How to get Organization Ready for AI-Powered ERP?
AI has been making headlines for quite some time now. From Google’s driverless car to friendly personal assistant Siri to Honda’s ASIMO who can dance, play football, serve you a cup of tea and shake hands – everything appears to be from the pages of an award-winning science fiction novel. But it isn’t. We are surrounded by AI-powered devices that act like humans and possess the ability to outsmart us in many ways. And this is not limited to the examples described above. Today, AI applications are changing the way we do business. They are making it more agile, data-driven, user-friendly, and better equipped to forecast events. All credits to AI-powered ERP systems that are managing business activities like never before.
According to a report by VentureBeat, a whopping amount of $13.5 billion has been raised by AI-related companies in 2019 to completely transform a range of industries. Armed with a combined power of advanced analytics and machine learning abilities, AI-powered ERP systems are a boon to businesses. But are organizations ready to reap its benefits?
AI-powered ERP systems change according to current needs without much human intervention
Today, every mid-sized and large-sized organization has an ERP system at the helm of its affairs. It conveniently manages supply chain, manufacturing, finance, customer service, and other important business functions. However, they are affected by interoperability issues. This means that they either crash or take long intervals of time to cope with new changes brought into the system. Hence, organizations have to spend considerable resources and time to retrain the model. Fortunately, this is not the case with AI-powered ERP systems. They are incredibly receptive to inputs and modify according to user feedback.
Another thing worth mentioning is the disastrous impact of information silos. They hinder the movement of business-critical data between departments making data-driven decision making a pipedream. But cloud-based, AI-powered ERP systems provide an easy solution. They maintain a single data repository that can be accessed by all authorized personnel, thereby allowing the free flow of information and help make data-driven decisions.
Moreover, AI-powered ERP systems use evaluators and configurators that work autonomously, provide secure data migration, faster data loading and are fairly cheaper than their non-AI counterparts.
Transition to an AI-powered ERP system is fairly easy
Time and over again we have seen across industries that new technology brings a mix of both – good and bad. The same premise holds for AI-powered ERP systems. As described in the point above, it is fairly easy to implement it. But the real challenge is to train your employees on how to make the most of this new technology. Also, many of them succumb to the insecurity that they may soon lose their jobs to AI. Organizations should allay such fears but at the same time make them realize that change is the only constant. The only way to survive in this super-competitive world is to work in close collaboration with new technologies such as AI, machine learning, IoT, blockchain, cloud computing, etc. Organizations should keep in mind that nobody lies outside the purview of ‘change’ – be it a ‘C’ level employee or a new joiner.
Employees should very well understand that though the transformation period is not devoid of challenges, they will emerge victorious at the end of it. AI-powered ERP systems will make them capable enough to draw benefits from previously disconnected data sets and capitalize on it. They will also be able to take note of previously untapped opportunities and as a result, improve their decision making power exponentially. This will provide a tactical advantage to the business.
Another important reason why AI-powered ERP systems are extremely useful is that it frees time for everyone in the organization and allows them to focus on more important tasks such as innovation, forecasting business needs, and ponder on how to better the revenue generation mechanism.
To speed up the navigation, organizations can extend a helping hand by delivering intuitive user experiences on their employees’ smartphones through the use of virtual assistants and voice recognition software.
AI-powered ERP systems will change the way we work. The following reasons explain how:
- They will speed up business activities drastically
- They will break information silos
- They will provide better insights into challenges than their non-AI counterparts
- They will increase innovation speed substantially
- They will automate transactional tasks
- They will improve performance management
- They will enhance the ability to accurately predict business needs
- They will increase data loading and migration speeds
- They will adapt themselves according to customer feedback
Nishant likes to read and write on technologies that form the bedrock of the modern-day and age like machine learning, data science, AI and robotics. His expertise in content marketing has helped grow countless business opportunities. Nishant works for Sage Software Solutions Pvt. Ltd., a leading provider of CRM and ERP software to small and mid-sized businesses in India.