in many points of sale, while other products remain devalued by the big inventory. These facts equal to opportunities and money being not wisely spent, while the uncertainty of the given economic situation is expected to further highlight the problem.

This is where askmarkets come into play. The number of employees, salesmen and distributors in a sense stands as a powerful network, continuously collecting information about the topics of interest for the enterprise. Asking all these people about such topics, while providing sufficient motivation, using a simple but efficient platform, can enable the collection and filtering of this vast amount of informational resources to support decision making.

For example, managers’ information is limited,while monitoring data have little to do with being proactive. At the same time, each salesman comes in touch with a number of people each day, shaping his mind on the top of the information he collects. Furthermore each salesman gets in contact with different sets of people and has special experiences which help to come up with a unique perspective on the topics of interest.

Finally, askmarkets enables Retailex to aggregate the perspectives of all people across the supply chain on the topics that matter for the company, including sales per month, per product or distribution point, next to products’ import and transportation costs, or pricing. In a few words, askmarkets serves the company as a ceaseless and seamless filter and aggregator of the information across the enterprise, providing real-time insights and a significant competitive advantage for both the day-to-day and the strategic decision making. Wouldn’t you bet on it?

Use Case IRetailer

If mails & meetings used to be the only way to involve your partners in decision making, now you may rest in the shoulders of markets.

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Marketex Corp sells some high-end products, putting most of its efforts and budget on marketing. Echoing this fact, the marketing department has an extended list of liabilities, next to a really significant share in the decisions taken across the enterprise. Among all others, the department runs a bunch of campaigns each year, while keeping track of the industry and competitors in various markets, measuring customer behavior and satisfaction, also monitoring selected performance indicators that are considered of crucial value for the enterprise. The department is comprised of highly experienced employees, with a strong intuition and understanding of both the core characteristics and latest developments in the industry.

However, it has become evident that, despite the expertise and experience of its members, the marketing department -and the whole company at large- is failing to detect significant turning points in customers’ behavior and preferences, or competitors strategic moves This is not due to lack of focus or devotion; the company is using several methods to get a clear view of what is happening out of its corporate offices. Surveys, focus groups, industry reports, and meetings, meetings, meetings, all have a prominent place in the company’s arsenal, when it comes to supporting its marketing decisions. However, results are not as expected; and there are probably both the tools and their users to blame for. The marketing manager put it like that in a recent board of directors: “It is like either the information we possess is very partial, or the tools we are using to filter it and sum it up are inadequate. In my personal opinion, both of these are true. We need a different approach.”

At the same time, Marketex enjoys a considerable number of loyal customers, who could easily be characterized as fans. Their passion and brand loyalty is such that they know every Marketex product in detail, while tracking the competitors’ moves and other evolutions in the industry. In a sense, Marketex’s marketing department extends to these people, too, as they largely perform what the company needs, at a much bigger scale, cost-free, and without any biases that may accompany such intra-enterprise relationships. The idea is clear. Marketex needs to get this group of people together, motivate them to contribute their beliefs and, by appropriately aggregating these beliefs to shape an insightful input for its decision making.

Askmarkets come to the rescue. A public marketplace is set up, on the topics of interest for Marketex. Competitive intelligence, efficiency of the latest campaigns, customer satisfaction, evolution of publicly available performance indicators, all these and other crucial topics are turned into market questions and literally outsourced to the Marketex community. A symbolic prize given to the 5 most efficient traders further enhances the engagement and, a few weeks after the launch, Marketex includes in its arsenal a valuable tool that monitors in real time the information and perceptions of hundreds of experts, providing the greatest of insights for some really successful decisions. Still looking for the market leader?

Use Case IIMarketing

There is passion for your products out there, why don’t you leverage on the devotion and collective intelligence of your customers?

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AskMarkets UnLtd was founded in 2007 to host the works, vision and devotion of its founders George Tziralis and Efthimios Mpothos. Our enterprise product was launched in December 2008, gaining global attention and coverage. The company is located in Athens, Greece.

George Tziralis, co-founder & CEOA fertile 5-year course on mechanical and

industrial engineering from NTUA concluded with a thesis on attempting to forecast stock prices; as algorithms and the challenge of making accurate predictions captured his heart, the decision to undertake PhD research on the field of forecasting was a logical choice. His early "affair" in data mining and artificial intelligence ended abruptly when he got to know the concept of prediction markets better. That was back in September 2005. Since then, prediction markets had to endure his workaholic attitude, providing a suitable outlet for his creativity and passion (argentine tango and other fitness activities still have to wait). Resulting from this, the creation of askmarkets was predestined to happen: a natural outcome of his research findings, as long as his upbeat attitude.

Efthimios Mpothos, co-founder & CTOEfthimios holds a 5-year bachelor in electrical and

computer engineering from NTUA and wrote his thesis on mobile and personal communications. The move to engineering at Siemens, which took place immediately after graduation, finally proved not to be compatible with his creativity, passion and open mind for ideas. A refreshing switch back to research was highly needed and happened a couple of years ago. Since then, first an MSc on engineering-economic systems and then a PhD on innovation and ideas evaluation systems using prediction markets have kept him busy enough, before his ideas, entrepreneurial attitude and developing skills found a creative outlet at askmarkets.

ASKMARKETS UNLTD14-16 Meletiou Vasileiou StrGR 11745 Athens, Greecegeorge@askmarkets.comhttp://askmarkets.com

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The peoplebehind askmarkets

Innovation is our passion and askmarkets our pride and joy. We are committed to providing marketplace solutions that work the best for you.