How to Unlock AI’s Potential. A guide to inform your Business Strategies and considerations to get you there.
A recent survey I commissioned to assess organisations' maturity in implementing an AI strategy indicated that 40% of organisations have a strategy and roadmap and an even split across the early consideration and have yet to start. So, I will tailor the content to support the 60% whilst providing insights and consideration for those already on the journey—a big thank you to those who participated.
AI can deliver significant business value, but you need to take a holistic approach to realise its value. Where you clearly articulate your ambition and strategy, consider the changes to operations and processes that would require redesign, your data readiness and the people and technical capabilities to realise the benefits that AI can bring to your organisation and that will enable the outcomes that drive businesses forward and improve the lives of your people and customers. In this post, we will start to provide considerations for you and your organisation.
Note: Before we start, like any strategy, you don’t start with a solution and look for a business problem to support it. I have seen many large programs fail because of this approach.
Understanding the ambition and objectives of the organisation and clearly understanding the business and customer outcomes and success measures needs to be clearly understood and, like any other strategy, to be able to define your:
Vision
Value
Risks
Capability
Adoption
I have posted an earlier approach to defining your strategy and realising this through creating your roadmaps to realise it.
In doing so, you should understand the change you want to enlist across the organisation and what levels. Are you looking to drive changes in culture, readiness, or capability at an enterprise level, a Line of Business, or a Business Unit, or are you applying changes to a product or service?
By understanding the business readiness, needs and outcomes, you can start looking at the options across the business to support your strategy that AI could be a contender for and assess it against the readiness of your organisation across your:
Organisation Culture and Enterprise Readiness to adopt an AI solution extends into the standards, principles, governance and measures for its use and desired outcomes and collaborative redesign with business owners.
The volume of quality in both the source and training data to support the AI model. This needs to be factored heavily into your application of AI and may need to be considered as part of your roadmap phases towards an AI solution.
Your people’s skills and capabilities extend past just AI-related skills but upskilling of your people to support it when it goes live. You need to partner with your People and Culture team to implement a talent management strategy and roadmap. Many AI solutions require a roadmap validation of the AI accuracy in operation.
Your current and future state service architecture, technology and infrastructure and applying standards, principles, service re-design and change management to get you there.
A clear understanding of the time factor to build and have the AI model perform satisfactorily and your approach to get there.
Budget and investment slate, both to get there and to manage and support it going forward. Like any other service, the ecosystem changes and ongoing investment will be required to ensure that the AI model stays up to date. IE, a regulation change needs to be trained into an AI solution.
When getting into this process, consider the following questions when considering your options and whether AI is even up for consideration.
Is there a business need to:
Improve the management and use of large amounts of textual data across structured and non-structured formats. You could benefit from Natural Language Processing (NLP) if this is the case.
Are you currently using or considering images as part of your business processes, and is the use of this increasing or being considered a major part of a service? You could benefit from Computer Vision if this is the case.
Make a lot of Yes/No or simple repetitive decisions or service tasks digitally or via call centres. You could benefit from Machine Learning if this is the case.
Categorise, extract sentiment or better analyse large amounts of unstructured or structured data from many sources. You could benefit from Machine Learning if this is the case.
Address complex or hazardous physical tasks impacting your business based on time to complete, quality or safety. You could benefit from Robotics.
You will then need to assess it, and just like any other approach, you should look to define the level of the application of the AI solution by:
Set goals, objectives, benefits, and success metrics.
Define the business impacts and Return on Investment.
Assess and mitigate the risk associated with the solution.
Assess adoption appetite industry, customer base and employee.
Conclusion and Next Steps
So, when considering embracing AI as a strategic tool for your business, you require careful planning and alignment with your organisation's vision and goals and the readiness for which it is to be deployed within your business. Ensuring the enterprise-level foundations are in place will provide the greatest opportunities for success. My top tip is do not underestimate the organisational change considerations, AI is not just a technology solution.
As business leaders, you should start assessing this as part of your business strategies now and my advice is to start small in considering AI integration, which will provide a greater chance of success without the risk of large-scale investment and setting your organisation back years.
By understanding your ambition, assessing your readiness, and considering the specific needs and outcomes, you can make informed decisions about integrating AI solutions into your operations.
To take the next steps, start by:
Define Your Vision: Clearly articulate the role of AI in achieving your business objectives.
Calculate the Value: Evaluate the potential benefits and ROI of AI implementation.
Manage Risks: Identify and mitigate risks associated with AI adoption.
Assess Adoption Readiness: Gauge the appetite for AI within your industry, among customers, and your employees.
By following these steps and considering these aspects, you are well on your way to achieving a unified and successful AI strategy that drives your business forward and enhances the lives of your people and customers.
If you have any questions or need support, please reach out.
