Using AI Solutions to Protect your Business during COVID-19

COVID-19 has changed how the world works. Affecting millions of lives worldwide, Corona has not only risked human lives but also impacted the business practices in the post-modern world. From interacting with clients to office operations, we are racing against time to keep our business expectations high. 

Source: Google

Adapting to the “new normal” that COVID-19 has compelled us towards, businesses can leverage AI-technology to track and analyze trends with an eye on improving the overall productivity. 

1.Bringing Sales into Focus

In a post-pandemic world, businesses will see a low in sales which will impact your operations. Good for us, business performance can be boosted using AI-powered sales techniques. 

Whether it’s about generating predictive leads, or delivering personalized customer service experience, AI tools always come in handy when we want to prioritize customers. Particularly after COVID-19 situation, collecting and analyzing customer data is becoming the topmost concern of every business, and that’s where AI gives you a competitive advantage. With the right AI tools for your sales strategy, you can not only classify the right opportunities to tap on but also gain insight into your customers’ needs. Take it from me, AI in itself is a great help in creating high-value customer journeys.

Source: Engati.com

Take the case of Netflix: with a special focus on user data, its algorithms are trained to display user-centric content to maximize viewership and subscriptions. When powered by AI tools, these propensity models can classify and predict user-behavior based on available data. Or tech giants like Google, Facebook, etc: being a pioneer in the marketing industry, these companies have long since invested billions of dollars to upgrade their AI capabilities and the results speak for themselves.

This one-to-one interaction with your customers will increase your sales prospects, which in turn is known to “an increase in leads and appointments of more than 50%, cost reductions of 40%–60%, and call time reductions of 60%–70%”, confirmed by HBR.

2.            Correlating Demand-Supply Chains

With so much external data available to us, businesses can leverage AI technology to explore demands that match our supply chains. With special attention to COVID-19, its aftermaths will see companies collecting and assessing large volumes of representative data to find relevant patterns within the existing demand-supply gaps.

Source: McKinsey

AI tools provide end-to-end visibility so that your business stands apart in the market. Reducing manual labor, these tools will collect data and generate actionable insights to aid in your strategy formulations. With your business supported by AI tools, you can expect reduced costs and increased revenue at worst. A study by McKinsey found “61% of executives report decreased costs and 53% report increased revenues as a direct result of introducing artificial intelligence into their supply chains.” At its best, AI can provide opportunities to attain business outside your specific domain, resulting in business expansion and a greater rate of client acquisition.

3.            Enhancing Virtual Experiences

After the COVID-19 pandemic, customers are more likely to shift towards the virtual experience economy. Using the AI-powered strategy to create virtual experiences that customers value, businesses can connect with a wide range of consumers. Be it brand awareness or product promotion, virtual experiences can have a cutting edge in contrast to real-life interactions, particularly since AI can automate your back-office tasks, thus reducing your resource allocation and much-dreaded wait-times. 

Source: SlideShare

From confirming customer identity to verifying important documents, AI tools make business operations easy and quick, therefore increasing the happy moments of the customers. Be it refund/canceling orders, or information about new products, or grievance redressal, businesses can use AI to foster better relationships with the customers. 

4.            Actionable Cash-Flow Forecasts

As COVID-19 continues to impact millions of lives worldwide, businesses will witness steep declines in revenue streams. Alternate solutions must be explored to sustain during these hard times. Past cash-flow forecasting systems were limited by the effect of manual adjustments or unforeseen circumstances. In a dynamic environment where counter-party behavior and changing organization roles matter more than ever, the old ways of cash-flow forecasting seem either outdated or too-generic.

That’s where AI comes into the larger picture to upscale the cash-flow forecasting for your business. Bringing AI solutions in business practices, organizations get an upper hand in automating the forecasting processes. AI-powered cash flow forecasts are accurate and accessible in no time, leading to better strategy formulations and risk assessments. 

5.            Staff Management and Knowledge Share

Businesses aren’t about profits, they are about people. Be it the customer, or client, or the employees, “Companies that build the optimum ratio of cognitive and emotional culture for their employees can succeed in generating the best worker performance with the lowest turnover.” Given that businesses are shifting towards work-from-home culture, AI solutions are best of its kind to streamline workflow and ensure maximized communication across all the channels. 

Source: DigitalTrends

More critical than ever to interact and respond with action, new age businesses must use AI solutions to connect and communicate with the employee population so that no one feels left behind. Automating employee activities in CRM is only the tip of the iceberg. Dig deeper and we know how AI tools can be used to promote relationship-centric collaborations, or how managers and business leaders can encourage employees in adapting to new learning resources with data-driven insights. Learning resources are better discovered, connected and updated when using AI tools, not to forget the crucial employee learning metrics that are available through AI tools.

Given the state of COVID-19 pandemic, every business must innovate to catch the new trends. While AI is always good to support automation and high-level computation, business leaders know that data is analytically relevant only when put into action. Taking a cue from the past, Artificial Intelligence can promote better business practices and enhance work productivity, leading to more affluent work culture. With AI adding $13 trillion to the global economy in the coming decade, new profitable opportunities are waiting to be discovered in almost every business sector.