business
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TALKING
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negotiations, especially at times like end
of quarter reporting when companies
are also focused on optimising cash
flow needs and balancing costs. In HR,
recruiters would be better able to identify
the best candidates in the shortest time.
For marketing professionals, AI is already
being used to help them run more
personalised campaigns around next
best offers.
5. Creating conversation from chat:
Finally, as shown by Bajaj, a good area
to start with AI is chatbots, especially
given the rising importance of the
customer experience set to be a key
competitive battle ground for 2018. With
new AI enabled platforms available that
make it quick and easy to build and train
Intelligent Bots without the need for
specialist AI skills.
Getting to grips with
data in your business
In light of the latest incidents
of data sharing breaches,
ZaiLab data analyst Sanneke
Brok believes measuring and
analysing data is essential for
the success of any enterprise.
displaying these known things in such a way
that it becomes meaningful information.
Within the business context, data and
analytics are vital inputs for fact-based
decision making and help overcome biases
and opposing opinions.
How does data and analytics fit into
the current business landscape?
Today, businesses are driven by strong
hierarchies and bureaucratic tendencies.
Customer-centric strategies aren’t as
widespread yet. Data and analytics are there
to help businesses understand and target
specific segments of their customers and
how they interact with the business. From
the moment that companies adopt this
mindset, a change to a more fact-based
way of decision making occurs and drives a
customer-centric approach which pays off in
long-term profits.
ZaiLab data analyst Sanneke Brok
S
ince the Cambridge Analytica story
made headlines, many businesses have
been questioning what constitutes an
appropriate use of data within their business
landscape. Certainly data should be ethically
sourced and protected, particularly sensitive
client information, but used correctly, data
serves a very important purpose.
What are data and analytics?
Data can be defined as ‘things known’ and
analytics is ‘the art’ of manipulating and
36
INTELLIGENTCIO
Not every business understands the
importance of data and how one can utilise
data to improve business efficiency across
all operations.
Data in itself is meaningless. Analysing data
correctly gives you a clear picture of your
customer groups, your product and how
successful your business is and will be in the
long term. Moreover, using statistics and
models for your data will help you target
the right customer with the right message,
set the right pricing strategy and optimise
sales and service channels. What businesses
need to understand is that analysing your
data continuously will help you monitor your
results and adjust in time where necessary.
Without doubt, AI will be an increasingly
important element of the business
environment and is not something that can
be watched from the sidelines. Given that
the benefits of AI are really quite simple –
speed from automation and the ability to
make better decisions – if the guy in front
makes a better decision than you and does
it faster, you are going to be outraced. You
can’t afford to sit back and wait. n
How can the practice of analysing
data be used in business for a better
understanding of client dynamics?
Firstly, the data needs to be captured and
stored (with permission of course). Secondly,
business analysts and mathematicians
need to be trained to work with very large
datasets. Lastly, it will be important to
focus on consulting skills. There are lots of
incredibly intelligent data professionals, but
bringing this specialised knowledge across
to business leaders requires specific skills. It
is important to understand the context of
the business and to be able to explain your
results in layman’s terms.
What challenges are we currently
facing around implementing data-
driven strategies and ensuring that
they are aligned with laws and
consumer protection policies?
The biggest challenge is for business leaders
to be open to a data-driven strategy. The
results from data analysis can clash with
long-standing visions and opinions.
For a fact-based strategy to pay off, it needs
to be supported in all layers of the company.
Also, setting up a well-functioning data
warehouse can be a technical challenge. On
the bright side, legislation isn’t as strict as
in Europe and the States and compliance
should, therefore, be less of a hurdle.
This is a practice that we have adopted at
ZaiLab to ensure that we utilise our business
data and analytics to enhance how we
operate in an agile environment. Many
businesses still need to adapt this trend,
especially in start-up environments. In my
opinion, using AI will be more beneficial
in a company that makes decisions and
evaluations based on data and has a solid
data structure in place. n
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