Artificial Intelligence is a familiar concept to many, but its full potential remains largely undiscovered.
Over many years, it has helped businesses build fortunes that have grown into powerful business empires.
Companies like Apple Inc., Google, Meta, Amazon, and Tesla have all risen with AI leading their way.
Your business might be the next! But how can that be with Artificial Intelligence ?
Let’s break the barrier today, especially for the local businesses,
I am Innocent Charles, I was honored with the title of AI Trailblazer by Zindi Africa, for years now and I have been working in the Artificial Intelligence field at iPF Softwares, A digital transformation company based in Dar Es Salaam Tanzania.
I have always been fascinated by the idea “Computers That Think”!
When I was pursuing software engineering and exploring Artificial Intelligence, I discovered that AI could be used to solve many challenges faced by local businesses.
Assuming that you are an innovator, business leader, or entrepreneur who wants to take your business to new heights or simply develop new values, this article is here to help you understand Artificial Intelligence and how it can be integrated into your business.
As well as adapting artificial Intelligence products in a safe, scalable, and organic way.
Great, let’s proceed.
What is Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence, simply referred to as AI, is when incredibly smart computers or robots mimic human intelligence. They can learn from what they've seen, make clever decisions, and even have conversations.
It's the technology that makes machines act smart and think a bit like humans do, fascinating right!
Artificial IntelligenceIn the business context, this opens a window to increased productivity through task automation, enhanced decision-making, and an improved customer experience.
We'll look at each of these benefits in the upcoming sections, so get ready!
Increasing Productivity with Artificial Intelligence
Let's look at a real-life situation. Imagine a customer support agent who's always answering the same questions and giving directions to many customers.
Doing these tasks takes up a lot of their time and makes their job harder, not to mention having to work on night shifts.Clearly they don't have much time left for other important things.
In the end, this doesn't just make them less productive, but it also makes their work less efficient.
In most workplaces, there are thousands of situations like these. Some of them waste our time and resources, unfortunately we might not even be aware of them yet.
Now let's figure this out together.
The first thing you need to do is work together with your team, and you wil be surprised by what you discover.
“I believe every business has AI opportunities.”
In order to identify areas that can be automated start by analyzing your business activities as follows:
Process Analysis:
Begin by thoroughly analyzing your business processes. Document each step involved in various tasks, workflows, and operations. Understanding the current workflow of each activity in your business is crucial.
Repetitive Tasks:
Look for tasks that are repetitive and occur frequently. These are prime candidates for automation because they are predictable and often time-consuming.
Rule-Based Tasks:
Identify tasks that follow well-defined rules or have a clear decision-making process. If a task can be broken down into "if-then" statements or rules, it can often be automated.
Data-Intensive Tasks:
Tasks that involve a significant amount of data entry, data manipulation, or data extraction are good candidates for automation. Software can often handle these tasks more accurately and efficiently than humans.
Consider re-evaluating tasks that involve filling huge spreadsheets.
Time-Consuming Processes:
Processes that consume a lot of time due to manual effort or waiting for approvals can benefit from automation. Automated workflows can fasten such processes.
Identifying these gaps marks the first step towards employing Artificial intelligence in your business.
Here is something to keep in mind, automation is not a one-size-fits-all solution.
The suitability of automation depends on the specific needs and goals of your business.
So as changes happen and your business grows you might need to re-assess everything again.
Enhancing Decision-Making With Artificial Intelligence
As a leader in business, you'll often need to make decisions, whether they're small or big. Typically, we make decisions based on what we've learned or what we know.
Our decisions are influenced by various factors, including our knowledge, experience and worse our emotions, this can sometimes lead to poor outcomes.
But what if we could make decisions based on solid, proven facts?
With artificial intelligence , it is possible to get insights and even more accurate predictions on our decisions, it's like foreseeing the future.
Businesses gather data every day, both knowingly and unknowingly. This data holds more information than you might realize. Insights that can change how you do business.
What's important is figuring out how to get those insights, and that is when a data strategy comes into play.
Data Strategy
A data strategy is a plan that a company or organization makes to use their data in the best way possible. It's about deciding how to collect, store, and use data to help the company achieve its goals and make smart decisions.
Mind you, data is the key ingredient in machine learning.
You will need it in every aspect. So if you are thinking of employing artificial intelligence into your decision making, having a data strategy is something you can not avoid.
Machine learning algorithms analyze data to find patterns, gain insights, and make predictions.
In order to develop a better data strategy that aligns with your business goals.
Consider these 3 basic things:
- Identifying Objectives: Why do you need data? What do you want to achieve with it? This will guide you towards the data you need to collect, manage, and analyze.
- Understanding Data Maturity: How good is your data? How easy is it to access and use?.With machine learning, “Garbage In Garbage Out” is a real thing, you will need quality data to achieve better results.
- Building Data Culture: Does everyone value data? Are they comfortable sharing and using it to make decisions? A successful data strategy requires a data-driven culture throughout the organization.
Start small.
Improving Customer experience with Artificial Intelligence
The one big secret in the business world lies in this simple truth 'Make Something People Want’.
So, if you are not so ambitious towards that bold goal then you are not into the business race and probably you will lose your share soon.
See! Businesses can begin with really unusual ideas.
But eventually your growth always depends on whether you really ”Make Something People Want”.
I personally believe innovation in a business context as not necessarily new things but those things that your users really want.
So, what exactly do people want by the way?.
Always people want speed and easy thinking, they don’t want to wait for things they love and they don’t want to think about it either.
Businesses become great by reducing the time for people to get things, and helping them to identify such things is what exactly people want.
No wonder companies like amazon, Meta and Google use what we call personalization.
They deliver what you are only interested in, it’s like they only serve you and this is what any customer would need.
Personalization
Personalization is like crafting a unique experience for each person, tailoring everything to their specific interests and desires. It's about making them feel truly special, as if they are the only ones being served.
And there is no way you can achieve this without artificial intelligence.
If you want to serve your customers better understand them first!,
Artificial Intelligence Business Use Cases
Artificial Intelligence has opened up a new arena of possibilities for driving corporate success via actionable insights created from using customer data.
Below are some successful AI use cases in business.
Customer personalization, segmentation, and targeted marketing.
Customers have incredibly limited time in today's environment of rising digital engagement, and there are far too many organizations attempting to advertise their products to them.
This explains why it's becoming increasingly important to sell only what appeals to each customer, as well as to know to who to promote each company's goods.
Companies can now utilize AI to forecast and target who to sell a particular product to based on data acquired from customers' online actions, thereby increasing the possibilities of sales and improving the effectiveness of marketing activities while lowering total marketing costs.
Customer support automation using chatbots
Nowadays, artificial intelligence has shown outstanding performance in saving most of the business by harvesting the use of AI to create intelligent chatbots.
Customers can now communicate with a company in real-time to address concerns, place orders, obtain information, and do practically anything they could do in a conversation with a human customer-care person.
Customer predictive analytics and product recommendation
Through using AI, companies are able to recommend products that will keep customers' interest and satisfy their desires in order to boost the success of marketing efforts and customer engagement with a company's product.
Companies can also use past data to correctly predict potential percentage increases or decrease in demand beforehand so that as a business owner you can proactively adjust your stock accordingly.
Sentimental analysis and topic modeling usage
Sentimental analysis can be easily described as the technique to identify and extract the affective and subjective state of the information, simply to check the positivity or negativity of the feedback.
Companies can continually understand how customers feel about their products and services by using sentiment analysis.
This helps in the improvement of service quality and customized product offerings.
Using AI to Solve Real-World Business Problems: The Niajiri Case Study
About Niajiri Platform
Niajiri is a modern workforce development technology platform aimed at empowering entry-level job seekers by enhancing their skills and boosting their visibility to potential employers. It also provides employers with a tool to discover top talent in the job market.
Challenge
Entry-level job seekers often struggle to create professional resumes, a vital tool for landing jobs. Niajiri offered step-by-step guidance for crafting impressive CVs, but many users already had resumes ready, making it seem inefficient to start over. This led to potential time wastage.
Solution
The Niajiri team, driven by passion and innovation, found a remarkable solution. They harnessed machine learning to automatically extract personal information from existing resumes. This data seamlessly integrated into Niajiri's professional CV template. Now, users only need to update any missing details, simplifying the process and eliminating redundancy.
Lilian, a dedicated product owner, collaborated closely with iPFSoftwares to pioneer this initiative. We shared a profound commitment to integrating AI into Niajiri, with the goal of enhancing user experiences and delivering more value to users.
Key Takeaways
This case study highlights how AI can be used to improve customer experience .
It also emphasizes that AI success requires a genuine passion for the transformation and proper guidance from experts.
The most important thing is to start small and then grow as you discover areas in your business where AI can be integrated.
Challenges and Risks Of Artificial Intelligence
Adapting AI into various applications and systems can bring about numerous challenges. Here are some common challenges and potential solutions:
Data Quality and Quantity
AI models require large amounts of high-quality data to learn effectively. Gathering and cleaning such data can be time-consuming and expensive. Having a comprehensive data strategy is a good starting point to minimize this cost.
Lack of Expertise
Developing AI solutions often demands expertise in machine learning, which may be scarce. However, outsourcing is still possible.
Compatibility
Integrating AI into existing systems can be challenging, as it may not easily communicate with legacy systems. You may need to invest in new systems and infrastructure.
Scalability and Performance
As the user base grows, AI systems may struggle to handle increased demands, affecting performance.Consider scalability and performance right from the beginning.
Costs and ROI
Developing and maintaining AI systems can be costly, and it may not always provide an immediate return on investment (ROI).Carefully assess the potential benefits and costs of AI adoption. Start with smaller, high-impact projects to demonstrate value.
Successfully adapting AI involves addressing these challenges strategically, being adaptable, and continuously learning and improving as AI technology evolves.
Conclusion
Artificial intelligence may have been around for a while, but for many local businesses, it's still a new frontier.
Remember, there's no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to AI. It's not a copy-and-paste kind of technology.
Bringing AI into your business starts with understanding this powerful tool. Once you grasp its potential, you can identify where it can make a real impact.
Niajiri is already using AI in small ways, giving it an edge over competitors. By taking small steps like these,you can build a solid foundation for your business in the AI-dominated future..
This article shows you the exciting possibilities of AI in local businesses and where to begin. Start by understanding the concepts here and build your path towards an AI-powered business.
Yes, there are risks, but with the guidance of our experts at iPF Softwares, we can help you minimize them.So, let's start this inspiring journey together.
