Recently, the business world has been awash with stories about the possibilities and applications of big data, analytics, automation and artificial intelligence technologies. However, reading many of these stories, reports, case studies and pieces of research, I find myself slightly conflicted by it all.
On the one hand, I am excited by the impact these technologies will have on an organisation’s ability to deliver improved service and experience to their customers.
Here’s a few examples that illustrate the growing sophistication, application and potential of these technologies:
But, whilst these examples provide evidence of the promise of these new technologies, I also find myself becoming increasingly concerned about the impact all of this attention is having on some organisations, particularly when I hear stories that talk about:
Therefore, I find myself wondering if we should be wary of getting lost in the technologies and their possibilities and whether we should try and mitigate against this by focusing on what we want our businesses to achieve…….like improving service, experience, revenue and profits.
After all, big data, analytics, automation, artificial intelligence and similar technologies are only tools and not ends in themselves.
Geraldine McBride, former President of SAP for North America and founder and CEO of MyWave, put it very well when in an interview she said:
“We need to change the conversation and stop talking about data and start talking about outcomes. Outcomes that brands want to achieve and outcomes that customers want to achieve.”
Companies would do well to consider stepping back from the technological possibilities in order to figure out what job they want to do first before they pick their tools.
This post was originally published on my Forbes.com column.
Photo Credit: elcovs via Compfight cc
1 Comment
Such an informative post, thanks for sharing with us!