Microsoft and INSEAD business school have partnered to provide a free AI business school. It is available here.
Their approach to AI Strategy is summarized here, with a summary recap here.
Key elements of their approach are:
- Start with what is driving the shift to AI — in your industry. This is listed under External Environment. This study helps ground an organization into focusing AI further into what is relevant for your industry. Examples could be availability and utilization of technology such as ChatBot for extending customer service for new use cases that your company does not cover today. Or improving response times for customer support. Another example is supply chain automation by leveraging data consolidation via cloud / IOT devices. For most of these cases, these are existing business services or applications and AI technology is available or can be easily customized to improve current situation
- Next explore, what are possible game changers — for your customers and business. This is listed under Value Proposition. This exploration helps look at the assets you have currently in your organization that can be leveraged to deliver exceptional value to your customers. Organizations should look at what type of unique data (customer data,transaction data, behavior data, customer interactions, media such as audio / video) they collect and have been collecting. And then explore how that can be leveraged and expanded upon, leveraging AI and delivering exceptional value? Data Privacy, Security, Governance are all part of the implementation phase. This phase is mere exploration of the ‘art of possible. One great example is listed here. As you can see a complete new application was conceived that allowed users to leverage the data already collected in a complete new and more powerful way.
- Finally, define a holistic strategy for the 3 ‘P’s: Platform (technology), People (skills and competencies and Process (interactions, collaboration, go-to-market etc.)
There are two approaches listed. One is a core group led by a Chief Data Officer or equivalent. Another is a horizontal approach enabling an entire org. One example of the later is listed here.
