AI Strategy, Planning & Research Services
Knowledge, Insight & Research to Prepare for an AI-Powered Future

AI Strategy, Planning & Research

Our AI Strategy Services help you assess the opportunities for AI/ML to improve your business, and translate those possibilities into achievable strategies & plans.

Our AI Strategy, Planning & Research services cover 3 areas:

  • Industry Perspectives: AI/ML impact & outlook for your sector
  • Business Functions & Problems: using AI/ML to improve specific business areas
  • AI Capability Maturity: equipping organisations to deliver successful AI/ML work

Our AI Strategy work blends research, analysis, workshops and reports. Choosing your strategic response to AI/ML is rarely a one-off exercise, often best done iteratively over several months.

A single piece of insightful research, perhaps discussed in a challenging workshop, may be a sufficient catalyst for your in-house Strategy team to progress. For others, it may be more effective to work with us over a few weeks or months, collaboratively developing your AI/ML roadmap.

Sometimes, there’s no specific goal in mind yet, just lots of questions. We are comfortable with ambiguity, and are pretty good at creating clarity within complexity. A general “What is AI & What Does It Mean for Us” workshop may be the best way to get started.

Regardless of your starting point, our goal is to help you ask & answer the right questions about AI/ML for your business and its circumstances. If appropriate, we can help you navigate the opportunities & implications you uncover.

Industry Perspectives on AI Strategy

Our Industry Perspective work focuses on the “big picture” of AI & Machine Learning in your sector. Bespoke reports & workshops provide knowledge and insight about competitor behaviour, sector trends and business-specific technology trends.

However, industry insight rarely provides more than context for your own plans. This can be useful to validate your intentions & priorities, and set benchmarks for your expectations. However, the value of such work is only realised when it informs subsequent actions.

Therefore we tend to limit the duration and cost of this type of work. Whatever your budget for strategy work, we feel strongly it’s best to use most of it converting insight into action.

Business Functions & Problems

We believe that the best way to discover what AI means for your business is to start doing it.

But as it can be an expensive investment, we are advocates of doing that work with clarity on why it is being done, how you’ll know it’s successful in both long & short term, and how it contributes to the organisation’s progress.

Our AI Strategy work on Business Functions help you identify and understand how AI/ML could be used to improve a business function or solve a business problem. We give you the knowledge to choose & apply an appropriate solution.

We ensure it’s appropriate for your organisation by assessing its implications up-front. These are typically technical considerations, such as IT environment compatibility or data availability. But we also examine other areas that could be problematic. For example, skills needed, operational impact and unexpected customer response.

Examples of business functions and problems we can help with AI Strategy work include:

  • Increase customer retention, by identifying customers likely to leave, using predictive analytics
  • Improve customer satisfaction, by speeding up responses to queries, using natural language processing
  • Reduce warehouse losses, by identifying misplaced stock, using computer vision
  • Improve insurance policy profitability, by reducing claims processing costs, using document recognition
  • Reduce manufacturing disruption & cost of machinery downtime, by introducing predictive maintenance, using IoT & intelligent forecasting of component wear

AI Capability Maturity

For most organisations, building & implementing successful AI/ML solutions requires a different set of skills, tools and processes to existing IT and business work. There are also implications for organisation structure, sourcing strategy and procurement.

Our AI Strategy services help you identify and make the key strategic decisions around building AI Capability. For example, in the long term, whether you develop AI solutions in-house, or it’s considered a non-core activity to outsource and manage.

The main areas covered by our AI Capability Maturity strategy work include:

  • In-house vs outsourced vs hybrid AI/ML development
  • Package vs bespoke for AI/ML solutions (and criteria to change this as the market evolves)
  • Project, supplier & quality management for AI/ML work (including project governance)
  • AI skills building (for technology, business & executive audiences)
  • Organisation & team structures (in particular IT departments)
  • Technology tools & infrastructure (including end-user tools & cloud usage)
  • Implications for indirectly affected functions (e.g. PR, compliance)

Want to discuss AI Strategy, Planning & Research?

You can get in touch via our Contact Page