Unlocking the Transformative Potential of Generative AI: Roadmap for Business

This blog is the second part of a seven-part series – read the first part here !??

Will My Business Be Affected by Generative AI??

Generative AI has the potential to revolutionise all industries, regardless of their nature or size. By understanding and embracing generative AI, businesses can unlock its transformative potential to improve customer experience management, optimise operations, enhance business support functions and drive innovation to build competitive advantage. Every CEO is faced with many proposals in each of these areas and the question is what to prioritize and where to start? Sounds overwhelming to get started? Don’t worry – here’s a roadmap to prepare!??

Think Big and Start Small?

In the previous article , we introduced PwC’s Analytics & AI Transformation Framework, which can also be applied to the implementation of GenAI. In this article, we will deep-dive into the first part of the framework – Business Decisions & Analytics.?

PwC's Analytics & AI Transformation Framework ?

Generative AI has the potential to scale quickly, so it is best to think big and consider the business benefits. However, it is not necessary to deploy GenAI everywhere at once. Start with a few selected capabilities and build a framework that can replicate and scale these capabilities efficiently in four steps:?

1: Align Strategy?

2: Ideate Potential Use Cases?

3: Evaluate and Prioritise Use Cases?

4: Deploy and Scale Pilot Use Cases?

Step 1: Align Strategy?

Aligning your GenAI strategy with your corporate, business unit, and IT strategies is crucial for the successful implementation and integration of GenAI in your business. By aligning these strategies, it ensures that your GenAI initiatives are in line with the long-term vision and direction of your organisation, as well as the specific goals and objectives of each business unit. It helps in identifying the areas where generative AI can have the most impact and drive value creation.?

Furthermore, aligning generative AI strategy with IT strategy ensures that the AI initiatives are supported by the necessary technological infrastructure and capabilities. This alignment helps in ensuring the availability of the required data, computing power, and IT systems to effectively implement and scale generative AI solutions, and the seamless integration into existing business processes. It maximises the potential value and impact of generative AI in business.?

Step 2: Ideate Potential Use Cases?

To ideate potential use cases of GenAI in your own business and identify areas where it can be applied:?

• Collaborate within your organisation: Encourage brainstorming sessions and foster collaboration amongst different departments and teams within your organisation. By combining these efforts, you can gather diverse ideas and perspectives, exploring different possibilities and identifying use cases that span across various functions and areas of your business.?
• Identify client needs: Identify the needs and pain points of your customers or end-users. Consider how generative AI can address these needs and provide value-added solutions. This can help identifying use cases that have a direct impact on improving customer experience or solving specific business problems.?
• Deep-dive into the market: Conduct research on industry-specific applications of Generative AI. Explore case studies and reports to understand how other businesses in your industry are leveraging Generative AI, and identify potential use cases that align with your business goals.?

Step 3: Evaluate and Prioritise Use Cases?

Source: https://www.pwc.com/ca/en/todays-issues/generative-ai/generative-ai-and-canadian-businesses-en.pdf ?

For the quick implementation and ROI maximisation of Generative AI in your business, it is imperative to think about an efficient approach to deploy all the potential use cases found in the previous step and allocate resources accordingly. To determine what to focus on, define the assessment criteria, and identify the use cases with high business value and high feasibility.?

The criteria can vary depending on the specific context and objectives of your business. Here are some practical examples of assessment criteria that can be used to evaluate the business value of use cases:?

• Revenue potential: Assess the potential impact on revenue generation. Consider factors such as increased sales, new revenue streams, or improved pricing strategies.?
• Cost reduction: Evaluate how it can contribute to cost savings or efficiency improvements. It can include reducing operational costs, optimising resource allocation, or automating manual processes.?
• Customer experience: Determine how it can enhance the overall customer experience. It can involve improving customer satisfaction, personalising interactions, or providing real-time support.?
• Competitive advantage: Assess how it can provide a competitive edge in the market. Consider whether it can differentiate your business from competitors, create barriers to entry, or enable unique value propositions.?
• Innovation potential: Evaluate the potential to drive innovation within your industry or organisation. Consider whether it can lead to new products or services, disruptive business models, or novel approaches to problem-solving.?
• IP (Intellectual Property) monetisation: Assess the potential to generate intellectual property that can be monetized. It can be the generative AI model your business developed, for instance.?
• Time to market: Evaluate how quickly it can be implemented and start delivering value. Consider the time required for development, testing, and deployment, and the potential for early market entry.?
• Scalability: Assess the scalability of the use case, and its potential to be expanded or replicated across different business units, markets, and customer segments.?
• Risk mitigation: Evaluate how it can help mitigate risks or improve risk management. It can include reducing compliance risks, enhancing cybersecurity measures, or improving decision-making accuracy.?
• ESG: Consider factors such as environmental impact, social impact, governance alignment, and stakeholder engagement. It can contribute to the early achievement of your organisation's ESG goals and commitments.?

The evaluation criteria of the feasibility of use cases can include:?

• Data availability and quality: Assess the quality, quantity, and accessibility of the data needed to train and deploy the generative AI model for the use case. Consider factors such as data completeness, accuracy, and privacy compliance.?
• Technical readiness: Assess the technical requirements and capabilities needed to implement the use case. Consider factors such as data availability, infrastructure requirements, and compatibility with existing systems.?
• Risk profile: Evaluate the potential risks and challenges associated with implementing the use case. Consider factors such as technical risks, operational risks, and potential impact on business operations.?

While these examples can be used as a starting point, it is important to customize them based on the specific business context and priorities.?

Step 4: Deploy and Scale Pilot Use Cases?

Once you prioritise which use case to pursue, the next step is to deploy pilot use cases and iterate the short-term implement process:?

• Deploy and monitor: Deploy the generative AI models in a controlled environment as a pilot. Monitor their performance and gather feedback from users and stakeholders. Continuously track and analyse the results to assess the impact and effectiveness of the pilot use cases.?
• Iterate and refine: Based on the feedback and insights gathered during the pilot phase, iterate and refine the generative AI models, data inputs, and deployment processes. Make any necessary improvements to optimise their performance and efficiency.?
• Evaluate pilot results: Evaluate the outcomes of the pilot use cases against the evaluation metrics defined in Step 3. Assess the business value, feasibility, and scalability of each pilot use case.?

By implementing successful pilot use cases on a larger scale and executing advanced use cases, it can achieve significant improvements in efficiency, customer experience, and insights generation. As the use cases are applied across broader areas of your business, it can streamline operations, reduce manual effort, and accelerate decision-making.?

Leap into the Future: Maximise Your Business Potential with Generative AI?

To maximise GenAI value, start small but quickly. Focus on selected capabilities while building a framework for replication and scalability.??

Aligning generative AI strategy with corporate, business unit, and IT strategies is crucial for successful implementation. Businesses can achieve significant improvements in efficiency, customer experience, and decision-making by identifying potential use cases, prioritszing them based on various criteria, and deploying pilot use cases. In the upcoming articles, it will dive into the other dimensions of PwC’s Analytics & AI Transformation Framework – stay tuned and leave your comments for a discussion!?

This blog is the second part of a seven-part series – read the first part here !??

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