A 2016 Narrative Science survey reports that of all the businesses that have an innovation strategy in place, 61% say that they are already using AI (Artificial Intelligence) to identify opportunities in data that would otherwise be missed. This is significant and points to one key fact: that businesses are finally overcoming the initial challenging phase of organizing data and testing an algorithm with this data set for accuracy. This also indicates that AI is gaining momentum and companies are rapidly engaging tools that better automate business intelligence (BI) and analytics processes. Businesses are using AI to process vast reams of data and identify broader trends and get insights faster. Also it is helping them make quicker and more informed decisions that can put them way ahead than their competitors.
AI for Business Reporting& Intelligence
The Problem:
As new-age enterprises go increasingly digital, their operations, decisions and performance are all ruled by a single metric – data. And while most businesses have been investing greatly in data analytics, there have been some fundamental hurdles that business leaders continue to face viz.
– Gathering data across different touchpoints throughout the business cycle. Business executives need to spend precious time and resources to get relevant disparate data from internal and external sources.
– Teams need to undertake great efforts in undertaking basic data analysis which causes delays, making the data irrelevant with little scope for predictive analytics and value addition.
– A lack of reporting mechanism that creates a seamless user experience and enable business leaders to use the data to drive real time action.
The Solution: AI, Machine Learning & NLP powered Solutions
AI has emerged as the perfect solution to counter all these challenges. New-age AI and Machine Learning solutions gather data across different devices (mobiles, desktops etc.), transactions, sensors and equipment at production plants. So, for example, if a company has field executives/sales staff on ground that use a mix of company-owned tablets, smartphones or other devices to record business leads and purchase orders, then all the data from these transactions can be automatically gathered, linked and analysed to spot key consumer trends or irregularities. Often, businesses use a multitude of apps/platforms like Salesforce, Facebook or Shopify to gain insight on their customers, sales or product inventory. AI-based tools can extract data from the various POS and online stores and convert this data into reports. The reports can help business owners to spot key business trends like product performance or customer preferences in real time and can be shared across different devices used by company executives spread across different geographies. AI-based platforms or solutions can help business owners and executives to get a uniform and analysed data view.
AI & Machine Learning are becoming especially critical in detecting unexpected or sudden variances in everyday business – be it transactions, product purchases or machine operations. Companies are calling upon AI solutions to alert them about a probable machine failure or an unusual spike in demand for a particular product. So, for example, if a factory owner has deployed an AI solution to track an assembly line then a sub-optimal production would be immediately reported and prompt the owner to take necessary action.
Predictive Analytics
The biggest advantage that AI-driven business intelligence solutions are delivering is in predicting probable outcomes based on available information. AI and machine learning are helping companies to predict what their customers would want, which products would they prefer, which clients are the most likely to turn into loan defaulters and so on. Even in machinery-driven manufacturing and heavy industries, machine learning systems are being increasingly used to track every physical equipment including machine tools, oil rigs, fleet trucks, cargo containers, commercial vehicles, train wagons and production plants. Artificial intelligence can draw from the sensors attached to these goods, process large volumes of data that each of these products transmit and provide critical insights like when would a machine likely face downtime or need repair.
The Mobiliya Report Genie leverages the power of Natural Language Processing (NLP) & AI to create analytical reports of the performance of thousands of engineers and hundreds of projects. With the impending launch of 5G connectivity, the performance is only going to increase exponentially with increase in speed and volume of data captured.
AI: The New-Age Work Partner
It is estimated that already, deep learning and machine learning systems are hitting a mark of 96% in interpreting data, which is the best that human business analysts can do. And we are still in the early days of these technologies. As the systems become well-oiled and process more and more data they would learn better which information is important and customize reports and dashboards accordingly. Thus, contrary to popular belief that AI would replace human executives, it can in fact assist them in presenting data in a much better way. The perfect working partner that professionals across departments can ask for.
