Enhancing collaboration and efficiency: AI in the tech channel
Chris Huntingford, director of digital innovation at ANS, explores how AI is shaping the way organisations operate within the channel, and how IT vendors can use it to enhance collaboration and efficiency
AI is projected to revolutionise the tech channel, with the technology predicted to be worth over $158bn for the channel ecosystem by 2028.
AI can reduce manual workloads and empower channel partners to strategically allocate resources, enhance supply chain management, and respond swiftly to market challenges by better meeting customer demands.
So, it’s no wonder businesses in the channel are keen to jump on the AI trend. But unlocking AI’s value does not come without its own challenges, and channel business leaders need to ensure they are adopting AI properly.
How is AI transforming channel operations?
AI is revolutionising various industries, and the tech channel is no exception. It is promising to be a game changer, taking day-to-day operations to a new level of accuracy and efficiency. AI is significantly enhancing both collaboration and efficiency in several ways:
- More tailored services
Businesses in the channel can use AI tools to process and analyse vast amounts of data, from spending habits and frequent buys to the length of time spent looking at a specific product.
These insights enable a more tailored experience through personalised recommendations and unique suggestions. Additionally, AI chat functions can provide timely responses to any questions or requests.
Interestingly, Forbes Advisor reports that 64 per cent of business owners believe AI has the potential to improve customer relationships By enabling people the ability to get to more accurate results and insights much faster.
- Powering day-to-day collaboration
One of the most common and inclusive uses of AI across organisations is for assisting and automating everyday tasks, including data input, coding support, and content generation.
Tools such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot for 365 don’t require significant investments.
Smaller teams and businesses are already using them to save valuable employee time and resources - with a significant 64 per cent of businesses believing that artificial intelligence will help increase their overall productivity, as revealed in a Forbes Advisor survey.
- Using data to improve efficiency
AI helps drive profit, minimises wasted resources, and identifies potential disruptions. By tracking levels of supply and demand, AI can automatically identify both challenges and opportunities, such as heightened demand for a particular product.
For example, a reseller can use AI to analyse market trends and consumer behaviours to determine the optimal price for products at any time. This allows the reseller to set a competitive price without human intuition, bias, and manual effort.
Impressively, AI tools are also capable of suggesting solutions to these problems, for example giving substitution offers when a product is out of stock. By helping channel businesses plan and prepare, AI tools can prevent disruptions that would otherwise cost valuable time, money, and resources.
Unlocking AI’s value
While AI unlocks significant value to business operations in the channel, organisations won’t get the most out of their technological investment without the right foundations in place.
Adopting AI isn’t as straightforward as ‘plug and play.’ While many applications are easy to use, it’s important that channel business leaders take the time to fully understand the technology and its potential uses within day-to-day processes and scenarios.
Acknowledging the potential risks and challenges of implementing new AI tools can help channel businesses prepare solutions and ensure that their business is equipped to manage modern technology, avoid costly mistakes, and hit the ground running with their innovation efforts.
Three steps to successful AI implementation
- Ordered data and security
The output that AI can generate is only as good as the data that’s fed into it. It’s vital for channel businesses to make sure that their data is as clean and secure as possible and without duplicates or inaccuracies.
It’s also important to not rush into AI. For an organisation to get the best use out of AI, business leaders must assess if their businesses are getting enough data to make it a viable project. Without enough data, it’s harder to get relevant insights, limiting the potential positive impact.
It is also important to ensure that your security landscape is well-defined and up to date. The better your security, the more targeted an organisation can be with their AI approach.
- Align AI strategies with business objectives
Before embarking on an AI journey, businesses in the channel should align their strategies with their desired outcomes.
There’s no point in spending a lot of money trying to achieve something that doesn’t give valuable returns. It’s also important to assess financial and resource availability for AI projects.
Business leaders must decide whether they have the resources in terms of in-house expertise or if it would be beneficial to collaborate with a tech company for a successful journey towards AI-driven digital transformation. This is particularly pertinent for small businesses in the channel that may not have internal expertise in this area.
- Future-ready your AI adoption responsibly
As AI continues to evolve, it’s important for businesses in the channel to be agile and adaptable to technological developments, for them to remain competitive in an ever-changing field. Being future-focused and future-ready is all about ensuring that AI technologies have longevity in business operations and can become deeply embedded in processes.
Educating all parts of your business, whether it be users, customers or suppliers, about AI and how to use these tools in a responsible manner is key to AI adoption and creating a future-ready AI culture from a technical and cultural perspective. It is important to ensure that your organisation respects AI and its capabilities.
AI is here to stay, so whilst it’s important to start small, businesses should also be future-gazing and prepared for the pace of development in their sector, to keep up with rapidly evolving technologies.
Transforming with AI
It is an exciting time for businesses in the channel, and adopting AI correctly with the necessary considerations can significantly transform business operations. Understanding the value that AI can bring and creating building blocks for effective and long-lasting AI adoption, can give businesses in the channel the competitive advantage they need to thrive in today’s technological landscape.