Digital Transformation Needs an AI Life Jacket

Digital transformation. If you’re playing tech buzzword bingo on a regular basis, it’s a term you’ve been seeing for quite some time. So why is it getting so much more attention recently? Success stories such as Domino’s near flawless transition from aging brand to digital powerhouse show it’s not just a term for marketing departments, but something businesses are actively pursuing - and to great effect.

International Data Corporation (IDC) predicts that by 2022 digital transformation spending will hit the $2 trillion mark as companies strive to become the next digital success story. However, while they continue to spend big on technologies like cloud and IoT in an effort to gather the necessary data - the lifeblood of digital companies - many have yet to see tangible benefits.

One key culprit? They can’t find the insights buried in the mountains of data they’re collecting.

These days, every company wants their business to sail across an ocean of insights, driven by the winds of data, but without the ability find real insights, they might as well be stuck on a deserted island.

It’s time to sink or swim. And AI might be the best lifeline for companies looking to transform.

An island surrounded by water.

There are numerous ways modern artificial intelligence tools can help a company realize the true value of their existing investments in digital transformation. Here are just four examples.

Unburden Data Teams to Focus on Strategic Projects

In the pursuit of digital transformation, data science is one of the biggest areas in which enterprises have invested. They want to not only make better decisions based on the past, but have a clearer view of the future. While this is definitely the right mindset, many fail to see demonstrable value. Employees with limited technical expertise have a tough time using these insights when it comes time to make a decision.

What they need is a simple way to find insights that leverage the complexity data science in a simple, scalable way. Enter AI.

For example, one of our clients in the financial services space offers credit to credit-challenged customers. As you can imagine, it was essential they utilized advanced data science techniques to manage risk and drive profitability. They invested heavily in data science, which paid off tremendously.

As the company went through a period of rapid growth, adding more products and services, their data team quickly became overburdened. Instead of spending their time identifying delinquency drivers or drop-off rates in the application process, their time was taken up creating new BI reports to answer the endless questions coming from business users.

That’s where AI came in. With AI analytics, those business users could access data and gain meaningful insights with a simple search. This not only brought insights even closer to the business, but freed the data team to focus their attentions on powering even further growth and hitting their data KPIs.

 

For more about bringing data science and finacial analytics together, check out how we’ve boosted SpotIQ with even more capabilities.

Empower the Customer with Information

Companies in all industries recognize the value of delivering an exceptional customer experience, and spending big on tech to improve theirs. And for good reason. Nearly 90% of businesses compete on customer experience today.

For many companies, this means providing a variety of services and goods specifically tailored to their customer's needs, with the flexibility to choose exactly what they want. While this is definitely an improvement, there’s arguably even more value in transparently giving customers the information to understand all these different offerings.

Take for example, BT. Many of their business customers had packages that included multiple services. These services were often used by hundreds, if not thousands of employees. BT not only wanted to provide all these different services, but ensure their customers had a simple way to analyze their billing data.

People smiling on a stage.

By deploying a customer portal built on AI analytics, BT’s customers could easily search their own data and quickly find insights on everything from high usage users to services with little usage. Armed with this data, the customers could then customize their packages to get exactly what they want.

And when your customers are happy, everyone’s happy.

Act on Your Supply Chain Insights

In their efforts to transform, many companies have invested heavily in digitizing their supply chain. Not only does this enable them to react more quickly to changes in the market, they can keep up with shifting customer demands. Yet, with thousands of products, generating enough reports to keep tabs on each item, and all the various components that go into it, is practically impossible.

This was the case for one of our clients in the apparel manufacturing space. They needed to understand which items in their inventory were performing well so they could capitalize on the opportunity, seize revenue, satisfy customers, and reduce customer churn. With so many products, and even more questions about the performance of each of these products, striking while the iron was hot was a little tricky.

The solution was bringing all of their data from across the business together, and then use AI to parse through all of it to find the opportunities that would otherwise have gone unnoticed in their manufacturing analytics. AI enabled them to quickly identify where there was an untapped or new opportunity, optimize inventory, and then leverage their investments in digitizing their supply chain to act on that insight quickly.

Make the Most of Your Digital Marketing Dollars

For many companies, one of the cornerstones of digital transformation involves investing in new ways to reach and communicate with customers through digital channels. Companies have spent millions on digital marketing in recent years. It’s not enough to be spending on these channels, if you’re still following the traditional model of analyzing results on a monthly - or even weekly basis.

Our client, a Fortune 500 retailer found themselves in this position. Despite investing heavily in digital marketing, they continued analyzing their marketing analytics data at the end of the month. This meant that if a certain approach wasn’t performing, it could be a full month - and millions of dollars - wasted.

That’s where AI comes into play. By adopting AI-driven retail analytics, the retailer was able to conduct daily analysis of their advertising across all channels. This not only gave them visibility into how each of their specific campaigns and channels were performing, but more importantly, the ability to rapidly adapt to optimize their advertising spend to meet their retail KPIs and metrics.

It’s clear digital transformation isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. The same can’t be said for companies that fail to unlock the true value of their broader investments in digital transformation. With the unique ability to turn massive amounts of data into insights, AI should be at the heart of any digital transformation initiative.

To learn more, check out our webinar Reap the Rewards of Digital Transformation with AI-Driven Analytics. If you’re seeing real ROI from your investments in digital transformation, sound off in the comments with your story!