Why AI-Search is a Digital Transformation Force Multiplier During a Recession

Are we heading for a recession?

I’m not an economist. I’ll let these professionals forecast and characterize
the state of global economies and the financial markets. What I do know is
that senior leadership will budget through 2023 based on how the economy and
competitive pressures impact their industry and businesses. 

Experienced CIOs, CTOs, and CDOs (chief digital and data officers) will plan
their digital transformation budgets, roadmaps, and priorities accordingly.
There’s still pressure to deliver customer-facing innovations, reduce
technical debt, and modernize employee workflows. CXOs (CIOs, CTOs, and
CDOs) need to be creative about what investments, platforms, and initiatives
they prioritize.

I share my opinion on one of these strategic investments in a recently
published white paper,
Revisit the Importance of Search for Your Enterprise Tech Strategy.

The paper characterizes AI search as a strategic platform that can be a
force multiplier and enable CXOs to deliver significant business outcomes in
several digital transformation priorities. I then share how CIOs, CDOs, and
CMOs can partner on delivering these outcomes and over 20 financial metrics
that AI search can impact.

Let me define some terms and explain my position.

What is a digital transformation force multiplier?   

In the paper, I share five attributes of digital transformation force
multipliers which I use to characterize cultures, practices, and platforms
that can accelerate transformation-driven business outcomes.

Platforms that meet the criteria must enable top-line revenue and growth
objectives while also driving cost savings, efficiency, and quality.

Many platform investments can’t achieve both objectives. For example,
automation platforms are generally not force-multiplying as they usually
focus on productivity-driven cost efficiencies. On the other hand,
technologies that drive customer experience improvements may impact revenue,
growth, and customer satisfaction — but don’t always contribute to cost
savings.

Force-multiplying platforms achieve these objectives by improving customer
and employee experiences, delivering innovations and security
enhancements, and enabling organizations to operate faster
and smarter. I explain more in the
white paper.

Why is AI search a force multiplier?

Here are some questions to help illustrate the potential business impacts of
using an
AI search platform and
developing a
search center of excellence:

1. How many platforms, SaaS, and homegrown applications in your organization
   have an embedded search capability that only accesses a small fraction of
   information relevant to their end-users?
2. How much do you invest in devops teams supporting search capabilities in
   search indexes like Apache Solr, portals like Sharepoint, workflow tools
   like Salesforce and Workday, and content management systems like
   WordPress, Drupal, and Sitecore?
3. Do you ask customers and employees about the overall effectiveness and
   efficiency of searching the platforms they use routinely?
   Recent research
   suggests that only 13 percent excel in enterprise search, so chances are
   your organization has opportunities to deliver competitive
   improvements.  
4. Can your customer support teams easily search all the unstructured data,
   including social media and other third-party data, about the customer,
   products, and support information to personalize how they handle a
   customer issue or request?
5. Are you concerned about the loss of tribal knowledge because of hybrid
   working, employee retention risks, and post M&A turnover?

Answering questions 1 and 2 can illustrate the potential to reduce technical
debt and costs by consolidating to an intelligent search platform. Questions
3 and 4 show where you can drive improvements in customer and employee
experiences. Answering question 5 exposes the risks when organizations
underinvest in knowledge management and search capabilities.

AI search is a solution that can address all five challenges, and you can
review
what to look for and what to avoid when selecting a search platform
that is a force multiplier. 

Why invest in AI search now, especially if there’s a recession?

In my post on
platforms CIOs should invest in during a recession, I stated, “Retail, ecommerce, and subscription-based media sites can see
increased revenue from intelligent search capabilities, and all companies
can improve customer support functions and employee productivity.”

But I also see huge potential for AI search in financial services,
healthcare, SaaS technologies, and insurance and share use cases on
revisiting the
importance of AI search for their enterprise tech strategies.

During a recession or times of rapid transformational change, CIOs need
several ways to drive business outcomes with a versatile,
low-code and pro-code intelligent search platform
that devops teams can implement across multiple business units. There are
multiple ways to win by improving customer and employee experiences while
reducing technical debt and consolidating information silos.

This post is brought to you by Coveo.

The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do
not necessarily represent the views and opinions of Coveo.