By Nancy Marino, Associate Partner Columbus Consulting
Today, an increasing number of companies seek to implement digital transformation programs to drive higher growth, productivity, profitability and customer satisfaction. Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology has revolutionized marketing and sales and now generative AI promises to disrupt the way B2B and B2C companies think about customer experience, productivity, and growth.
AI and machine learning continue to push the boundaries of what is possible and now with the ongoing step-change evolution of generative AI we are seeing the use of open-source platforms penetrating to the sales frontlines accelerating complexity and speed of doing business in a digital-first world as these technologies become essential tools.
Inevitably, this will impact how we operate, connect with and serve our customers. Top tier companies are estimated to increase their market share by 10 percent annually as quoted in Microsoft Worklab Index, by utilizing advanced sales technology, to build hybrid sales teams and capabilities, tailor strategies for third party and company owned marketplaces and achieve e-commerce excellence across the entire enterprise with hyper-personalized messaging for individual decision makers based upon their needs, profile, behaviors and interactions – both past and predictive.
What Does AI Mean for Marketing and Sales?
AI can boost sales effectiveness and performance by automating mundane sales activities, freeing up capacity to spend more time with customers and business strategies. AI coupled with company specific data and contact will enable consumer insights at the most granular level, allowing B2C and B2B lever personalization through targeted marketing and sales offerings in their outreach.
There are many AI specific use cases across the customer journey:
- Gen AI advanced algorithms can leverage patterns in customer and market data to segment and target relevant market segmentation.
- AI can optimize marketing strategies through testing of various elements such as page layouts, ad copy SEO strategies.
- Gen AI goes beyond initial sales-team engagement, providing continuous support throughout the process from proposal to deal closure.
- Gen AI can generate personalized content through the ability to analyze customer behavior, demographics and preferences to generate hyper-personalized follow up emails at scale and contextual chatbot support.
- AI can generate onboarding and training for improved customer retention.
- AI provides leadership with next-step recommendations, continuous modeling and dynamic customer journey mapping.
Anticipating and Mitigating Risks in Gen AI
The rate of change in AI technology is astonishingly fast and not without risk. The greatest barriers limiting organizations adoption of AI technology are IP infringement to data privacy and security. There are a number of issues that require thoughtful mitigation strategies and governance with the need for human oversight and accountability being paramount. This requires clear direction for newly developed roles, responsibilities and capabilities on opportunities that lie ahead.
Additionally, leaders need to start thinking strategically about how to invest in AI for the long term to help differentiate market positioning establishing priorities based upon feasibility. The AI landscape is evolving very quickly, and many new innovators may not be able to scale as needed. That will drive the need to test and iterate different applications, while pursuing strategic partnerships based upon rate of innovation, ability to scale versus time to market.
ABOUT NANCY MARINO
Nancy Marino is an Associate Partner at Columbus Consulting with a proven track record of successfully leading retailers and brands for implementation of processes from design to delivery and development of their Go-To-Market strategies. She is respected for her leadership skills and project management oversight for executing system initiatives and international acumen having managed global sourcing and buying offices in over 50 counties. Nancy is a decision leader and change management expert. She is an adjunct professor at FIT and is pioneering leadership in the PLM AI retail space.
ABOUT COLUMBUS CONSULTING
Columbus Consulting delivers solutions that drive true value and have been transforming the retail and CPG industries for over two decades. We are a retail consulting company of industry experts. Our approach is simple, if you do it, we do it. We are more than consultants; we are experienced practitioners who actually sat in our clients’ seats. We understand the challenges, know what questions to ask and deliver the right solutions. Columbus offers a unique, consumer-centric approach with an end-to-end perspective that bridges functional & organization silos from strategy to execution. Our specialties include: unified commerce, merchandising & category management, planning & inventory management, sourcing & supply chain, data & analytics, accounting, finance & operations, people & organization and information technology. Let us know how we can help you. To learn more, visit COLUMBUSCONSULTING.COM.