How to use A.I into your business

A Step-By-Step Process For Implementing AI In A Small Business

Like any change in business structure, change must be managed to increase the chances of success. In this article we will look at some major considerations prior to implementing any change in technology or artificial intelligence.

GOALS AND EXPECTATIONS

You need to have clear expectations from what you want the technology to do. Grow market share? Boost profits? Reduce customer complaints? If you have the clear vision in mind, with expected outcomes, you can manage process and provide the team with the quick-wins from the new technology - which helps with change management.

PROFITABILITY AND ROI

Subscription costs of A.I can get expensive, however if should be seen as investment, not a cost. Ensuring you get a return on investment is important. The technology should be either increasing your revenue or reducing your expenses. If its not doing this, you’ll need to reassess the situation.

DATA MANAGEMENT

A.I uses data. The more data it has to work with, the better outcomes you’ll get. A.I models are trained with large data sets, and ensuring that you have clean data will be critical. If your data hasn’t been maintained, the A.I platforms you integrate won’t work as expected. To ensure your business gains the maximum productivity boost from A.I - make sure your data is clean.

PROCESSES AND SYSTEMS

Businesses are collections of processes and systems. Good businesses have very solid processes and systems that have been designed over time with people in mind. These good systems will need to be amended with A.I, which means you need to change your systems - this can be uncomfortable, and you may have team members resistant to change.

Some businesses have very poor systems and processes. This is an opportunity to both increase your systemisation while introducing new technology.

CHANGE MANAGEMENT

Change management is a very documented process, taught at Universities around the world. This is because it is a large task with many moving parts. 80% of the time change typically fails before it succeeds. Some business leaders will stop in the middle of the change due to complaints from the team and the chaos that change makes. The change needs to be planned, communicated and adhered to. (If you want to look at our business and leadership coaching services to assist with change management, contact us here.

COMMUNICATION

Communication will need to be clear, concise, and repeated. Your team will need to know the vision, and why they need to change. You will find a natural split in personality types within your business - ‘change agents’, and ‘agents of change’. This means that a percentage of your team will be onboard with the change, and the others will be working against the change. This is a normal business situation, and as a leader you will need to know who are going to drive change, and who are going to hold change, and work with them all 1x1 and communicate the need for change.

TRAINING

A lot of people will be fearful of new technology - especially if their workload is already consumed with normal daily task (‘business as usual’). The goal is to provide interactive training, role plays and checklists to ensure that every single team members feels confident and comfortable with the new technology.

Using the above list and having a thought-out action plan which can be clearly communicated, tracked and implemented will increase your chance of success.