By: Venkat Nanduri
What is powering your business today? Is it the Intelligent Enterprise?
When I ask top executives this question, most respond by saying IoT or AI or ML or Cognitive RPA… and the list goes on and on!
It’s true that the decision to embrace newer technologies helps an organization fundamentally change the way it works. And while that decision can rapidly increase that organization’s progress in the journey to becoming an Intelligent Enterprise, it doesn’t reflect life and work in real-world business scenarios – at least according to what I hear on a daily basis from the CEOs with whom I interact.
Is Intelligent Enterprise a Product?
Unfortunately, when most executives think of the term, ‘Intelligent Enterprise,’ what they envision is a product where one fine morning they wake up, decide to buy an intelligent enterprise and roll it out in the afternoon. Here’s the truth: Intelligent Enterprise is not a product; it is instead the mindset CEOs and top executives must possess: the ability to think differently about new technologies while remaining open to new ways of strategizing the opportunities these technologies present.
The Transformative Effect
The evolutionary path to becoming an Intelligent Enterprise brings into play a transformative effect on the company’s workforce, freeing them from mundane tasks and allowing them to focus on strategy. Envision this scenario: Instead of a company relying on the 10 executive brains residing in the board room, it now has 100 brains spread throughout the company, all involved and focused on building a strategy to ensure that company’s success.
The compounded effect that Intelligent Enterprise brings is phenomenal. It’s not about cutting costs by laying off employees when you usher in a new technology that replaces humans; It’s more about freeing those employees to use their intellectual capacity to help that company thrive in its selected market utilizing a strategy informed, developed and powered by an intelligent suite of technology solutions.
Watch the video below!
“Technology is changing the world of work, for sure. But in many cases, it’s not taking people’s jobs: it’s changing them to allow customer service representatives to better service the customer,” says Steve Tzikakis, SAP President South Europe, Middle East and Africa, in one of his articles published on Digitalist in April this year.
Steve further elaborates, “By starting on the Intelligent Enterprise journey, you make it easier for your people to deliver great customer service. To connect your people to your higher purpose. To listen to your customers, your partners and your people through your channels AND your data.”
I’d like to ask my opening question again, as well as follow it up with another: What’s powering your business today? Is it your people, your technology – or both, working together to achieve better and greater things?
Let me know what you think. I would be more than happy to share a few more real-life examples on how companies have transformed – not just from the technology angle but also from a human resources perspective – to power their business to the next level.
I look forward to hearing from you. Contact me here.
