Strategic Approach to AI Implementation for Optimized Process Outcomes

In an exclusive interview with Asia Business Outlook, Simon Ma, Managing Director - Asia, Freshworks shares his insights on the key aspects organizational leaders must consider while implementing AI into their business operations. With a bachelor's degree in business and psychology, he is a result-oriented business leader with over 17 years of experience across diverse sales functions.

Throw some light on the current AI implementation scenario among business, along with factors that are driving this phenomenon.

Due to the humongous benefits that AI offers, we are seeing widespread adoption among businesses in almost every industry in recent times, with the emergence of Gen AI bolstering this trend even further. This can be majorly attributed to two key growth drivers. Also, the numerous uncertainties that are currently haunting the business ecosystem globally have forced companies to focus on cutting-down costs by integrating Gen AI into their existing function to achieve optimized process outcomes. The first and foremost step that companies must take while integrating AI is to identify the business areas that can be improved by this tech integration such as optimizing processes, increasing productivity, enhancing employee or customer engagement and many others. Post this, the company must set clear and well-defined business objectives that it wishes to achieve through AI implementation. Additionally, while choosing any AI technology or solution, the company must ensure that it can be easily integrated along with existing systems and applications, which is very crucial for the success of any AI implementation project. Most importantly, businesses today are increasingly prioritizing ROI and are taking up projects that promise very quick ROI due to challenges such as increasing inflation and high interest rates.

 Suggest a few effective strategies to create a culture of innovation and experimentation among employees engaged in AI projects.

One of the most common challenges that businesses face while implementing AI into their existing processes is their employees not being skilled enough to use it or understand its various functionalities. Thus, it is paramount for organizations to have the necessary training programs in place to make sure that their employees can utilize the new technology effectively to derive maximum outputs from it. Additionally, the management team must clearly communicate the reason for AI implementation with the employees and create awareness among them about the benefits that it offers to both the company and the employees. Also, enterprises must conduct periodic meetings that involve all the stakeholders of the organization to discuss about the ongoing AI projects and address concerns, if any. This way, enterprises can foster a culture of innovation among all their employees and encourage them to freely experiment with AI without the fear of failure.

How can enterprises mitigate data security and privacy-related concerns while implementing AI into their existing processes?

For any AI model to provide effective outcomes, it needs massive amounts of data, making security and ownership of data extremely crucial for enterprises. Thus, companies must have stringent security measures and guidelines in place in terms of implementing AI. While implementing industry-best practices helps immensely in this regard, an even more effective approach is to create cybersecurity awareness among employees and educate them to identify any suspicious activity and report it immediately to the concerned security personnel. This not only cuts down the data security risks but also enables the IT teams to quickly take precautionary measures and prevent much damage from being done in case of any breaches. Furthermore, organizations must invest in enterprise-grade security products to effectively tackle next-gen threats that might arise due to Gen AI implementation.

Briefly explain the importance of employee upskilling in enhancing the outcomes of AI implementation.

For any organization that is utilizing AI capabilities, it is very much necessary to make sure that its employees stay abreast of the latest trends and tech advancements to build high performing teams that possess all the required skill sets. Also, equipping employees with Gen AI-powered assistance facilitates hyper-personalization, enhances service delivery, optimize process intelligence and enables the organization to focus their valuable resources on other critical functions. "Organizations must invest on enterprise-grade security products to effectively tackle nextgen threats that might arise due to Gen AI implementation."

What future trends do you anticipate in terms of AI implementation among businesses?

Of late, we are seeing that IT teams are constantly overburdened with the rising complexity and volume of software. Also, there is a lot of scrutiny happening among businesses in terms of budgets due to the current macroeconomic situation. Thus, going forward, streamlining IT operations and optimizing costs by automating processes to the maximum extent possible will be the key focus areas for organizations. This is where Gen AI will act as a lifesaver for businesses to achieve all the above-mentioned organizational objectives. Additionally, companies will increasingly leverage Gen AI-powered chatbots for effective query management & support, enhancing the customer experience to a great extent.