Introduction
Strategic consultancy is a specialized field aimed at providing strategic advice and guidance.
It involves analyzing complex issues, identifying opportunities and challenges, and then making research-driven recommendations to help achieve specific goals. Strategic consultancy concerns thinking strategically, analyzing data and providing actionable recommendations. It is about helping navigate complex decisions and achieve goals through well-informed strategies.
Strategy is a general plan to achieve one or more long-term or overall goals under conditions of uncertainty. The essence of formulating strategy is relating an organization to its environment. This is done by determining basic long-term goals, adopting courses of action and allocating resources necessary for carrying out these actions. Given any goal to be achieved, strategy is a broad formula for how an organization intends to act in its environment, what policies will be needed to do so and how goal and means (policies) are to be matched.
AI and Strategy
AI is a transformative force. The ease and cost-effectiveness of carrying out certain tasks that traditionally relied on human problem solving capability has far-reaching implications, creating new opportunities for innovation and enabling businesses to reinvent their operations. By giving computational systems the growing capacity to learn, reason and make decisions, AI is impacting nearly every aspect of business reality, from manufacturing to hospitality, in healthcare, academia and government and certainly as regards the arts, cultural heritage and creative industry. Without an AI strategy, organizations risk missing out on the benefits AI can offer.
Put plainly, an AI strategy is a business administrative plan for embedding AI well in the organization, so that it
aligns with core business and supports the broader goals of the business
links domain expertise (core competencies) and specific excellence in specialization or segmentation in terms of:
- where is the business now
- who is the business with
- what resources are nearby
induces representations on AI in a business context, specifying:
- what AI business are we in
- where do we want to go with AI
- how do we get there
Also, strategy always is about make or buy.
The following topics are to be addressed.
Business Analysis
Understand the organization, its core business, priorities and capabilities. Review the size and strength of the ICT department (and any other potential candidates for implementation and management of AI systems). Interview “core competencies” to identify potential issues AI could help solve.
Technology Assessment
Gain an understanding of various ICT and AI technologies. Research use cases to know where and how technologies are being applied in relevant industries. List issues AI can address and the benefits to be gained. Note the departments that use it, their methods and any roadblocks.
Identifying Common Roadblocks
Several issues can get in the way of building and implementing a successful AI strategy (their potential to impede the process should be assessed early and issues dealt with accordingly to effectively move forward).
Insufficient Data
How and where is the data, really. AI models rely heavily on robust datasets. Both lacking data as well as insufficient access to relevant and high-quality data undermine the strategy and the effectiveness of AI applications.
Complexity
Recent developments within AI have demonstrated the scale and power of this technology on business and society. However, businesses need to determine how to structure and govern these systems well to avoid futility, bias or errors, as the scalability of AI technology can have costly effects to both business and market. As organizations use different datasets to apply machine learning and automation to workflows, it is important to have the right guardrails in place to ensure data quality, compliance and transparency within AI systems.
Strategic Planning
Strategic planning is a process mapping out a vision for the organization’s future and how to get there. The strategic planning process lays down the organization’s decisions, development and objectives.
Next
Strategic Consultancy can help put AI into action by focusing on the areas of business where AI can deliver benefits. Strategic consultancy is designed to reduce the hurdles of AI adoption, establish the right data foundation, while optimizing for outcomes and purposeful use.
Creative industry businesses may need a consulting partner for their AI transformation journey. Strategic Consultancy enhances the impact of AI development, cloud technologies and virtualization in business transformation.