Artificial Intelligence

Gregory Herbert, SVP and general manager EMEA, Dataiku

Building a value-added culture of ‘everyday’ AI

We look at six key factors that can help the process

It is true that artifi cial intelligence (AI) will be the great enabler in the years to come and that regional organisations have come to believe this en masse. But we must ask ourselves how many of these deployments went according to plan. How many of them added value? Here, I share the six main drivers of success in becoming an AI-mature organisation with a culture of everyday AI.

01. VALUE

Through implementation of a use-case qualification framework, organisations should appoint people to project roles that can champion change that focuses on value creation. Domain experts should steer projects, as they are the closest to the issues that AI should seek to address. At this stage, KPIs must be agreed. KPIs should, where possible, be designed to quantify value beyond the use cases themselves, venturing into areas such as reuse and capitalisation across projects.

02. VISION

During every stage of every phase – design, implementation, and the rest – the organisation’s leaders should get together in regular executive workshops for knowledge transfer and ideation. Each use case that is implemented will be done in consultation with the map. Di erent projects will belong in di erent phases according to the organisation-wide capabilities that have been built up to that point.

03. DATA

Enterprises should commit to the democratisation of data access. Non-IT employees have a lot of insight to o er if they are granted insights themselves. By understanding key metrics and gaining an overall view of the corporate strategy on AI, sta outside the core project teams could happen upon an idea that might otherwise be missed. Such access requires a robust infrastructure and clear metrics around the accuracy and useability of data.

04. SYSTEMS

If everyday AI is to work, then the infrastructure must support the tools and platforms that are being introduced. Infrastructure transformation must be designed in parallel with AI projects but implemented ahead of them. It should support the bandwidth and scaling requirements of everyday AI in terms of both compute and storage capabilities and be implemented in such a way that the organisation avoids technical debt down the road.

05. TALENT

The region su ers from skills gaps in technology fi elds. While a range of government initiatives have been devised to solve this problem, many of these may take several years to bear fruit. In the here and now, enterprises that want to build an everyday AI culture can look to their own talent pool.

The challenge is in driving the AI programme forward while delivering an employee experience that can attract and retain the right skills to make it happen. One way of doing this is to appoint citizen developers – non-technical sta who build AI solutions using low-code platforms. This gets the AI initiative up and running while creating a rewarding environment for non-IT sta and relieving AI specialists and data scientists of the workload.

06. GOVERNANCE

Good AI governance ensures that data is useable, accessible and secure. It strikes a balance between auditability and permissions that allows the organisation to scale its use of data. If the progress of AI systems is not monitored, performance can degrade. People must be appointed to ensure responsible AI – to measure the progress of models and ensure their operation is not becoming detrimental to the business and other parties.

Walid Gomaa, acting CEO, Omnix International

Key building blocks for digital transformation

Customers must build the right skills to manage the transformation journey and engage with selected partners to advise and execute the journey for them

What are the key digital Q: transformation strategies and success factors for companies deploying digital solutions? The goal of a digital transformation strategy is to come up with innovative solutions to elevate an enterprise’s operations into the digital age. Some digital transformation strategies include leveraging digital technologies that will make business impact and improving cybersecurity to protect customers’ environments. It also includes acquiring talents to fi t skill requirements and using data analytics to improve current digital systems.

What are the barriers that usually block the path to transformation? The primary reasons for smooth adoption of digital transformation continue to revolve around understanding culture and having a plan to manage this. Skills come next, and customers need to build the right skills to manage the transformation journey, as well as engage with selected partners to advise and execute the journey for them. Poor quality of internal data can make it di cult to plan the before and a ter stages of digital transformation. It may also interfere with making the right decisions for the business.

Another barrier is the disconnect that begins to creep in, between the original strategy, project execution and project milestones. This must be managed by steering committees and hands-on executive engagement.

Although cloud adoption has accelerated, why are some organisations still reluctant to move to cloud? The main reasons for laggard behaviour around cloud adoption continue to be around concerns of security and data sovereignty. It is also because of lack of awareness of the benefi ts, lack of suitable skills to manage, and resistance to make changes to systems and processes due to cost and time challenges.

How are you addressing today’s organisation’s diverse technology needs? Customers are facing multiple challenges as they embark on their digital transformation journeys, which requires them to refresh strategies, processes, modernise applications, adopt new technologies and enhance systems to achieve desired business outcomes. We guide our customers to focus on various use cases and start with those that will have the highest impact for their enterprise. This is done through our consulting services, where we consolidate requirements, create and deliver solutions and ensure success of the project.

How does the year ahead look for Omnix? We are witnessing the adoption of solutions in the areas of cybersecurity, hyperautomation, application modernisation, data governance, smart infrastructure and managed services. We are aligning our strategy and skills to ensure that we can support our customers to achieve the desired outcomes from these solution sets.

As a CEO, what will be your focus for 2023? Over the last 12 months, the nature of the CEO’s role has changed signifi cantly at Omnix. It has become more entrepreneurial. I’m currently adopting new approaches and making organisational changes to align with market dynamics. In this role, I’ll continue to focus on transformational activities around organisational structure, polices and processes to drive growth in revenue and profi t.

Kareem Monem, regional managing director MENA, Valtech

Time to drop the ‘e’ from e-commerce

Ensure the right reaction from your target audience with these pointers

The GCC economies are bouncing back, stronger than ever. According to the World Bank estimate, regionwide GDP for 2022 will grow by 5.9 per cent on the previous year. The report suggests that robust “fi scal and external surpluses” could enhance consumer confi dence. In the UAE, for example, Fitch Solutions forecasts a 4.2 per cent surge in real household spending in 2022, helped along by a swi t Covid response. B2C commerce has a very di erent playbook today – one which must accommodate for the unforeseen, navigate economic pressures, and counter the threat of the emergence and rise of agile competitors. When e-commerce emerged, it was treated as a ‘nice to have’ service and defi nitely a cost-saver, but not a core part of the business. Flash forward to 2020, the dynamics of e-commerce changed. Regional stakeholders are currently confronted with a new reality: there is no standalone e-commerce anymore. The experience economy has ripped the ‘e’ from e-commerce. There is now only commerce – the unifi ed ecosystem of physical and digital customer experiences. In such a scenario, here are three main pillars to ensure you get the right reaction from your target audience.

MAKE COMMERCE AN EXPERIENCE

An Oracle study found that 94 per cent of UAE consumers were in search of new experiences that would make them ‘smile and laugh’, but only one in 10 businesses reported using humour in their sales interactions. The report even made a mention of consumers’ preference (88 per cent) for humour in digital assistants and bots while revealing that only 22 per cent of businesses try to infuse their bots with a playful manner. These fi ndings are a strong indication that customer insights are key to business success.

Findings such as these also speak to the necessity of personalisation, which along with responsiveness is a key driver of experience.

A DYNAMIC STORE EXPERIENCE

Today, attracting and retaining customers is all about making commerce an experience, an outcome that’s underpinned by digital systems. The ideal of a modern store that delivers on the promise of a true omnichannel commerce experience is what we call the Dynamic Store – one that preempts customers’ expectations and constantly adapts to meet their needs. Rather than relying on chance, the dynamic store conjures up impactful, tailored experiences, helping customers navigate through the aisles, telling shoppers what they need, where to fi nd it, and even how well it will pair with other purchases.

Most retailers currently lack the underlying capabilities or resources to go all in immediately.

CUSTOMER LIFETIME VALUE

If a business is to get to know its customers across all its touchpoints, it is likely going to need a customer data platform (CDP) to collect information reliably. To be competitive, companies must remember that the cost of attracting a new customer is many multiples higher than retaining one. It is critical to understand customers’ frequency, engagement, recency and monetary value.

CUSTOMER-CENTRIC COMMERCE STRATEGY

Commerce is served by technology, of course. But at its heart, it is about so much more than platforms and apps. It is about people. And the enterprises that learn to align people, processes, and platforms, in sustainable ways, are the enterprises that will rise while others fall. Successful companies will be those that build a solid technology foundation, optimise processes through technologies such as AI, and build direct relationships with their customers through digital and physical channels.