Top Trending Business Functions Using AI, ML and IoT to Stay Ahead

Last three years, the Technological advancements Introduced multi layered changes in our professional as well as personal lives. The emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, internet of things, deep learning, reinforcement learning, neural networks, robotics, augmented reality, virtual reality, mixed reality, extended reality, to name a few, had profound impact on the business ecosystem, laid the foundation for several startups and opened new avenues for many organizations. However, by the close of 2019, the unfortunate outbreak of Coronavirus alias Covid-19, in Wuhan city of China brought in catastrophic disruption. Within a few weeks, the highly contagious viral disease had crossed territories and spread across the globe. The impact was so profound with death toll multiplying at an accelerated pace, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak as a global pandemic in March 2020, with innumerable nations moving into a lockdown. “Stay home stay safe” became the most famous slogan.

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With the lockdown in effect, and home being the new office, the reality about the disease seems to gradually sink in. No nation or government bodies can eradicate the disease with lockdown, it’s an attempt to flatten the curve to slow down the spread so that hospitals and the healthcare providers are able to cope up better. The earliest vaccine trials just started late this March. It takes 18 to 24 months to make, test and assess the efficacy of a vaccine. An effective vaccine may be at least a year away, and it will compel people to continue to self-isolate even when a lockdown is lifted. There is NO going back to normal. Your normal will not exist for at least a year. Economies globally will keep bleeding and we are likely to have rolling lockdowns until a vaccine is found. Even when the ban is lifted Tourism and Hospitality industry, and many others will not see an increase in business for at least a year.

The topsy-turvy start of the third decade of the twenty-first century has set many progressive organizations to reconsider increased technology implementation for business continuity and sustenance. Though artificial intelligence is still at a nascent stage of adoption by most organizations, top leaders are seriously planning for incorporating AI into the company’s business functions to start realizing its extraordinary benefits. In this article I will cover a few basic business functions which have already implemented Artificial intelligence suite and finding it easier to handle the crisis created by the coronavirus outbreak. 

Research and Development

Artificial Intelligence in conjunction with Machine Learning is being successfully used by many organizations for innovation. The technology is helping to build a deeper understanding in nearly any industry, including healthcare and life sciences, pharmaceuticals, food and agriculture, finance and banking, automotive, and more, while collecting and analyzing massive volumes of data with efficiency and accuracy. The AI algorithms and ML models are deployed for researching problems and building smart solutions that humans have never thought of earlier. AI is automating many tasks, and opening the door to novel discoveries, finding ways of improving products and services as well as accomplishing tasks. Artificial intelligence is enabling R&D activities to be more strategic and effective. In order to monitor and control Covid-19 spread, advanced countries like China were quick to implement AI powered systems. In many hospitals, robots driven by AI are being used for drug administration to patients. Around fifty pharma companies are working on vaccine discovery against Coronavirus and AI is helping with information collection from across nations.

Marketing

Home being the new office, several organizations are implementing artificial intelligence to develop and execute marketing strategies. Top brands like Estee Lauder, Gucci, Versace and Dior are using AI to segregate consumers according to interest or demographic, targeting ads to them based on browsing history, enabling recommendation engines and providing customers what they want at the exact time they want it. Companies are also using chatbots for marketing initiatives. Bots are trained to provide answers to frequently asked questions, solve problems, suggest products or services, and even support sales. As an impact of Covid-19, consumer needs and behavior are changing, e.g., more of home attire is in demand as opposed to daily formals. Artificial Intelligence is supporting marketers by analyzing data on consumer behavior faster and more accurately than humans. These insights are helping businesses adjust marketing campaigns to make them more effective and plan better to deliver.

Sales

The human touch plays a vital role in Sales for any products and services, specifically those requiring demonstration, trial run, or consultation before the buyout happens. Artificial Intelligence has been instrumental in providing the workforce with useful insights to improve sales and pipeline forecasting, predict customer needs, and improve communication. AI powered applications are being used by companies to help sales professionals manage their time, identify and notify who they need to follow-up with and when as well as which prospects might be ready to convert. The modernized sales process is data driven, which is helping companies to adapt to changing customer requirements that is further adding up to enhanced customer intimacy and stickiness. If you implement AI based sales in your organization, you are sure to discover your revenues soaring high.

IT Services

Organizations which were early adopters of AIOps (Artificial Intelligence for IT Operations), were the first to move their workforce from office to home to combat the pandemic. AIOps platforms combine big data and ML functionality to enhance and partially replace all primary IT operations functions, including availability and performance monitoring, event correlation and analysis, IT service management and automation. AIOps is helping data center operators identify emerging issues so they can proactively address those issues, assuming the software doesn’t act on its own to fix the problems. AIOps is also helping IT resources search out the root causes of outages and performance issues. AIOps is automating and speeding up many routine processes, including various technical support activities. This automation is simplifying the workload on overworked IT departments and liberating them to focus on higher-value work, such as process improvement and application development.

Education

Last but not the least, the field of Education has seen tremendous traction in technology implementation. With continued lockdown, several educational institutions, schools, colleges, universities and coaching centers have resorted to online classrooms. From admissions process to fees payment, conducting online classes to monitored examinations, and more, everything is powered by technology. Here, Governments play a bigger role in enabling the not so fortunate segment on affordability of minimal prerequisites.

HR Operations

Four years back the Human Resources community was highly resistant to enable the HR functions with Artificial Intelligence primarily due to the fear of losing jobs. This Department as the name suggests, is meant for Humans alone, I had heard one of the participants say in a Webinar on Technology Inclusion. However, the scenario changed soon, as many leaders saw value in automating regular HR operations so that the human resources could focus on important tasks that required cognitive ability and creative thinking, such as designing training programs on Leadership Skill Building, conducting sessions on improving specific behavioral aspects of resources, etc. AI is being predominantly used for scanning resumes, sending out notifications to shortlisted candidates, conducting preliminary rounds of interviews, answering common questions about company policies and benefits through chatbots, data-based decision-making, releasing offer letters and even providing personalized experience to the aspiring candidates. Under the current crisis, these HR organizations are working with the same efficiency as normal times and saving costs too.

Helpdesk

The Helpdesk or Support Center of an organization is another business function that is benefitting from implementation of artificial intelligence. These organizations are enhancing their Support services by feeding ML models with tremendous volumes of data to learn more about their customers, predict customer intent, predict appropriate time to get in touch with a customer, improve the "next best action" for the customer for better engagement, unravel customer trends and improve product and service offerings. Under the pandemic, employees are working from home and the organizations using AI technology are managing their support centers seamlessly without any hassles.

Building Upkeep

Advanced technologies are being used in building upkeep by various builders and real estate firms. This is especially beneficial for high rise and spacious buildings having large built up area. Internet of Things (IoT) powered by AI and ML is used in intelligent devices to manage lighting, temperature regulation, sensors, internet connectivity, security systems and more in these modernized buildings. On the basis of the data that is collected, the AI system adjusts the building's systems to adapt according to the season, weather, number of occupants, time of day, and more. Predictive maintenance helps in raising timely notification about any servicing required by the building devices and equipment to avert any possible breakdown. The facility department of these buildings are maintaining a conducive environment on premises without any manual intervention even under the pandemic.

Production

This is yet another business area which is drawing exceptional benefits using data analytics, IoT, AI and ML at every stage of the production process from supply chain to tracking inventory on store shelves. Predictive intelligence is helping in demand forecast and production ramp up or down. Technology is enabling sensors on equipment to predict maintenance needs. Areas of concern in the manufacturing process are flagged in advance before expensive issues blow up production.

Finance & Banking

Accounting, Finance and Banking are services which have evolved in parallel with technology. Use of artificial intelligence, machine learning and robotic process automation have become an in-thing for most of the financial institutions. From fraud detection to customer query handling, taxation to interest calculation, advanced technology is producing amazing results. Progressive finance-based organizations are freeing up human professionals to focus on higher-level activities as the complex calculation oriented and repetitive tasks are getting automated. There is huge amount of cost benefit due to zero manual intervention and process automation. AI is also able to provide real-time status of financial matters to organizations because it can monitor communication through natural language processing (NLP). Emerging Technologies promise a radical shakeup of the entire finance and banking industry.

User Experience

Many businesses are using real time fast data in conjunction with artificial intelligence suite for enhanced end user experience. Companies gather shopper's data through loyalty and reward programs, which they use to offer personalized suggestions whether customers are shopping online or in physical stores. Innovative uses of chatbots during industry events are helping to provide an astral user experience.

There are several other industry segments that have started inclusion of technology into their respective business ecosystem. With devices getting intelligent and interconnected, machines utilizing data in real time and processing the same at accelerated pace, automation of routine tasks will inescapably have an impact on certain roles. But as some professions are affected, others will grow, making room for improvement and advancement. Something must end in order for something to begin. Let’s learn to embrace change and simply trust the uncertainty of the Universe.

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