Top 5 AI Use-Cases
As per a recent survey by McKinsey, more than 50% of executives accept the inevitable that there is a marked worsening of their national economy. More or less everyone expects the tough times to last for a while yet. For instance, 70% of those surveyed in the US believe the impact will last a year or more and 89% of survey respondents in the UK expect the same. In India, that number stands at, a marginally more optimistic, 61%.
This is an overwhelming situation for any business leader. They are forced to fight a battle on two fronts, the urgency of present needs, and the uncertainty of future plans. Today, businesses need to meet immediate customer demands and devise plans to boost the morale of internal teams. But future-focused plans need to focus on customer and workforce retention and growth.
It’s ironic that even just a few months ago, most businesses were optimistic about the coming “new normal”. Obviously, the COVID situation wasn’t foreseeable but now that it’s here, there’s a different view to be taken of most initiatives.
Projects like digital transformation and smart automation had been initiated in many enterprises. But it’s fair to say that many of these were seen not as an immediate necessity but part of a future vision. Even customers and internal teams were okay with the pace and evolution of such projects, as long as their aspirations were being entertained.
However, the good news is that things need not and should not drastically change even now. These projects can still be realigned to find a new pace and can help the business to get back on track. One such initiative that seems set to take centerstage is AI.
India’s recent participation in the GPAI coalition is symptomatic of that. The coalition is meant to encourage human-empathetic Artificial Intelligence that would lead the world towards innovative and economic growth. And many of those solutions are already making an impact. For instance, IBM’s AI-based healthcare solution, IBM Watson Health, has named the best 100 hospitals that have employed technology to enhance their efficiency. So, AI can help to share the load of business challenges. The intelligent tools and technologies can automate redundant jobs, draw meaningful business insights, and help planning and budgeting for the future. All this in real-time for the business to find its way back to prosperity.
The next logical question, therefore, is – where do we start?
Here’s a list of top 5 use cases which businesses can start considering to create a path for the future.
Customer Experience
Undoubtedly, customer experience has to be the foremost concern to be dealt with in the age of the uber customer (pun intended). AI will help with planning smart customer service mediums, real-time reports for insightful data operations, and, ultimately, realigning business processes to make them customer-centric. AI-enabled tools like IBM Watson are already helping organizations to deal with customer inquiries and needs. While human interaction is still highly influential for customer experience, AI can help this interaction be more empathetic and thoughtful. Moreover, AI-based tools, chatbots, and robots can help customers with basic tasks like profile management, website interaction, etc. This saves valuable customer time, elevates the experience, and also allows the customer service executives to deal with more challenging issues.
Sales & Marketing
Lockdowns and social distancing have changed consumer behavior. In such circumstances, collecting insights for brand visibility and lead generation has gotten a little tricky. AI can not only work towards retaining the existing customers but also with acquiring new ones. Recently an Indian digital marketing firm launched an AI-based video marketing tool. The objective is to create customized short videos as per the brand’s requirement. Tools and platforms like these constantly push the envelope of AI’s worth in the marketing and sales domain. Smart automation helps organizations plan, execute, monitor, and manage their marketing strategies. Moreover, having a visibly future-focused business environment including tech like AI will help build interest and trust from a potential customer base that is already tech-savvy.
Human Resource Management
HR professionals are longing to get a stake in the AI race. But while businesses focused on AI-based customer engagement and business enhancement goals; the most HR could get out of AI was enhanced reporting. Such were the insights found in a 2017 survey by HRPA However, since then HR tech has been improving consistently. HRMS tools are recognizing the potential benefits of AI. When real-estate giants like Mahindra Lifespaces start heavily investing in AI for HRMS, things start attracting attention. AI is helping organizations plan their workforce requirements including hiring and training/retraining needs. AI can help organizations with talent management, employee upskilling, intercommunication between teams, monitoring and so much more. From higher management to hard-working employees, everyone can benefit from AI-based HRMS.
Production and Delivery
Cognitive delivery, predictive analytics, and advanced automation are some of the benefits of employing AI for production and delivery pipelines. More efficient predictive maintenance of key machines in the manufacturing environment is a key use-case that is already helping organizations reduce downtime, optimize maintenance costs, and improve production throughput and utilization. Artificial Intelligence can also help with planning the supply chain and logistics pipeline and identifying points that could benefit from automation. Legacy processes can be evolved and the wastage can be stopped with better cost-optimized processes. Production, supply chain, and delivery teams will be more transparent and aligned, the management will have more insightful reports for better decision-making, and the production and deliveries will be more customer-centric. AI can power more agile deliveries and production.
Cost Optimization
Mckinsey says that AI-supported Cognitive automation could help businesses save 20-30% on labor costs. Planning, budgeting, and transparent tracking of performance against those plans with AI can help deliver a massive impact for organizations. For instance, AI can help organizations look for redundant expenses and budget the expenses better. Both Capex and Opex can be reduced appreciably with thoughtful AI implementation. Tools like IBM Watson and Blue Prism, are already helping businesses with this.
Conclusion
Business process planning, real-time reporting, and smart budgeting are some clear and present business benefits of leveraging Artificial Intelligence. By taking the help of AI tools and technology, businesses can start focusing more intellectual energy on business strategy and market realities. The sooner businesses start leveraging intelligent technologies the faster this could deliver business impact.
Related Links:
IBM Planning Analytics Powered by TM1
https://www.ibm.com/in-en/products/planning-analytics
IBM SPSS Statistics
https://www.ibm.com/in-en/products/spss-statistics
IBM Watson Assistant
https://www.ibm.com/cloud/watson-assistant/