The quest for AI-driven gains will demand major business transformations

Companies using artificial intelligence (AI) to realise operational and commercial benefits will have learned that – regardless of the use case – data is at the heart of any success.

But as more and more companies look to AI for efficiency gains and incremental revenue, it is becoming clearer that data (in terms of quality, availability and indeed governance) is not the only critical component. Equally important are the maturity and capability of core IT systems and an understanding of the key business processes within an organisation. 

Many organisations have a complex landscape of legacy IT systems with distributed data stores. Previous tactical decisions made to support business growth and to seize specific opportunities may now hinder, rather than facilitate, an organisation’s ability to gain value from AI.

Pressure to deliver value from AI will force companies to look at things with a new perspective. Storing all data in a single data warehouse supports accurate and complete reporting, but may not be sufficiently timely for AI use cases with a need for real-time access to data, and for different data sources to be available without delay and in a synchronised manner.

Similarly, introducing the ability to optimise pricing, or identify appropriate ‘next best offer’ and ‘next best action’ for a particular customer at a particular point in time is only of real value if the relevant IT systems have the maturity and capability to respond and implement recommendations at the same speed.

As companies identify opportunities to deploy AI, there will be an increasing urgency to address the need to transform their data, IT systems and core business processes. In many cases, this will mean urgent programmes to replace or upgrade systems and to analyse, clean and migrate data assets and the systems within which they are managed.

The increased pressure to deliver as an enabler for AI means that it is even more important to scope, set up and run these programmes correctly. Companies will need to select partners that can be relied upon to bring a detailed knowledge of IT change and expertise in data, as well as an understanding of core business processes.