Accenture Study reflects on businesses AI drift; technology to determine competitive agility

Aggressively deploying AI is the core agenda of firms’ worldwide, including India. The organizations believe that precluding technology adoption can lead to 80% of the firms running out of business in the near future.

The research, titled “AI: Built to Scale” produced by Accenture Strategy and Accenture Applied Intelligence, reflected that while 79 per cent of C-level executives in India believe that achieving business strategy without AI is impossible, the practical implementation of technology still seems distant with only a few making the shift. Shifting from experimentation to creating an organization powered by robust AI capabilities is still a hard possibility.

As a result, this small group of top performers is achieving nearly three times the return from AI investments as their lower-performing counterparts.

As the use of AI has channeled in various business functions, companies want to tap on to the immense potential AI produces and leverage its growth, relevance. “Those who push through the barriers to embedding AI more deeply in their organization, are seeing a return on their AI investment of 70 per cent or more,” said Anindya Basu, geographic unit and country senior managing director, Accenture in India. “Indian businesses need to step on the pedal and learn from the leaders. They need to make strategic investments to scale AI as that’s the only way to realize its true business value.”

The published report also reveals that the secret to success for top performers centers around three key elements: a strong data foundation; AI-centric teamwork; and a C-suite-led commitment to strategic, organization-wide AI deployment.

According to the report, nearly all global respondents (95 per cent) want to develop on building data as the bedrock to AI scaling and development. Still, many performers are more intentional and focused on deploying that the right, relevant data assets to fulfil their AI implementation objectives.

“A key barrier to the successful scaling of AI is the lack of the right people strategy. Companies need to ensure their employees recognize both what AI is, and it’s applications in their day-to-day role. While the management team can serve as the driving factors for scaling AI initiatives, embedding teams with AI across the entire organization is not only a dominating aspect about the strategic intent of the effort but will also enable faster culture and behavioural changes,” said Saurabh Kumar Sahu, managing director and lead for Applied Intelligence, Accenture in India.