ChatGPT: will it help your business?

I am intriged.

For the first time since 2007 when the iphone came out -though I started using it since 2010- I feel the same buzz and I think that we are dealing with a revolutionary new tool that will change the world and will most certainly also effect your business one way or another.

ChatGPT and similar AI systems have the potential to change some industries by a similar level as the Industrial Revolution, but over a vastly reduced timeframe.

ChatGPT is buzzing everywhere, all my friends and business groups are talking about it, not to mention all online attention it gets and all tutorials that are appearing on YouTube. Based on what I knew before investigating this world changing theme: ChatGPT will help businesses in a variety of different ways, at least covering the following themes.

1. Firstly, it can handle customer inquiries quickly and accurately, allowing businesses to provide faster response times and better customer service. This could lead to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty.

2. Secondly, ChatGPT can provide businesses with valuable insights into customer behavior and preferences. It can detect customer sentiment, identify customer interests, and monitor customer engagement. This data can be used to create more targeted marketing campaigns and improve product/service offerings.

3. Lastly, ChatGPT can automate customer service tasks. It can handle customer inquiries, answer basic questions, process orders, and more. This could free up time for customer service agents to focus on more complex tasks and help reduce overall costs. Overall, ChatGPT is an invaluable tool for businesses that want to improve their customer relationships, optimize their customer service processes, and gain valuable insights into their customers.

What does MIT think about it?

Looking for some more insights from experts, I came across a recent review from MIT that clearly clarifies several themes about how most of the participating 350 big companies currently handle Data and Artificial Intelligence. The review is called ´Building a high-performance data and AI organization´.

How does this relate to clients

that ´CFAD Controller-for-a-day´

helps with business improvements?

We are currently brainstorming with clients about how to strategize and start applying these finding for their business. In other words, we are helping clients to answer the following question: "What should my company do now to start using Data and AI to assist with further business improvement and operational fluency?"

What will you learn in this article?

I hope this article helps you understand where leading companies stand regarding Data and Artificial Intelligence, and will provide you with insights on how these companies look at the near future.

Some themes covered in this article have not changed since I worked as project manager (PM) of my first Business Intelligence (BI) implementation together with IBM en BusinessObjects (SAP-BusinessObjects), while other topics have completely changed since than. Let´s have a look a this summary of the review.

1

Firstly, we will look at the common thoughts of the biggest corporate leaders in the field of Data for companies such as L´Oreal, McDonalds and Total. How do big companies currently handle Data? How does that compare to your company, you may ask yourself.

2

Secondly, we will look at the discussed ´Wish-list´ regarding Data and Artificial Intelligence and what Data officers would put on that list. What would you define on your ´wish-list´ for new data architecture for your business?

3

Lastly, we will look at the near future, and at what the Chief Data Officers (CDO) mark as ´must-do´s´ in the next few years.

How do big companies currently handle Data?

In summary, what are common requirements that these companies currently have regarding Data and how do they cope with Data in a day-to-day manner?

1. Keep it simple and flexible:

Both the architecture as well as the end-user interfaces; even more so in this era where data is constantly refreshed and therefore on-demand insights that lead to even more engagement.

2. Keep it well-governed:

Simply put: build and maintain one single source of truth.

3. Explain and evangelize:

Train staff about data science and the use of analytics tools, and widely advertise internally the positive outcomes from use of data and analytics.

4. Align with other ´Chiefs´:

The data strategy needs to factor in the existing technology infrastructure and ensure it is always focused on delivering the corporate priorities. Some of these themes that many Chief Data Officers (CDO) indicate are not significantly different from let´s say 10 years ago.

Up next:

What follows next is the wish-list as stated by the CTOs. After that we will also look at the near future, and as the review states “Organizations top data priorities over the next two years fall into three areas, all supported by wider adoption of cloud platforms”.

A wish-list for a new data architecture.

What does it look like?

What if data and technology leaders could build a new Data and Artificial Intelligence architecture for their business? What would be on their wish-list? According to the MIT review, the following are the most important items on the list of the 350 investigated big companies.

1

Open-source standards and open-data formats.

"When the business matures and you find you need to add a component, with open source you’ve got that option without it affecting the entire architecture. You don’t need to be changing technologies the way that you might have had to in the past.”

Next on the list is not new, but rather the strengthening of areas that are always and continuously on the list of technology leaders; where they always keep seeking improvement in:

2

Stronger security, stronger governance, and better price/performance for infrastructure, operations, maintenance, and other architecture elements.

Thirdly on the wish-list is an item that anyone should support:

3

Supports all analytics use cases, whether based on Machine Learning (ML), based on data science, or on business intelligence. In other words, all business cases can be handled and answered by the existing analytics.

What are Top Data priorities for the next 2 years?

Top Data priorities of the participating 350 big companies over the next two years fall into three areas, all supported by wider adoption of cloud platforms: Data management & quality, Data analytics & Machine learning, and thirdly the use of a broader variety of Data:

1

Improving Data quality & management

"The quality of some customers’ data matters even more than its ability to ingest large volumes. In fact, the cleaner its customers’ data, the fewer ingestion problems it encounters."

2

Enhancing Data analytics and Machine Learning (ML)

“In the past, we had data scientists who would build models and come up with insights. They would hand them to another team to implement. That ‘waterfall’ approach didn’t work, and the models didn’t scale well.” Integrating data science and production into single teams working in partnership with IT has helped smooth these difficulties.

“It’s much better than having one team develop the insights and another do the scaling.”

The skills gap remains a systemic issue for organizations looking to build successful ML practices. The lack of ML expertise is cited as a major barrier to scaling use cases.

3

Expanding the use of all types of enterprise data, including streaming and unstructured data

“Know what data matters most, prioritize it, build the discipline to protect and govern it, then democratize the data to enable your data specialists and end-users to extract the insights they need to innovate.” – Sol Rashidi, Chief Analytics Officer, The Estée Lauder Companies

Final note From the author:

Some of these elements seem obvious to most us, though we all know it is not easy for many companies to stay on top, or even stay ahead in our current Data driven era.

It is something companies need to work hard at, and they need to incorporate everyone in the company, which may and probably will have an effect on the business culture, at least at the level of the business´ practices towards Data and Artificial Intelligence.

Joris van der Heijden runs Controller-for-a-day. His business is improving your business with lasting impact.

With two decades of extensive business experience in both Latin America and Europe, he provides business improvement and optimizations accross the entire organization. He utilizes proven methods and cutting-edge technological solutions for European businesses in Spain and The Netherlands.

Key words #MIT #dataanalytics #businessresults #cfad #controllerforaday #controllerspain #SMEspain #artificialintelligence