Jess Balmaceda

The objective of any business is to create and sustain long-term value. While AI is beautiful and popular, transformation professionals should not be lured by fad. Choosing the right project to prioritize is vital in achieving such objective. AI solution applied in all other areas of business wherever possible yet not aligned with its strategic objective is detrimental to the organization’s growth and bottom line. It can flood the AI engineers’ workflow to extent of choking its way to success. Stressful and costly system would likely to emerge. More or less, due to long queue of proposed AI solution projects, the more important one can either be missed out or deprioritized. Therefore, it is critical to the management specially to transformation professionals to establish a due diligence framework in project prioritization such as business value analysis – regardless of whether its AI solution-based or not.
 
Business priorities can be deciphered, understood, and better aligned through collaboration with the CFO or Finance Controller. This should be the first step when it comes to project selection and prioritization. Transformation professionals should serve as the bridge between top management, operations (marketing, sales, production, supply chain, etc.), and finance.
 
As Lean Six Sigma or Transformation Professional focuses on financial benefits of every project, aligning first with Finance is paramount. Taking this step early on would yield on project results aligned with business priorities. This method would prevent stressful situation where competing priorities prevented, and lead to real financial benefit appreciated by top management and the business as a whole.
 
While profitability, operating expense, and cash flow are essential financial metrics, throughput projects necessary to increase profitability should take on the priority seat. This is where AI can add strategic value to the business not by fad or chance, but by focused intent.