Artificial Intelligence Transformation: Strategic Roadmaps to Future-Proof Your Business

Introduction

Artificial Intelligence has taken the world by storm. It’s almost like the advent of the internet or cell phones. Before you can figure out the technology, it seems like every business has already integrated it somehow. It happens so quickly; you’re already playing catch-up. AI is transforming how companies function, making them smarter, leaner, faster, and more agile. It is automating low-thought and high-cost tasks and improving decisions and taking the next leap forward using the data you already have.

Here are four steps for you and your teams to work through in planning to harness the power of AI to stay competitive and get ahead. You can also check out the video below for a quick walkthrough of our process:

1. Identify Your Pain Points

Effective use of AI systems requires a defined problem or opportunity to start developing a functional solution. A business must understand this pain and prioritize it in their backlog. There are several areas in your business that might need addressing. Are there challenges with sales, growth, or client retention? Do you struggle with product or service delivery due to operational inefficiencies? What about innovation prioritization in research and development? Are your SGA and support functions slowing you down? Do your pain points touch all these functions like information connectivity? Is your pain related to growth, scaling, or just making things easier? Ensure you have a clear problem statement before you start investing in high-cost, specialized AI tools.

2. Understand Your Data Maturity

You need to understand how to select the right partners and systems based on your firm’s data pipeline maturity within the business processes that have the pain points. How do you quantify the problem statement and what data capture is required? Is your goal primarily to integrate AI tools with your current systems or to build internally managed data pipeline and modeling capabilities? What do the people, processes, and systems look like around the process with pain points? Here is a maturity scale for data pipeline capabilities and architecture:

• Level 0 Maturity: No data capture and system connectivity.
• Level 1 Maturity: Some data capture but siloed by system, creating manual work.
• Level 2 Maturity: Data is automatically captured and processed into a central data warehouse / data lake.
• Level 3 Maturity: Models and applications utilize captured data but model training and tuning processes are highly manual.
• Level 4 Maturity: Pipeline automatically connects data capture systems, models, applications, and end users with minimum necessary human involvement.

To narrow your focus to a starting area, think about what data you have but are not using. Any of the following data capture systems could be the raw material to begin solving problems and achieving your goals with AI:

• Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Systems: Integrate various business processes and functions into one comprehensive system.
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Systems: Manage a company's interactions with current and potential customers.
• Entitlements Systems: Manage access and permissions for users and customers.
• Property Management Systems: Manage real estate properties, including leasing, maintenance, and accounting.
• Maintenance Management Systems: Track and manage maintenance operations and workflows.
• Point of Sale (POS) Systems: Capture sales data at the time and place of transaction in retail and hospitality.
• Learning Management Systems (LMS): Manage and track learning activities and performance.
• Human Resource Management Systems (HRMS): Manage employee data, payroll, benefits, and performance evaluations.
• Supply Chain Management (SCM) Systems: Manage the flow of goods, information, and finances related to a product from procurement to delivery.
• Customer Service Management Systems: Manage customer interactions, support tickets, and service requests.
• Inventory Management Systems: Track inventory levels, orders, sales, and deliveries.
• Document Management Systems (DMS): Manage, store, and track electronic documents and images of paper documents.
• Warehouse Management Systems (WMS): Manage warehouse operations from the time goods enter a warehouse until they move out.
• Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES): Monitor, track, document, and control the manufacturing process.
• Environmental, Health, and Safety (EHS) Systems: Manage compliance with regulations, track incidents, and ensure a safe working environment.
• Business Intelligence (BI) Systems: Analyze data and present actionable information to help in decision-making.
• Financial Management Systems: Manage financial operations, including accounting, budgeting, and financial reporting.
• Marketing Automation Systems: Manage and automate marketing processes, including campaign management and lead generation.
• Quality Management Systems (QMS): Ensure products and services meet customer expectations and comply with regulations.
• Fleet Management Systems: Manage vehicle fleets and logistics operations.
• Clinical Management Systems (CMS): Manage patient information, treatment plans, and medical records.
• Energy Management Systems (EMS): Monitor, control, and optimize the performance of energy generation and transmission systems.
• Construction Management Systems: Manage construction projects, including planning, scheduling, resource allocation, and documentation.
• Field Service Management (FSM) Systems: Manage and optimize the activities performed by field-based workers.
• Visitor Management Systems (VMS): Track and manage visitors to a facility, enhancing security and compliance.

Now that you matched your pain points with how information flows through your business, you can paint a current state of your data pipeline maturity and start envisioning a future state.

3. Choose the Right AI Solutions

Understanding your data pipeline enables smarter tool selection and helps you avoid overpaying for systems your team may not yet be able to fully utilize. Like any other manufacturing process, the inputs and the outputs must be aligned, and the slowest step is the bottleneck. Think about it—you wouldn’t want to invest in sophisticated modeling software before building the infrastructure required for Level 2 or 3 maturity: otherwise, you’re running regular unleaded through a high-performance engine. There are cheaper and simpler solutions better suited to address your problems and get you to your future state. You might even be at level 3 maturity but lack the resources and knowledge for level 4 implementation of AI solutions. There are ways to leverage even the simplest solutions, like a protected version of ChatGPT, to address your pain. You need good recommendations on what to buy and who to spend money with before jumping into a solution. You wouldn’t just show up at any car dealership to buy a car without understanding the types of cars best suited for your family.

4. Have an Implementation Plan

Now that you understand the problem, the future state, and the AI tools needed to get there, you need an implementation plan ensuring you have the right resources in terms of people and capital. Your data may need to be organized, and you might have to recalibrate some of your business processes. Governance of this initiative needs to be established or integrated into your current governance framework. Performance and ROI need to be achieved, which sometimes requires project management. Execution is often where companies trip up. The big four consulting firms might present you with a comprehensive strategy deck, but without a clear execution plan, it can be overwhelming.

We'll cover these areas to ensure your plan gets off the ground successfully.

AI Transformation Roadmaps

Ultimately, you need all four elements to create a simple AI Transformation Roadmap that everyone can understand and support:

1. An understanding of your current pain points or opportunities.
2. An understanding of your current data capture maturity and future targets.
3. Recommendations for the types of AI solutions to achieve your goals.
4. A plan on how to implement the resources.

Get Started with Your AI Journey

Book a free 45-minute session today if you want to get started with your AI-fueled journey with the experts. Propellant Consulting has certified AI and Machine Learning experts who can quickly understand your business and build you a customized AI Transformation Roadmap.

Micro to midcap companies typically don’t have the resources or knowledge to create this plan, and as such, will either not use or misuse AI, falling behind their blue-chip competitors. The ones who learn how to best leverage AI will come out on top.

Don’t wait—contact me, Ronald Eggert , today to schedule your free 45-minute session. https://calendly.com/roneggert/ai-curious-workshop-no-charge

Use the link on our website to learn more https://propellantconsulting.com/ai-transformations

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