Selling Artificial Intelligence - the gap between POC and reality?

Selling Artificial Intelligence - the gap between POC and reality?

As a great fan of Isaac Asimov, I have always had a great interest in anything touching robotics and AI and when one of my former employers asked me for advice on closing an AI deal, I decided to create this blog.

AI is much more than just a technology to help robots and it seems that AI has countless potential applications in all industries, all around us.

Process improvement

Taking a specific industry like finance, which is one of my favourite markets, AI helps in many ways:

• Helping to provide faster and better selection for a credit decision.
• Reducing investment risk by analysing portfolio and leveraging risk issues
• Detecting money laundering by spotting suspicious activities and cutting the cost of investigations.
•  Providing smart chatbots to help customers and reducing call centres workload.
• Automating these myriads of high-frequency repetitive tasks. Robotic Process Automation (RPA), is of the five emerging technologies that JP Morgan Chase uses to enhance the cash management process.

It is clear that AI will have a significant impact on reshaping the business environment in the financial industry.

Can Citizen Data Scientists Help

However, despite 65% (Forbes) of executives expecting positive change from AI, only 30% of them have taken steps to implement AI in their companies.

Furthermore, a recent CIO article stated that while most IT leaders are aware of AI's potential, most organizations still lack the ability to effectively tackle adoption.  

In my opinion, one way to speed up the democratisation of AI would be, in parallel to appeal to Data Scientist, to approach the “citizen data scientist” and enable them to take their data, run it and apply it against different machine learning and deep learning models…to actually get information out the other end. 

Data scientists and their “citizen” counterparts working in tandem in order to get to a quick proof-of-concept (POC) and get more funding and move forward.

However, it seems that many of the AI POCs are struggling to transform into production and real projects.

Improving the chance of POCs success

Having done many POCs in my career, I could maybe apply some of my experience and discuss what can be done to improve the rate of transforming AI POCs into real projects.

1-   Even though POC are often carried out on rather simple algorithms using immediately available data, it is important that all parties consider right from the start the company environment, existing workflows, security and data privacy challenges.

It is clear that AI is a disruptive technology and the project will have a considerable impact on the company’s existing workflows. Ignoring how the AI project will eventually integrate within the working environment might be a rather costly mistake.     

2-   In light of the first point, it would be sensible to select for the first POC a solution that solves a rather simple process which could limit the working environment challenges and create a positive momentum within the organisations.

3-   For the AI POC to move to production, the organisation would need the skills to deploy it to scale and have a structure to support it. Planning and agreeing on a clear RACI chart and resource plan at the beginning would avoid a potential disheartened rejection when the management realises too late the cost and effort to deploy and run the solution.

4-   Specifically, for AI project, it seems that the availability of the data when going live is crucial. Therefore, working with data scientist to get access to real-world data (as opposed to manipulated samples) should reduce the gap between “real world” requirements and POC data set.

5-   If, as recommended in phase 1, we did our homework and understood from the start how the company is going to deliver the required data, we could work with the IT department to plan the integration of the solution within the company’s technical environment.

   

6-   For any project to succeed, you need to have a C-level champion within the organisation who understand the long-term benefit of the solution and be ready to fight for its survival with peers.   

Conclusion

First, a clear relation with the business function is necessary to better understand the business environment and technical challenges to integrating the solution within the corporate IT environment.

Secondly, funding of AI projects often come from the business functions budget so having a champion at C-level enable the project to be real and protected from others business requirements.

Third, a clear planning around access to data and integration to other sources enable to scale the project.

And lastly, given that AI solutions are often disruptive, read the "challenger sales" book (Matthew Dixon, Brent Adamson) many times and apply the concepts to your sales process.

----------------- For the people who do not have time to read -------------------

Abstract to the Challenger  Sales

• Challenging customers’ thinking. Develop a deep understanding of your customer, and learn to push their thinking.
• Know their market. Teach your customer something new about competing within their market.
• Re-framing. Learn to re-frame the way a customer thinks about your category of solution.
• Control the conversation. Learn to stay in control of the sales conversation, and when to gently apply pressure.
• All products and services. The Challenger Sales Methodology will work for most industries, but for the complex large scale business sale, it’s even more vital

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The battle for cloud in Asia is heating up.

China is poised to become the second-largest cloud service market in 2019, worth $10.5 billion. The country will also become the fastest-growing market, with a projected 44.9% annual growth rate in the next five years.

Amazon is betting it can expand its cloud computing operations in China, despite announcing just last month that it will shutter its online retail operations there.

But while Amazon is upbeat about demand for cloud services in the region, it faces a familiar rival: Alibaba, whose grip on China's e-commerce market meant Amazon was unable to challenge.

In Asia, according to Gartner, AWS is not the big dog and Alibaba Cloud commands 19.6% of the market, compared to 11% for AWS and 8% for Microsoft.

One of the biggest advantages of being the "home team" comes from government regulations that have created barriers to foreign players entering the market.

Also, Alibaba Cloud over the years has created a powerful business ecosystem where it has invested in over 157 companies in China.

AWS, by contrast, will have an edge in winning over foreign companies that operate in China and have already been using AWS's products in offices outside the country.

AWS seems has high hopes for Southeast Asia's cloud services market which is expected to generate $40.32 billion in revenue by 2025, driven by increasing demand for cloud computing among emerging small and midsize business.


But it seems that governments across the region move toward stricter governance on cloud services similar to those in China requiring cloud services operators to store data in local data centers.

Indonesia, for example, ruled that the country's financial data should be housed within Indonesia. AWS announced that it is planning to launch multiple data centers in Jakarta, where Alibaba Cloud already has two.

Fascinating, battle and looking forward to seeing what Microsoft and Google are going to do.

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Cloud security - Busy Securing the Fort when Users Leave the Door Open?

Busy Securing the Fort when Users Leave the Door Open?

There have been few technological innovations that have impacted the course of business processes as much as the cloud. The promise of the cloud offers faster communications, greater collaboration, and a more profitable bottom line. Conversely, cloud infrastructure also creates new security vulnerabilities which enterprises struggle to patch.

It is a never-ending work for the enterprise security team to select, deploy and configure the best security solutions for their environment.

However, on a day to day basis they are faced with the ONE consistent problem that continues to plague security solutions worldwide. Is the generation of too many alerts to the enterprise security teams and the burn out of professionals overwhelmed by a false positive?

The most dangerous and insidious threat of all

Whilst your security team focus on perimeter defenses and endpoint security, there is one element that your CISOs could easily deal with. This is probably the most dangerous and insidious security threat your company have to face with: “The internal misconfiguration of cloud resources.”

Cloud misconfiguration is one of the most preventable, yet common security issues facing organizations migrating to the cloud today.

A simple misconfiguration to set a single option in a company’s cloud service can create a major security risk for the organization and its customers. Almost every day, news of a new data breach spreads like wildfire online. Virtually everyone with any kind of digital footprint has fallen victim to having their personal information made public.

A Common Issue “Cloud Misconfiguration” 

Misconfiguration means that the public cloud server instances, such as storage and compute, are configured in such a way that they are vulnerable to breaches.

Cloud misconfiguration is a matter of human error. In many cases, dev ops or IT professionals accustomed to local infrastructure attempt to recreate their local solutions in the cloud, uneducated and unaware of the intricacies of working with a cloud provider’s particular set of features.

Run Books? Who reads manuals?

The cloud has created a lot of excitement within organizations and many departments such as DevOps, Marketing, Sales, Product development people are busy giving their company a new competitive edge in their respective markets and use cloud resources to do so.  The reality is that cloud configuration is complex, and many companies are still immature. Even though companies are using run books and best practices documents, users simply forget to follow the rules.

While simple misconfiguration seems like a “duh, dummy” moment, the reality is, if it's not done right any security systems layered by the security department on top of your cloud can’t stop hackers running away with your data.

So, what are you to do?

• Use a cloud management company, such as Cass, which will use their supervision tool to constantly monitor your cloud resources and immediately spot configurations holes.
• Protect your security team from false alerts, by using the experts within Cass to diagnose and filter the wave of alerts.
• Go straight to the answer by using Cass recommendations to fix the security mishap.

The complexities of cloud computing, and the chance of human error will hurt you if you do not do anything and can ruin all the security measures you are putting in place to keep undesirable visitors out.

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Sales Discipline : Good to great - review

Review - Good to Great from by Jim Collins

“Good to Great” is one of those books I kept seeing everywhere – in articles, blogs, referenced in interviews and on top business book lists. When I finally re-read it (in 2015) I have found a very interesting book.

Cons:
1) It's outdated. Some of the companies that are praised in this book are already bankrupt or just around the corner from bankruptcy/ government bailout. This book was published in 2001, and no word of Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook, etc, so take it for what it’s worth.
2) The main problem of this book is that it's going backwards from results to reasons. It takes a “successful” company and tries to explain how its success came from some master plan that was well crafted. Always a dubious exercise.
3) Nothing in this book relates to the global economy, millennial generation or the mobile retail revolution. Because this book was published in 2001, it means that there is a relevant expiration date.

Pros:
1) I liked the chapter about level 5 management, nothing new here but refreshing ideas about humility and open-minded leaders.
2) I liked the hedgehog chapter about focusing your business on what you love and what you are good at to help maximize profits.
3) Positive lessons about running a healthy company that works as a team.

Bottom line:
Fun read. You can’t apply every lesson from this book to today economics but reading this book will help you stop in your tracks and make you think "can I do this better?".  
For my day job, the most important points highlighted are: Discipline, enthusiasm and credibility 

Level 5 Leadership:

• “Level 5 leaders channel their ego needs away from themselves and into the larger goal of building a great company. It’s not that Level 5 leaders have no ego or self-interest. Indeed, they are incredibly ambitious— but their ambition is first and foremost for the institution, not themselves.”
• “It is very important to grasp that Level 5 leadership is not just about humility and modesty. It is equally about ferocious resolve, an almost stoic determination to do whatever needs to be done to make the company great.”
• “Ten out of eleven good-to-great CEOs came from inside the company, three of them by family inheritance. The comparison companies turned to outsiders with six times greater frequency— yet they failed to produce sustained great results.”
• “Level 5 leaders look out the window to apportion credit to factors outside themselves when things go well (and if they cannot find a specific person or event to give credit to, they credit good luck). At the same time, they look in the mirror to apportion responsibility, never blaming bad luck when things go poorly.

First Who, then What:

• “I don’t know where we should take this company, but I do know that if I start with the right people, ask them the right questions, and engage them in vigorous debate, we will find a way to make this company great.”
• “We found no systematic pattern linking executive compensation to the process of going from good to great. The evidence simply does not support the idea that the specific structure of executive compensation acts as a key lever in taking a company from good to great.”
• “To be ruthless means hacking and cutting, especially in difficult times, or wantonly firing people without any thoughtful consideration. To be rigorous means consistently applying exacting standards at all times and at all levels, especially in upper management. To be rigorous, not ruthless, means that the best people need not worry about their positions and can concentrate fully on their work.”
• How to be rigorous:
• When in doubt, don’t hire, keep looking
• When you know you need to make a people change, act: ” The good-to-great companies showed the following bipolar pattern at the top management level: People either stayed on the bus for a long time or got off the bus in a hurry. In other words, the good-to-great companies did not churn more, they churned better.”
• Put your best people on your biggest opportunities, not your biggest problems

Confront the Brutal Facts but Never Lose Faith:

• “The moment a leader allows himself to become the primary reality people worry about, rather than reality being the primary reality, you have a recipe for mediocrity, or worse. This is one of the key reasons why less charismatic leaders often produce better long-term results than their more charismatic counterparts.”
• How to encourage a climate of truth:
• Lead with questions, not answers. Don’t assume you know what’s best.
• Engage in dialogue and debate, no coercion.
• Conduct autopsies and without blame
• Build “red flag” mechanisms: “If you raise your hand with your red flag, the classroom will stop for you. There are no restrictions on when and how to use your red flag; the decision rests entirely in your hands… Your red flag can be used only once during the quarter.”
• “This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end— which you can never afford to lose— with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”
• “Spending time and energy trying to “motivate” people is a waste of effort. The real question is not, “How do we motivate our people?” If you have the right people, they will be self-motivated. The key is to not de-motivate them. One of the primary ways to de-motivate people is to ignore the brutal facts of reality.”

The Hedgehog Concept (Simplicity within three circles):

• “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.””
• More precisely, a Hedgehog Concept is a simple, crystalline concept that flows from a deep understanding of the intersection of the following three circles:
• What you can be the best in the world at (and, equally important, what you cannot be the best in the world at).
• What drives your economic engine. The single denominator— profit per x— that had the greatest impact on their economics. (It would be cash flow per x in the social sector.)
• What you are deeply passionate about.

A Culture of Discipline:

• “Build a culture full of people who take disciplined action within the three circles, fanatically consistent with the Hedgehog Concept.”
• “The good-to-great companies built a consistent system with clear constraints, but they also gave people freedom and responsibility within the framework of that system. They hired self-disciplined people who didn’t need to be managed, and then managed the system, not the people.”
• “When you have disciplined people, you don’t need hierarchy. When you have disciplined thought, you don’t need bureaucracy. When you have disciplined action, you don’t need excessive controls. When you combine a culture of discipline with an ethic of entrepreneurship, you get the magical alchemy of the great performance.”

Technology Accelerators:

• “This brings us to the central point of the chapter. When used right, technology becomes an accelerator of momentum, not a creator of it.”

The Flywheel and the Doom Loop:

• “Sustainable transformations follow a predictable pattern of buildup and breakthrough. Like pushing on a giant, heavy flywheel, it takes a lot of effort to get the thing moving at all, but with persistent pushing in a consistent direction over a long period of time, the flywheel builds momentum, eventually hitting a point of breakthrough.”

From Good to Great to Built to Last:

• “Bad BHAGs, it turns out, are set with bravado; good BHAGs are set with understanding. Indeed, when you combine a quiet understanding of the three circles with the audacity of a BHAG, you get a powerful, almost magical mix.”
• “Indeed, the point of this entire book is not that we should “add” these findings to what we are already doing and make ourselves even more overworked. No, the point is to realize that much of what we’re doing is at best a waste of energy. If we organized the majority of our work time around applying these principles, and pretty much ignored or stopped doing everything else, our lives would be simpler and our results vastly improved.”

Philippe Lignac Sales Director MDSL interview at the EMM event London

Philippe Lignac sales director MDSL interview for TV

Philippe Lignac Sales Director MDSL interview at the EMM event London

Philippe Lignac Sales Director MDSL speaking at the EMM event London

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Sales Methodology or Sales Process?

Sales Methodology or Sales Process?

When someone asks me "which sales methodology are you using?" - my favorite answer is “all of them”. In truth, there is no silver bullet in sales methodology. However, before choosing a sales methodology you probably need to clearly define your sales process.

A documented sales process serves as a guideline to help sales reps determine proper next steps to bring prospect through the buyer’s journey to that final sale.

Unlike a sales process, a sales methodology isn't applied to the entire sales cycle; rather, it focuses in one area of a sales process and builds unique approaches based on a business’s goals, culture, and values. It’s more of a strategy.

When it comes to sales methodologies, there are 9 most popular methodologies companies use: 

•  The Challenger Sale
•  SPIN Selling
•  N.E.A.T. Selling
•  The Sandler System
•  Solution Selling
•  Inbound Selling
•  MEDDIC
•  Conceptual Selling
•  SNAP Selling

Many of the sales training methodologies started with a specific focus. For example, SPIN Selling started with a focus on the discovery and a questioning methodology to understand and probe into customer problems. Miller Heiman’s Large Account Selling originally focused on expanding share and growing presence in large accounts.

Some methodologies tend to be focused more heavily on a certain part of the sales process. For example, Challenger focuses more on the very front end of the process, providing insights that motivate the customer to take action and change. Some methodologies focus on negotiation which occurs at the end of the sales process.

My strategy is to take the best from several methodologies, creating my own unique methodology. I know a number of companies that have purposefully leveraged a number of methodologies -- one year they might learn one, two years later another, two years later yet another. They then incorporate the best pieces into what works for them.

Sales process or methodology?

So do we need a sales process or a sales methodology? The definitive answer is, “Yes, we need both.” Make sure to invest the time in understanding and defining your own sales process. It’s the cornerstone to your success and differentiation. 

Overlay that, and sharpen the execution of your sales process with a great sales methodology. But make sure the methodology is integrated into your sales process. 

Don’t forget, you sustain your investment in any sales training by integrating it into your systems, processes, tools, and most importantly, coaching strategies."

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