3 ways how leaders can adapt to the changing landscape by AI

Today, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is everywhere. It is breaking boundaries and pushing the limits across every industry. It is changing the world around us and significantly impacting our professional lives.

AI is drastically transforming business functions — manufacturing, logistics, finance, operations, customer support, etc. — and is opening doors for new jobs. It is also broadly reforming all business stakeholders’ job roles — including frontline executives, C-suite executives, vendors, suppliers, distributors, and customers.

When technology has such massive potential, how can companies remain oblivious to it?

We are going through the Industrial Revolution 4.0 that will transform the way we work forever. Many scientists and business gurus predict that this revolution will have a more significant impact than the internet revolution of the ’90s.

If you look closely, then you will realize that what they say is true. The following points illustrate the differences in a tabular form.

Internet Revolution	AI Revolution
1. Encouraged human-to-human collaboration.	1. Is encouraging machine-to-human collaboration
2. Video conferencing, emails, and social media are the three best examples of the Internet revolution.	2. Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Mixed Reality (MR) will revolutionize human-to-human collaboration forever.
3. Allows managers to send and receive timely notifications and alerts.	3. Allows managers to analyze reports and enables them to base their strategies on data.
4. Allows managers to allot tasks to their team members.	4. Allows managers to monitor the performance of their employees and provide corrective action.
5. Allows the support team to provide help to customers via phone, email, and call.	5. Allows the support team to install chatbots that gather essential customer information and provide answers to trivial questions.
6. Allows employees to work from remote workstations and serve customers from geographically distant places.	6. Allows the company to install Robotic Process Automation (RPA) that performs functions quickly without human intervention.
7. Gave rise to new jobs such as data entry, form filling, payroll management, etc.	7. Is automatizing trivial jobs. AI is thousand times efficient and a million times faster than humans. It also eliminates human errors.
8. Collates business-centric information in a single repository and provides access to all business stakeholders.	8. Not only collates information but also finds out patterns, structures, and errors in data.

The above table lists 8 reasons for how AI is transforming businesses globally. AI will find more applications in the coming times, and leaders need to be ready to welcome them.

Let’s look at 3 ways how leaders can adapt to the changing landscape by AI:

1. Jobs are transforming at a fast pace

Every business has to comply with government regulations and has to keep the customer’s interest in mind. This gives rise to specific trivial jobs that eat up the employees’ time, such as form filling, collecting customer data, creating reports, data entry, payroll management, etc.

The Internet revolution of the early ’90s gave rise to such jobs. The economy improved by leaps and bounds as employment opportunities rose exponentially. But companies realized that humans have a downside as well. We aren’t good at maintaining records and are prone to making errors. In some cases, companies made heavy losses due to human errors. But due to the lack of any suitable alternative, they had no choice.

With the emergence of AI, companies have to bear the negative consequences no longer as it can handle trivial jobs efficiently and eliminate human errors. Realizing this advantage, companies are investing heavily in RPA and other software such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems. ERP systems, such as Sage 300Cloud, is helping companies manage business-critical operations like manufacturing, logistics, finance, supply chain relationships, and inventory management at the click of a button. CRM software like Sage CRM allows companies to instantly resolve customer queries, strengthen customer bonds, manage payroll management, and easily monitor employees’ performance.

As jobs’ nature is changing, managers need to keep an eye on the corporate world’s new realities. AI is revolutionizing yesteryear jobs, and companies need to be quick in transforming their functions. Even a small delay can degrade their status from leaders to laggers.

2. Conduct periodic training sessions for your employees

Training is a necessary element for all employees. It allows them to understand the changing demands of the industry and enables them to upgrade their skills. Gone are the days when a college degree guaranteed a managerial post. Today, if you don’t polish your skills, you will be shown the door.

In the cut-throat competitive world we live, it’s essential to hold training sessions for your employees and upskill them. Failing to do so will make your workforce obsolete and negatively impact the overall functioning of the company. For example, AI has made all the front desk jobs redundant. You no longer need a human to sit on the front desk and answer people’s questions. An AI can engage with thousands of callers simultaneously and provide them solutions. This helps the company to serve more customers and also save money.

But sometimes a chatbot doesn’t know what to do. In such conditions, it forwards the query to its human counterparts, who then take up the issue and provide unique solutions or recommendations.

This is where training plays a significant role. You will have to train your support service team to handle chatbots. They should have working knowledge of programming chatbots and employing troubleshooting algorithms when required. This strategy will increase the productivity of the employees and allow them to focus on issues that require human ingenuity, emotions, and intelligence, such as:

a. Brainstorming marketing strategies

b. Building target segments

c. Creating niches

d. Charting financial plan

e. Designing a Vision, Mission, and Values (VMV) statement

f. Studying competitors

3. Planning for the future

Forecasting the future requires a strong foundation on data to help the management team understand the changing business landscape. A combination of logic and creativity is essential for estimating how the industry shapes and performs in the future.

AI provides a fertile ground on which companies can build their bases. Other technologies, such as Machine Learning, Web Application, Neural Networks, Data Analytics, etc. also play a crucial role in carefully analyzing the market.

It also provides a blueprint that allows companies to allocate resources optimally and use them judiciously. The COVID-19 pandemic has displayed how useful AI and related technologies are. They have breathed new life into businesses. By integrating AI with ERP and CRM systems, companies have been able to do the following:

a. Retail stores suffered a massive loss in footfalls. AI helped them set up online portals, segregate customers based on their needs, wants, and wishlists, and thus increase demands.

b. Non-COVID patients were discouraged from visiting clinics. AI allowed doctors to provide primary healthcare to patients remotely. It also sends timely reminders regarding medicines, healthcare articles, and allows patients to arrange one-to-one sessions with doctors.

c. AI-enabled ERP systems check the inventory levels from time to time. As soon as the number of raw materials falls below the set threshold level, it automatically places orders with the vendor.

d. Since social distancing is the only way to avoid contracting the virus, the accumulation and disbursal of products in/from the warehouse have become a problem. AI-enabled ERP systems control robots that help in storing and moving products from point A to B smoothly.

e. Companies are finding difficulties in serving their customers appropriately as public transport facilities have either shut down or are not functioning at their optimum level. AI-enabled CRM systems have come as a boon. They are enabling the support team to provide top-notch services through video-conferences and calls.

f. AI-enabled CRM systems also record each customer’s specific details and suggest ways to effectively deal with them.

Conclusion

The AI revolution is creating ripples in the business landscape. The customers’ aspirations, stakeholder relationships, transaction procedures, and support processes will undergo a massive transformation. You cannot survive without incorporating AI and related technologies in your business blueprint in times of cut-throat competition.

Managers need to revamp their business processes and mold themselves according to the changing times. This article will enable managers to focus on the three main points — The changing nature of jobs, the importance of conducting periodic training sessions, and forecasting a good plan for the future — and help them make winning strategies for their business.

About the Author:

Nishant likes to read and write on technologies that form the bedrock of modern-day and age like Web Apps, machine learning, data science, AI, and robotics. His expertise in content marketing has helped grow countless business opportunities. Nishant works for Sage Software Solutions Pvt. Ltd., a leading provider of CRM and ERP Application to small and mid-sized businesses in India.