Do you think generative AI is speeding up or slowing down the pace of finance transformation?
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India Head and Director of Global Finance Shared Services in Hardwarea year ago
My view is that generative AI has the potential to accelerate the pace of finance transformation through process automation, data analysis, and better decision-making. There are various challenges also related to government regulations, availability of right skills, data security, and resistance to change. These challenges can potentially slow down its adoption and business impact. So, pace of finance transformation can gather momentum once these problems are overcome. Director of Finance in Manufacturing8 months ago
I would say that with the digital transformation, I think that any AI tool helps speed up the process. And I think if you're new into that AI space, it's really just about taking that leap of faith and maybe thinking differently. You have guiding principles and one of our guiding principles with our transformation is to think big. And sometimes that's hard, especially when we say think big - I may make something a little bit more difficult for one team, but overall, it's a win for the company. That's a hard thing when you're implementing something new - you tell someone their process will take 5 minutes longer. But maybe overall we'll save an hour for everyone else because of that extra 5 minutes. In any event, in the AI space, it's really all about mapping out your processes - where do you spend your time and what tools are available to help you be more efficient? Are there things that can processed for you so you can spend more time on analysis, understanding, and fixing issues instead of just processing data? It's hard for people to have faith in AI, especially if you've been in the workforce a long time like me. It's amazing what technology can do these days. ChatGPT was the big one that opened people's eyes. Those first couple weeks were very exciting but also concerning - "Oh, this is a little dangerous."I think with AI you have to step out of your comfort zone a bit, but also realize integrity is a core value. You may want to take a second look, and somewhere in the middle is the right answer. There are tools that can help without providing false information. I think any cloud tool is difficult right now. It's a trade-off - you save money without servers and technology, but you have to change processes to conform to the new tools since you can't customize as much. A good topic is finding that balance - what do other's processes look like? As we move to the cloud, our complex manufacturing struggle is to reach common processes. Understanding other process manufacturing users could help since it functions differently than standard distribution. Supply chain isn't as built up yet. We use some cloud boundary applications and conformed - that's the tradeoff of avoiding technical debt. It causes you to re-examine processes closely. Balance exists somewhere. It's an opportunity to standardize processes globally, challenging for sure.
Director of Finance Transformation in Manufacturing2 months ago
The question is more complicated than sounds at the first place. I assume that the initial transformation plan have not included the Generative AI. So, implementation of Generative AI would be separate project that obviously needs time. However, the implemented Generative AI can boost the realization of the rest of the transformation plan - again, depends on what is the plan... I would recommend the author paraphrase the question to focus on nuances s/he is interested in.