In today's digital age, where data is generated at unprecedented rates, companies constantly seek innovative tools to hone their operations, make insightful decisions, and outpace competitors. The appeal of AI has rushed many to integrate it into their solutions.
Yet, designing software algorithms to search through colossal data amounts is far from straightforward. It demands specialized know-how. Experience indicates that implementation without a robust structure pushes companies into problematic scenarios:
In the digital era, companies embrace AI to improve operations and decision-making amid vast data generation. However, designing effective algorithms requires expertise, as hasty implementation without a solid structure can lead to problems.
Companies, eager yet uninformed about AI, dive headfirst. Their enthusiasm often blinds them, prompting hasty integration of intelligent solutions without considering the overall impact on processes or the intricate IT eco-system.
Some firms, on the other hand, view AI as the holy grail for complex challenges. They work towards a 'big bang', embarking on prolonged, costly projects with a misguided focus on over analyzing instead of usability and adaptability.
Sidestepping these pitfalls requires a harmonized approach to intelligence and application/process facets. Identifying the most realistic solution is difficult. Therefore, business process experts and internal or external technical experts need to be brought together.
The solutions that deliver the most growth and efficiency are mostly not the most complex, so they can be integrated quickly and changed easily as processes change to provide value. So, what constitutes the blueprint for these intelligent tools?
Undoubtedly, 'intelligence' refines processes and decision-making. From chatbots leveraging Large Language Models to algorithms demystifying unstructured data, today's tools, user-centric and accessible, sometimes paint a deceptively simple picture.
To ensure you are using tools that are secure and meet your company's needs, you start with analyzing your processes and identifying the tasks that consume the most time and cause frustration among your employees. Once you have identified these, you can start looking for specific (external) technology experts to help you solve these problems. Trust these experts to do what they do best and help them develop the smart service that meets your needs and your budget. These initial initiatives will inspire people to think ahead and open new use cases and look across silo’s.
The spread of scattered applications within your IT landscapes is increasing as business users resort to different systems to complete a single process. With a multitude of tools available, different teams often opt for different solutions and even complete their activity with shadow software if no solutions is provided by the company. However, simply implementing another isolated tool won’t enhance employee satisfaction or improve the user experience. What's essential is to design applications that seamlessly guide users through the entire process, providing them with all the available information. The most important part of this is "throughout the process." These processes are often specific and require personalized interface to be developed.
But how do you deploy and customize these applications with constant business changes and limited resources for development? We should re-envision application delivery's speed and flexibility.
Acceleration can be achieved by using no-code and low-code solutions, facilitating rapid prototyping, development, and deployment. Also, embracing modular designs and composable architecture to enhance flexibility, granting easy integration, scalability and embedding of intelligent services.
By immediately creating a visual MVP (Minimum Viable Product) with the business and IT through a What-you-see-is-what-you-get principle, you can effectively translate and bridge the gap between the business and IT so the application can be tailored instantly to meet the user’s needs from the start. No need for design tools or additional solutions to conceive, evaluate and validate the solution developed. This type of software is readily available for collaboration with all stakeholders to create a fully functional application adapted to the user’s needs and business value from the start.
Crafting intelligent solutions is complex. The challenge lies not just in the creation but in deriving the desired value promptly. My advice? Familiarize your teams with accessible AI tools, brainstorm potential integrations, and then structure a framework that's robust, secure, and intuitive. Considering the sophisticated nature, it may be a good idea to delegate the responsibilities between two teams—one for your current application landscape and its potential integrations -- and in parallel – another team focused on the available intelligent services that might be valuable for your business.
The key is then to have them get together periodically and challenge themselves on the most valuable use cases to be explored which should be tackled by the broader team.
