Artificial Intelligence – important or not important for your company?

ChatGPT has made the world talk about Artificial Intelligence (AI). About the significant impact the effective use of this technology (r)evolution can have, but also about jobs that might become redundant, fear that computers get out of control as developers do not foresee the consequences of self-learning solutions, and about misusing AI and a need to implement regulations. Please note that the ChatGPT hype did trigger all of this, but the tools itself address only a limited set of the overall AI potential. In other words, AI is much more than ChatGPT, other big and small players provide AI solutions as well and AI is not new. So, AI is the new buzzword, as was Big Data and Digital Technology during the last years. Opinion is however that the impact can be more significant for companies and employees. The key question is obvious: Is this important for your company? Should this be a topic on your agenda? Should you expand your Digital Agenda with an AI component?

The adoption of AI in the business world has some similarities with early days of digital transformation. Startups are popping up, established digital tool providers are including basic AI components into their tools, a toolset without marketing it as AI is not sexy anymore, and early adopters are starting to look beyond the basic use of AI. But the press and public opinion seem to be more focused on the impact of AI than a lot of companies are. Lots of companies are for different reasons slow in digital adoption, let alone AI and there are a couple of valid and even more invalid reasons for this.

Main valid reason is when companies have made a clear decision that the business potential of digital transformation (incl. AI) is not a priority or that investments do not weigh up against the benefits it will create. This is a valid reason, as this is an informed decision.

The invalid reasons, or reasons which are not based on an informed decision, are numerous and unfortunately not an exception. Reasons like missing an aligned and up-to-date digital agenda, investment and resource fatigue, lack of leadership focus and a sequential focus on technology adoption, meaning a continued focus on ERP deployments and optimization avoids the company′s focus on further potentials provided by digital and AI enabled transformation. Those reasons have nothing to do with strategic thinking and strategic leadership.

Therefore, if you are a digital leader in a company and you do not have an up-to-date digital agenda, it would make sense to assess whether the priority of digital and AI enabled transformation is rightly defined and if it is not, define or update your company′s digital agenda and include value adding AI components. Not doing this might lead to missing business opportunities or competitive disadvantages for the company. Your stakeholders will likely ask you about the company′s digital agenda and use of AI sooner rather than later.

Some of the learnings out of our projects might be helpful for you when you setup your digital agenda and applying those learnings will avoid that you waste a lot of time and resources on not relevant topics and/or create paperware, which looks slick, but might not be reused. Our learnings have led to a set of critical success factors for defining transformation agendas and specifically digital and AI enabled transformation agendas. The below list is not exclusive, and importance of each critical success factor depends on the company’s type of business, characteristics, ambitions, and digital maturity.

Critical success factors which are always important for defining a transformation agenda

• Have a holistic view on the company, but be pragmatic by bringing priority in the focus areas as well as the structure of the agenda (e.g., roadmap, budget, benefits, resource plan). The days that companies spent a lot of time and energy on studies which were outdated soon after completing the study, should be far behind us.?
• Involve the right stakeholders. Leaving relevant stakeholders out might lead to missed opportunities or a “not invited by me” attitude during the actual transformation or already during decision processes linked to the agenda.
• Build on current strategy definitions – business, IT, and digital strategic thinking.
• Have the current situation and already identified relevant digital and other transformation initiatives as the starting point for the transformation roadmap.
• Communication and engagement of stakeholders throughout the definition of the agenda is key to get to acceptance of the results.
• Establish the right governance during the definition of the agenda and later on for the approved transformation activities.
• To ensure focus on priorities, link the transformation elements to business benefits.
• Be realistic on risks and have mitigations influence the study results. Avoid dream scenarios.
• Do not close the definition of the agenda without agreement on concrete next steps. The agenda is only as good as the results that the execution of the agenda will bring.

Critical success factors specific for the Digital & AI agenda

• Ensure focus by getting early on to an initial assessment of areas with potential, align this with executives and use their directions throughout the study. As the organization learns throughout the study, be flexible in adjustments of priorities during the study.
• Before assessing potential and defining the roadmap, ensure study participants have the same understanding of what the buzz words mean and how they can be used to create business value.
• Make the defined approach understandable for the stakeholders. Helpful is using business examples. Also helpful is a business evolution description linked to the key milestones in the transformation roadmap.
• Be realistic about organizational, process, people, and technology complexity of the transformation initiatives to not fall into “wishful thinking” messaging and planning.
• Roadmap of the company′s main digital tool providers should be a starting point for potential technology landscape evolution, which is a key technology deliverable of the agenda.
• If this is all new to you, consider involving the right external support. This could be an external lead and if required also digital and AI subject matter experts. Ensure the externals can also talk business language.

An approach to define or update the Digital & AI Agenda

The above learnings and more we have incorporated into the approach on how we, at Quality Transformation define Digital & AI agendas and the assessment and knowledge tools we use for that at our clients. This approach might give you some valuable ideas on how to structure your own study.

If you need support in any of this or have questions about this article, feel free to contact me (www.quality-transformation.com). Feel also free to contact me if you want to get some advice on (digital & AI enabled) transformation program setup and leading such programs.?