Future of Sourcing - intelligent automation https://futureofsourcing.com/tags/intelligent-automation en For Procurement Leaders, True Business Transformation Starts At Home https://futureofsourcing.com/for-procurement-leaders-true-business-transformation-starts-at-home <div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://futureofsourcing.com/sites/default/files/articles/Business%20Transformation%20%281%29.png"><a href="https://futureofsourcing.com/sites/default/files/articles/Business%20Transformation%20%281%29.png" title="To be effective, digital transformation must begin with open, honest, and scrupulous self-reflection of your digital readiness by running a maturity assessment of business processes." class="colorbox" rel="gallery-node-1850-KMiEWWLYeJ8"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://futureofsourcing.com/sites/default/files/styles/juicebox_medium/public/articles/Business%20Transformation%20%281%29.png?itok=0zZlclOZ" width="624" height="325" alt="To be effective, digital transformation must begin with open, honest, and scrupulous self-reflection of your digital readiness by running a maturity assessment of business processes." title="" /></a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-related-news field-type-entityreference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Related news:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/guide-your-artificial-intelligence-solution-with-a-proof-of-concept">Guide Your Artificial Intelligence Solution with a Proof of Concept</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p>Technology has advanced significantly since the days when procurement leaders were only managing RFIs and RFPs among their &ldquo;little black book&rdquo; of trusted suppliers. Today, big data and artificial intelligence now offer an expansive view of an entire supplier market and unprecedented access to vast wells of verified data. This advancement has opened the door to a new approach that can completely transform the strength of procurement decisions and enable procurement teams to impact a company&rsquo;s bottom line in new and sometimes unexpected ways.</p> <p>With help from powerful analytics tools, procurement is increasingly well-positioned to identify key market trends and opportunities for innovation that can facilitate tremendous business gains. Real-time visibility into the supply chain means data-driven decisions can drive remarkable efficiencies and overall improvements in terms of supplier relationships, cross-discipline collaboration, supply chain management, demand forecasting and overall strategy.</p> <p>The most sophisticated procurement organizations can even extend into new areas of impact&mdash;becoming masters of compliance, supply chain risk, scenario and contingency planning, and corporate sustainability.</p> <h1>Why Transformation Is Always Easier Said Than Done</h1> <p>For organizations that are just beginning (or have not yet begun) their digital transformation of procurement, adopting the solutions that enable enhanced functionality is rarely as straightforward as it may seem. <a href="https://www.sourcetoday.com/supply-chain/article/21867481/survey-says-procurement-is-braced-for-digital-transformation" target="_blank">One 2019 CPO Survey</a> found that while 84% of respondents considered digitization to be necessary to improving performance, only 15% of those respondents were taking advantage of tools like machine learning and prescriptive analytic solutions.</p> <p>Even worse, <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/topics/operations/chief-procurement-officer-cpo-survey/2019/digital-procurement-technologies-automation.html" target="_blank">another survey found</a> that far too many companies that have fully implemented digital technologies like supply chain management, contract management and sourcing, are currently dissatisfied with the results.</p> <p>That latter observation may be disappointing, but it&rsquo;s not unexpected. Indeed, unless designed and managed correctly, digital transformation efforts can easily cause just as many problems as they aim to solve. For procurement leaders, the key to success is ensuring that they ask the right questions about their organization and goals. Ideally, leaders would do this <em>before</em> they start evaluating potential solutions providers.</p> <p>Below, let&rsquo;s take a look at the essential analysis and considerations that every procurement team should be looking at before they embark upon a digital transformation journey.</p> <p align="center"><em><a href="http://info.sig.org/digital-disruption-in-sourcing-and-procurement" target="_blank">&gt;&gt; Digital Disruption in Sourcing and Procurement with Intelligent Automation&lt;&lt;</a></em></p> <h1>The First Rule of Digital Transformation: Know Thyself</h1> <p>Far too often, procurement leaders dive headfirst into the search for new solutions and partners without first taking the time to conduct a rigorous evaluation of their needs. Instead of looking at digitization as an agent of meaningful transformation, some leaders can view it more like the proverbial band-aid&mdash;a quick fix that they hope will repair, or at least disguise, a dysfunctional or underperforming function.</p> <p>To be effective, digital transformation must begin with open, honest, and scrupulous self-reflection of your digital readiness by running a maturity assessment of business processes. The better you understand the current state of your organization, the more successful your digital transformation will be. That means:</p> <p><strong><em>1. Understand your scope.</em></strong> Exactly which of your existing processes do you wish to recreate with new technology solutions? Which ancillary functions will be affected by this shift? It may seem like an obvious question, but a clear understanding of project scope will help to minimize spend and make rollout more efficient.</p> <p>After all, a solution can only ever be as good as the vendor&rsquo;s understanding of the processes they are working to replace. You should also establish a project council consisting of relevant stakeholders who must approve of any changes. This group can help manage scope creep, which is costly and can derail the entire effort.</p> <p><strong><em>2. Consider processes end to end.</em></strong> In order to transform a process, you need to precisely understand its gaps. This assessment must also extend to the data behind the relevant procedures. Much of the procurement digitization today is concerned with only baseline functions, and procurement leaders should instead ask what parts are missing from their digital process landscape.</p> <p>For example, scouting for new suppliers is often manual, but byemploying Artificial Intelligence it can be transformed and have a comprehensive, deeper impact.</p> <p><strong><em>3. Determine your functional requirements.</em></strong> Long before your team begins vendor conversations, you should be sure to settle on clear applicable requirements for your project &mdash; whether they take the form of a detailed brief or merely a list of specifications. While selecting these, be sure to note which are must-haves versus nice-to-haves to avoid any bad selling. This will enable you to better communicate your expectations and priorities once partner discussions begin so that you can find a solution for your exact needs - without costly and time-consuming customization.</p> <p><strong><em>4. Establish workflows and approvals.</em></strong> Define any interactions that a new solution will need to trigger in a downstream system (e.g., purchase order or demand creation). Also, be sure to prepare any standard formats that you work with, such as your category or capability hierarchy, as well as any accounting systems the solution may need to integrate with or even replace.</p> <p>Here, a RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) matrix can be quite helpful. This area can represent a significant area of opportunity - the project of deciding which workflows and approvals must be in place invites you to revisit and simplify key processes and accompanying calculations. For example, those related to material costs versus process costs.</p> <p><strong><em>5. Be ambitious</em></strong>. While a classic fit-gap analysis is one option, progressive procurement teams think ahead to what could be revolutionized - what pieces of the puzzle are not yet solved. Many believe, for best results, one must achieve a mix of low-risk and high-risk/high-impact missions. In all cases, ensure you move your organization into experimentation mode and identify cross-functional ambassadors to establish an internal digitalization or innovation lab.</p> <h1>A Promising Start to Your Journey</h1> <p>&nbsp;Conducting the assessments and analysis outlined above will indeed require patience and coordinated efforts on the part of your organization. To be effective, this work should be approached methodically, and procurement leaders must be prepared to shift strategy if they discover that their organization&rsquo;s needs are somehow different from initial expectations.</p> <p>However, those who cover all these bases from the outset will be rewarded greatly with a much quicker, impactful and significantly less expensive start to their digital transformation journey. Given the number of organizations that have needed to reboot their approach, it is clear that the right upfront preparation and right partnership choices can lead to game-changing impacts for procurement.</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/technology" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Technology</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/digital-transformation" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Digital Transformation</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/procurement" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Procurement</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/intelligent-automation" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">intelligent automation</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/sourcing" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Sourcing</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-addthis field-type-addthis field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style " addthis:title="For Procurement Leaders, True Business Transformation Starts At Home - Future of Sourcing" addthis:url="https://futureofsourcing.com/for-procurement-leaders-true-business-transformation-starts-at-home"><a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_facebook"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_twitter"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_googleplus"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_pinterest_share"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_reddit"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_email"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_print"></a> </div> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-region field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Region:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/regions/global" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Global</a></div></div></div> Thu, 10 Sep 2020 22:26:54 +0000 Gregor Stühler 1850 at https://futureofsourcing.com https://futureofsourcing.com/for-procurement-leaders-true-business-transformation-starts-at-home#comments How Automation Helps BPO Providers Thrive in All Business Climates https://futureofsourcing.com/how-automation-helps-bpo-providers-thrive-in-all-business-climates <div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://futureofsourcing.com/sites/default/files/articles/Business%20process%20outsourcing%20%281%29.png"><a href="https://futureofsourcing.com/sites/default/files/articles/Business%20process%20outsourcing%20%281%29.png" title="When turning to automation, it’s essential for BPOs to evaluate their goals so they can select the right technology to accomplish them." class="colorbox" rel="gallery-node-1844-KMiEWWLYeJ8"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://futureofsourcing.com/sites/default/files/styles/juicebox_medium/public/articles/Business%20process%20outsourcing%20%281%29.png?itok=_88i_mnD" width="624" height="325" alt="When turning to automation, it’s essential for BPOs to evaluate their goals so they can select the right technology to accomplish them." title="" /></a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-related-news field-type-entityreference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Related news:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/mitigating-new-outsourcing-service-provider-challenges-during-covid-19">Mitigating New Outsourcing Service Provider Challenges During COVID-19</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p>Business process outsourcing saves companies significant time and money, enabling them to focus on their core business activities. And nowhere is this more impactful than in the document processing arena. Billions of pages of documents move between companies, their partners/suppliers and customers each year.</p> <p>For example, as of 2019, organizations around the world receive <a href="https://www.billentis.com/The_einvoicing_journey_2019-2025.pdf" target="_blank">550 billion invoices annually</a>, which need to be processed and have data extracted and entered in the correct system of record for further processing.&nbsp;</p> <p>Traditionally, organizations have relied on a combination of outdated, legacy technology and manual data entry to extract and key the information by hand. This process is slow, expensive and error-prone, and it has cost organizations over $60 billion each year. Beyond that, it impacts the entire customer lifecycle. Inefficiencies in back-office operations can cause a data- and decision-making bottleneck that makes it challenging to respond to client needs in a timely fashion.</p> <p>For these reasons, business process outsourcing (BPO) has been an attractive solution for many companies. Yet, if outsource providers use the same manual processes or legacy systems as companies do, they are faced with the same problems, which &nbsp;gets compounded in today&rsquo;s business environment.</p> <p>Unexpected times of crisis, such as the current global pandemic, have upended current operating models, causing a large portion of the workforce &ndash; including data entry staff and knowledge workers &ndash; to shift to remote work. With manual document processing stretched to the limit and remote work enduring for the foreseeable future, there is an accelerated push for digital transformation across virtually every industry, including business process outsourcing.</p> <h1>Unexpected and Unprecedented Challenges</h1> <p>It has become clear during the pandemic that our current system for outsourcing business processes is <a href="https://www.cbi.eu/news/outsourcing-greatly-affected-more-relevant-after-covid-19/" target="_blank">vulnerable</a>. BPOs, along with organizations everywhere, have been dealing with the effects of work-from-home protocols, including the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/04/29/best-wifi-fix/" target="_blank">well-documented technological struggles</a> people experienced in trying to get enough Internet bandwidth to support processing from home.</p> <p>According to a <a href="https://asana.com/press/releases/pr/asana-anatomy-of-work-remote-teams-survey-reveals-two-thirds-of-global-employees-embracing-collaboration-tools/34843f90-7760-49cd-9d1b-fdb305a8f4b1" target="_blank">poll conducted by Asana</a>, more than half of knowledge workers did not have a dedicated desk, laptop or reliable Internet connection to easily make the shift to remote work. And that was just in the U.S. Countries like <a href="https://www.ciodive.com/news/coronavirus-IT-outsourcing-BPM-India/576783/" target="_blank">India</a> or the <a href="https://oxfordbusinessgroup.com/news/what-does-covid-19-outbreak-mean-philippines-bpo-industry" target="_blank">Philippines, where many outsourcing services</a> for Fortune 500 companies are located, have been facing steep technology challenges and bandwidth limitations.</p> <p>At the same time, BPOs have struggled to find a solution for protecting sensitive customer information when data is being processed remotely, especially since many companies have contracts that prohibit sensitive customer information from being processed on personal computers. This has hindered the ability to fully support customer requests during a quarantine.</p> <h1>Business Demands Require Flexible, Intelligent Solutions</h1> <p>As the world continues to shift, BPOs increasingly need to turn to intelligent automation &ndash; as well as business preparedness and continuity plans &ndash; to overcome these challenges. Forward-thinking BPO providers that had already invested in <a href="https://www.ciodive.com/news/coronavirus-IT-outsourcing-BPM-India/576783/" target="_blank">emerging technologies</a> were able to establish the necessary infrastructure to support remote work, keep operations running and reduce disruption to customers.</p> <p>Based on market need, document processing and data entry is a crucial priority for BPO automation, and it can benefit from advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies &ndash; today and into the future. Some companies are turning to Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to automate manual work, but its value is limited to rules-based processes that have structured data inputs.</p> <p>While this works well for simple tasks, such as copying data from a spreadsheet or dragging and dropping files into a folder, it is not suited for processing more complex tasks and data inputs. This includes the diverse, unstructured data typically found in handwritten forms, electronically-generated PDFs, images and other documents. ML can address this need through continuous learning capabilities that enable the solution to improve based on the data that it receives.</p> <h1>How Technology Streamlines the BPO Process</h1> <p>When turning to automation, it&rsquo;s essential for BPOs to evaluate their goals so they can select the right technology to accomplish them. Whether that&rsquo;s handling a greater volume of documents with the same resources, speeding up processing time, increasing accuracy or all three, the evaluation stage is crucial.</p> <p>In addition, make sure the solution can easily be integrated with other systems, has the flexibility and scalability to adapt to future requirements, and stringent security capabilities to keep personal data secure.</p> <p>While technology is a vital part of the solution, it&rsquo;s also important to figure out how people fit into the process. Automated solutions can process documents faster, but humans are often needed to provide additional context to resolve edge cases or other hard-to-read data. They should play a supervisory role to ensure the system is performing against goals.</p> <p>The next months will be critical for many organizations as they regroup, address upcoming challenges and prepare for the future.&nbsp;The agility offered by automation can help bridge processing gaps, mitigate risks and help customers get the assistance they need.</p> <p>By turning to intelligent automation, outsource providers can process documents with a high degree of accuracy and speed, resulting in increased efficiencies and cost savings. This pivot provides a critical competitive advantage in all business climates.</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/business-process-outsourcing" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Business process outsourcing</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/outsourcing" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Outsourcing</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/intelligent-automation" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">intelligent automation</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/cost-savings" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Cost Savings</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-addthis field-type-addthis field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style " addthis:title="How Automation Helps BPO Providers Thrive in All Business Climates - Future of Sourcing" addthis:url="https://futureofsourcing.com/how-automation-helps-bpo-providers-thrive-in-all-business-climates"><a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_facebook"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_twitter"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_googleplus"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_pinterest_share"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_reddit"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_email"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_print"></a> </div> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-region field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Region:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/regions/global" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Global</a></div></div></div> Fri, 04 Sep 2020 18:38:47 +0000 Charlie Newark-French 1844 at https://futureofsourcing.com https://futureofsourcing.com/how-automation-helps-bpo-providers-thrive-in-all-business-climates#comments Guide Your Artificial Intelligence Solution with a Proof of Concept https://futureofsourcing.com/guide-your-artificial-intelligence-solution-with-a-proof-of-concept <div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://futureofsourcing.com/sites/default/files/articles/Artificial%20Intelligence%20Proof%20of%20Concept.png"><a href="https://futureofsourcing.com/sites/default/files/articles/Artificial%20Intelligence%20Proof%20of%20Concept.png" title="To reap the benefits of AI, piloting a Proof of Concept (known as a PoC) is a logical first step to building your own AI models or solutions." class="colorbox" rel="gallery-node-1824-KMiEWWLYeJ8"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://futureofsourcing.com/sites/default/files/styles/juicebox_medium/public/articles/Artificial%20Intelligence%20Proof%20of%20Concept.png?itok=0P6eH4Lt" width="624" height="325" alt="To reap the benefits of AI, piloting a Proof of Concept (known as a PoC) is a logical first step to building your own AI models or solutions." title="" /></a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-related-news field-type-entityreference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Related news:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/digital-agility-begins-with-automation">Digital agility begins with automation</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p>Historically, for organizations looking to improve their top or bottom line and gain competitive advantage, leveraging technology has always been considered. As we enter the next industrial revolution, Artificial Intelligence (AI) in our future is no exception. The interest and benefits of AI increase significantly across all industries and functions. The rewards continue to be meaningful for any organization looking to gain productivity and competitive advantage using AI.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <h1>Getting Started&nbsp;&nbsp;</h1> <p>To reap the benefits of AI, piloting a Proof of Concept (known as a PoC)&nbsp;is a logical first step&nbsp;to build your own AI models or solutions.</p> <p>PoCs are working solutions that can be evaluated and tested with a definite success criterion, from understanding requirements to delivering success. PoCs are useful to measure the rewards and challenges that can help better prepare the organization. AI help decision-makers gain immediate benefits such as skills and experience, the ability to identify and resolve potential data bottlenecks, an understanding of AI&rsquo;s positive impacts and increased stakeholder trust.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <h1>Identify the Opportunity</h1> <p>In planning or piloting an AI PoC, you first need to identify an opportunity. From the beginning, you&nbsp;must be clear with what you want to achieve with AI, why it matters for your organization and how confident you are that it can deliver. You should also assess how AI can make a difference in your business. You may need to be prepared to reimagine your existing processes and ensure that resources are skilled-up to reap the most benefits possible.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <h1>Market Pulse&nbsp;</h1> <p>Next, you will want to understand what others in your industry are doing with AI, in what areas they are considering it,&nbsp;and what successes or challenges they have faced. I recommend speaking to your supplier partners to better understand their roadmap and how it may fit your needs.</p> <p>Supplier partners &nbsp;are excellent sources for&nbsp; insights into where AI can benefit the business. Suppliers can even help you prepare a business case and understand market dynamics. This homework will help identify areas within your organization where AI can add value and help solve business problems.</p> <h1>Build vs. Buy&nbsp;</h1> <p>Now you want to consider whether to build a solution or buy It. Depending on the use case you identified above, it will be easy to decipher which direction to take. Here are three key reasons why it makes sense to consider building an AI solution:</p> <ol> <li>You want to create your intellectual property through algorithm creation.</li> <li>You are investing in data science, AI and engineering teams, specifically to productize the outcome of your project.</li> <li>You need to create a proprietary platform with dedicated teams that can perform maintenance, management and upkeep.</li> </ol> <p>If these are not your intended outcomes or plan of investment, your best course of action is to buy a pre-built solution. You can easily leverage a packaged solution&nbsp;in which the supplier has already made these investments to address similar use cases. In this &quot;buy&quot; scenario, a PoC would be overkill. What becomes more important is your willingness to change your existing processes to accommodate the AI-driven solution.</p> <p>For buying a packaged solution, you can simply try it and see if it solves your use case. When you purchase a pre-built solution, you leverage market-relevant data to improve your capabilities. So, your efforts should center on whether the solution fits your use case and enhances your current method of operations.</p> <p>Regardless, you will need to determine if it will work with your existing team and the experience available in-house, or whether you need to bring in experts who can bridge the skills gap.</p> <p align="center"><em><a href="http://info.sig.org/digital-disruption-in-sourcing-and-procurement" target="_blank">&gt;&gt; Intelligent Automation: Must-have skill for tomorrow&#39;s procurement professionals. &lt;&lt;</a></em></p> <h1>Prepare Your Pitch</h1> <p>Let&#39;s assume you have identified areas in which AI can benefit your company, function, business problems or processes. Now you can pressure test this to reveal gaps in your planning or understanding as part of your pitch. Anyone you will bring onboard will want to know answers to these questions:</p> <ul> <li>What is the problem we are looking to solve?</li> <li>What are the specific requirements, what will we need and how difficult will it be for us?</li> <li>How will we measure success?&nbsp;</li> <li>Have we considered other methods to deal with this problem before choosing AI?</li> <li>Is there sufficient executive buy-in?</li> <li>Have we lined up the right resources to make this happen?&nbsp;</li> <li>Are the data sources we need accessible without technological and other impediments?</li> <li>Is the impact it will make in our business significant enough to deserve the effort?</li> <li>Is the team on the ground set up with the right timeframe, skills and motivation?</li> <li>Following a successful PoC, will there be funding available to continue or scale up the solution?&nbsp;</li> <li>Have we included our operational IT department and are you both collaborating actively?</li> <li>Have we identified the &quot;domain experts&quot; to ensure they have the bandwidth available to focus on the project?</li> <li>Have we committed to making process changes necessary to reap most benefits from AI?</li> </ul> <h1>Anticipate the Unexpected</h1> <p>You must remember that AI technology has its challenges, too. Success and failure are not far apart, so it&rsquo;s important to remind stakeholders that there will be obstacles and unexpected challenges.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p>Prepare yourself with a game plan:</p> <ol> <li>AI cannot replace every task.</li> <li>Investments will be necessary to reimagine processes and upskill talent.</li> <li>Software malfunctions can occur, so itmust be planned for.</li> <li>Keep expectations realistic about what AI can and cannot do.</li> </ol> <p>There is a belief that AI is magic and can do any job, no matter how small or large. It&rsquo;s important to remind everyone on the AI journey that it will increase productivity by taking over a tedious task from humans, resulting in performance and efficiency gains.</p> <h1>Plan for the Unexpected</h1> <p>Since the investment required for AI is high, not all businesses have the resources to know where to look or how it can be most beneficial. Assuming that you have a well laid-out business case, remind everyone that large portions of the investments are in reimagining the processes, data accessibility, creating and training the models, testing the algorithms and accessing talent.</p> <p>When building an AI-driven solution, since there are built-in algorithms, it is harder to blame a human when things go wrong. To ensure this doesn&#39;t affect your business, have well-defined back-up and business continuity plans.</p> <p>Also, it&rsquo;s important to manage expectations about AI because not everyone understands how it works. Some will see it as a tool for adding to their existing processes to claim transformation. Others will do it because it&rsquo;s the latest trend, so they will think about things that are not even possible with AI. While the experts are confident that AI will rule the next era, the fact is that it is still in its initial phase.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <h1>AI and Data Governance</h1> <p>AI learns what it is taught, so if you don&rsquo;t invest in appropriate training to match expectations, there will be a disappointment in its benefits.&nbsp;</p> <p>An often-missed aspect of AI is the governance process, regardless of whether it&#39;s for your own AI solution or a purchased solution. If done right, this process should help identify and remove biases so that an AI-driven process doesn&#39;t amplify biases and can act as checks and balances.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p>Governance can improve collaboration to simplify the end-to-end process, provide quicker decision-making and enhance the end-user experience. The difference for those who reap substantial benefits is they plan a process with AI in mind instead of adding AI as a tool in their existing operations or process.</p> <p>As a result, the leaders driving the change will need to have a practical mindset, the vision to improve the status quo, embrace a teamwork-based success approach, and be committed to resource availability, updating processes and investments necessary.</p> <h1>Gain Organizational Support</h1> <p>To successfully implement AI, organizational support is critical. When you consider that most people can&#39;t even tell when they are dealing with AI, this task automatically becomes harder. For this reason, it&#39;s good to start small. Larger AI projects take longer to show results, so be clear about the goals, benefits and how you plan to measure success.</p> <p>Once you define your project in terms of goals rather than the technology you&#39;ll use, it will be easier to bring people on board. When presenting your AI project, keep your organization&#39;s culture and the tech know-how of your colleagues in mind.</p> <p>Work closely within the organization to ensure that your colleagues retain their current status and responsibilities. If need be, educate to help overcome the fear of technology to ease individual concerns. Fear of job loss and change are the key reasons people have difficulty embracing AI and often this includes the highest of functional executives.&nbsp;</p> <h1>Secure Buy-In</h1> <p>If the CEO is all-in but the lieutenants are fearful of AI, they will resist for as long as possible. If the CEO and their lieutenants are all-in, the next step is to put the &quot;domain experts&quot; or &quot;practitioners&quot; in the driving seat.</p> <p>The domain experts will be your most valuable team players. They are instrumental in successfully executing an AI project because they can translate how AI fits in the business process flow and spot what may need to change.</p> <p>Domain experts can better identify the pitfalls, train AI and be a direct beneficiary of productivity gains. They will be excited about using AI to reduce transactional processes with mundane administrative tasks that have over-burgeoned them and their teams.</p> <p>I recommend including everyone to develop a cadence for communications. An AI project done in isolation with a small team will struggle to get buy-in moreseo than a project with shared ownership from a larger group of constituents. So, make it accessible to as many people as possible. The collaboration will help with buy-in for present and future projects. Partnering with open-minded individuals who can see the possibilities will help navigate you through difficulties as they arise.</p> <p>I hope this will help anyone considering AI to reimagine and pivot. Enjoy your exciting journey to benefitting from AI!</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/artificial-intelligence-ai" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Artificial Intelligence (AI)</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/proof-of-concept" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">proof of concept</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/data-science" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">data science</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/intelligent-automation" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">intelligent automation</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-addthis field-type-addthis field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style " addthis:title="Guide Your Artificial Intelligence Solution with a Proof of Concept - Future of Sourcing" addthis:url="https://futureofsourcing.com/guide-your-artificial-intelligence-solution-with-a-proof-of-concept"><a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_facebook"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_twitter"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_googleplus"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_pinterest_share"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_reddit"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_email"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_print"></a> </div> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-region field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Region:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/regions/global" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Global</a></div></div></div> Wed, 05 Aug 2020 15:58:17 +0000 Purvee Kondal 1824 at https://futureofsourcing.com https://futureofsourcing.com/guide-your-artificial-intelligence-solution-with-a-proof-of-concept#comments