NASSCOM CoE for DSAI conducted AI Parley to explore the opportunities COVID-19 has created in the AI space.  Panel discussions were held to learn if COVID-19 has acted as a trigger to drive large scale adoption of AI by Govt and Enterprises. Sameer Dhanrajani, CEO & Co-founder, AIQRATE, moderated the Panel of eclectic guests from industry and academia to lend their views on Setting up AI for Success: Strategic focus areas to deliver in crisis.

Piloting thru the COVID era means grasping sudden strategic shifts. Social distancing and process turmoil have taken hold in every aspect of our lives, forcing us to change our routines and reevaluate our goals and expectations in real-time. And, unsurprisingly, these waves of upheaval have triggered a reset on most business operations and on commercial assumptions. We are all resetting the playbook in the new normal.

We are faced with an unprecedented challenge during this disruption. For years leaders have been told that if they are unable to lead ourselves, they cannot possibly lead others. But what does that look like right now? It is a struggle to process this globally shared experience that is simultaneously isolating and deeply personal. In a time when we need to be connected and certain, we may feel disconnected and unsure. On top of that, theory and practice are in constant collision. Navigating the unknowable and uncontrollable future of our businesses is no longer some academic or design-thinking challenge, it is reality. The future is no longer distant, it is right here right now. Hemingway captured this contradiction brilliantly in The Sun Also Rises: When a character is asked, “How did you go bankrupt?” the response is, Gradually and then suddenly.” 

Seeking command and control during this time of next-level upheaval simply will not work. Instead, we must cultivate ingenious mindset. Ingenious leaders are operators and innovators at the same time, and they encourage their followers to be the same. This style of leadership does not come naturally to everyone, but learning to master it is crucial to growth, and it must be prioritized and reactivated in the COVID era. Many corporate leaders are expert operators who drive efficiency and optimization, but not high on innovation and growth. Becoming an ingenious leader requires nurturing new ideas that address consumer pain points using the mindset and tools of a creator. Especially now, in this frightening and fluid new world, business leaders must learn to operate and create. So what is the first step toward being an ingenious leader? How do we elevate ourselves and our teams in this moment? 

Reset

Reset is not surrendering. Reset means embracing The New Normal as our shared reality, not a temporary dilemma to be endured, eventually returning to past goals and expectations. Reset is a crucial element of thoughtful agility. It empowers a team to set down the past, and move forward, unrestrained, into the future. It draws a circle around the knowable that helps us to identify the unknowable, giving us clarity on what we can control and what is beyond our control. Without that clarity, we are unable to set a path into the future. With that clarity, business leaders can make decisions based on new commercial truths, react and pivot quickly, reactivate and discover new growth, and lead their teams with conviction. They can become truly ingenious. Pressing the Reset button also requires us to acknowledge that past precedent is no longer a future predictor of business behaviors and outcomes. Leaders must have flexible mindsets around beliefs about market and consumer signals and shifts. It’s time to let go of past commitments and re-align our enterprises to a new-base business reality. 

Realign

Once we have activated the Reset button, business leaders must prepare to realign and embrace the New Normal . This is where we practice ingenious leadership by shifting focus away from the knowable and controllable and toward the unknowable and uncontrollable. This is where we embrace discomfort and dig into the challenge of transforming our enterprises in two key areas: growth and capability.

Resurrect

To resurrect growth, we will need to innovate into radically changed markets to address new, often sudden strategic shifts in customer needs and problems. We are living in a fragile moment of intense change that requires us to lean into these rare opportunities to discover The New Future. Enterprises must abandon the familiar model of Total Addressable Markets (TAM), where past budgets and behaviors existed pre-disruption. We must shift now to a Total Addressable Problem (TAP) view of the world, where new needs, behaviors, and budgets guide our choices. Leaders should be experimenting and testing ferociously to understand the new TAP view of the world and dig into the problems that people are facing right now. Instead of thinking about the past, leaders must focus on present problems their enterprises are uniquely positioned to solve. 

Run better , Run different

To transform enterprises’ ability to resurrect growth, we will need to adopt and embed new strategies that transform teams and organizations with adaptability and speed to run better & run different. Leaders must cultivate resilience of growth in both capability and culture. Tackling all of this during the COVID era takes empathy and courage. Fortunately, we can see courage, innovation, and exploration all around us. Organizations and individuals are creating ingenious solutions to problems we never knew we would face. Futurologist, Yuval Noah Harari pointed out that we’re currently witnessing “… social experiments on a massive scale that will change the world. We can’t predict what will happen because the main thing is that we have so many choices. It’s not like there is just one predetermined outcome to this epidemic. “The choice we face means dual objective of augmenting the growth post recovery and finding new spots of opportunities. This gives us the opportunity to create growth mindsets, systems, and cultures that transcend traditional strategic planning and efficiency. We can embrace resilience and the capabilities to lead through uncertainty, and rise to meet the New Normal in the leadership code

In midst of this COVID situation across the globe, exponential technologies and an AI led processes around the value chain of supply chain will unleash new scenarios for global enterprises. Robots already stand side-by-side with their human counterparts on several manufacturing floors, adding efficiency, capacity (robots don’t need to sleep!) and dependability. Add in drones and self-driving vehicles ; all these technological advancements are compelling enterprises to reimagine their supply chain.

Supply chains, although automated to a degree, still face challenges brought about by the amount of slow, manual tasks required, and the daily management of a complex web of interdependent parts. The next generation of process efficiency gains and visibility could be on your doorstep with artificial intelligence in supply chain management, if only you’d let the robots automatically open it for you.

 Intelligent Automation: Intelligent automation of the end-to-end supply chain, enabling the management of all tasks and sections in tandem allows you to spend less time on low value, high frequency activities like managing day-to-day processes, and provides more time to work on high value, exception-based requirements, which ultimately drives value for the entire business.

Analysts estimates businesses could automate up to 45% of current work, saving $2 trillion in annual wages. “In addition to the cost and efficiency advantages, Intelligent automation can take a business to the next level of productivity optimization,” . Those ‘lights out’ factories and warehouses are becoming closer to a reality.

Four key elements need to be in place for you to take full advantage of intelligent automation in your supply chain:

• robots for picking orders and moving them through the facility;
• sensors to ensure product quality and stock;
• cognitive learning systems;
• and, artificial intelligence to turn processes into algorithms to guide the entire operation.

In addition, you’ll need strong collaboration internally and among suppliers and customers to tie all management systems back to order management and enterprise resource planning platforms.

Artificial Intelligence In Supply Chain : Strategic coverage areas

AI is changing the traditional way in which companies are operating. Siemens in its “lights out” manufacturing plant, has automated some of its production lines to a point where they are run unsupervised for several weeks.

Siemens is also taking a step towards a larger goal of creating Industrie 4.0 or a fully self-organizing factory which will automate the entire supply chain. Here, the demand and order information would automatically get converted into work orders and be incorporated into the production process. This would streamline manufacturing of highly customized products.

Artificial Intelligence In Supplier Management And Customer Service: Organizations are also increasingly leveraging AI for supplier management and customer management. IPsoft’s AI platform, Amelia automates work knowledge and is able to speak to the customers in more than 20 languages. A global oil and gas company has trained Amelia to help provide prompt and more efficient ways of answering invoicing queries from its suppliers. A large US-based media services organization taught Amelia how to support first line agents in order to raise the bar for customer service.

Artificial Intelligence In Logistics & Warehousing : Logistics function will undergo a fundamental change as artificial intelligence gets deployed to handle domestic and international movement of goods. DHL has stated that its use of autonomous fork lifts is “reaching a level of maturity” in warehouse operations. The next step would be driver less autonomous vehicles undertaking goods delivery operations.

Artificial Intelligence In Procurement :AI is helping drive cost reduction and compliance agenda through procurement by generating real time visibility of the spend data. The spend data is automatically classified by AI software and is checked for compliance and any exceptions in real time. Singapore government is carrying out trials of using artificial intelligence to identify and prevent cases of procurement fraud. The AI algorithm analyzes HR and finance data, procurement requests, tender approvals, workflows, non-financial data like government employee’s family details and vendor employee to identify potentially corrupt or negligent practices. AI will also take up basic procurement activities in the near future thereby helping improve the procurement productivity.

Artificial Intelligence in new product development :AI has totally overhauled the new product development process.by reducing the time to market for new products. Instead of developing physical prototypes and testing the same, innovators are now creating 3D digital models of the product. AI facilitates interaction of the product developers in the digital space by recognizing the gestures and position of hand. For example, the act of switching on a button of a digital prototype can be accomplished by a gesture.

AI In Demand Planning And Forecasting: Getting the demand planning right is a pain point for many companies. A leading health food company leveraged analytics with machine learning capabilities to analyze their demand variations and trends during promotions. The outcome of this exercise was a reliable, detailed model highlighting expected results of the trade promotion for the sales and marketing department. Gains included a rapid 20 percent reduction in forecast error and a 30 percent reduction in lost sales.

AI in Smart Logistics :The impact of data-driven and autonomous supply chains provides an opportunity for previously unimaginable levels of optimization in manufacturing, logistics, warehousing and last mile delivery that could become a reality in less than half a decade despite high set-up costs deterring early adoption in logistics. Changing consumer behavior and the desire for personalization are behind two other top trends Batch Size One and On-demand Delivery: Set to have a big impact on logistics, on-demand delivery will enable consumers to have their purchases delivered where and when they need them by using flexible courier services.

A study by MHI and Deloitte found more than half (51%) of supply chain and logistics professionals believe robotics and automation will provide a competitive advantage. That’s up from 39% last year. While only 35% of the respondents said they’ve already adopted robotics, 74% plan to do so within the next 10 years. And that’s likely in part to keep up with key players like Amazon, who have been leading the robotics charge for the past few years.

Execution led scenario : These examples showcase that in today’s uncertain times, AI embedded supply chains offer a competitive advantage. AI armed with intelligence can analyze massive amounts of data generated by the supply chains and help organizations move to a more proactive form of supply chain management. Thus, in this AI first theme, where the mantra is “evolve or be disrupted”, companies are leveraging AI to reinvent themselves and scale their businesses quickly. AI is becoming a key enabler of the changes that businesses need to make and is helping them manage complexity of business posed by this pandemic.