If you run a small or medium-sized business, you know how difficult it can be to compete with the big boys. You also know that the productivity of your staff is important to the growth of your business.
You may lack the resources or technological capabilities to compete. But don't worry! Artificial intelligence can help you boost your growth and improve your efficiency.
The use of artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly common in businesses of all sizes. Artificial intelligence can deliver results faster and more accurately than humans in many areas.
In this article, we will explore the benefits of using artificial intelligence for SMEs. We will also discuss some of the dangers of using artificial intelligence. Finally, we'll show you how our company can help you develop AI solutions tailored to your needs.
Having your own personalised AI tool: opportunities
Meeting specific needs
A custom AI tool can be designed to meet the specific needs of your business. This could include automating your company's unique business processes, analysing industry-specific data, or creating a chatbot or virtual assistant tailored to the customer experience.
This allows your business to make the most of AI to meet your specific needs.
Understanding the market
Using artificial intelligence can help you gather information about your customers' preferences. This will enable your teams to predict and anticipate market trends. In this way, you can identify new opportunities for growth.
Optimising results
A customised AI tool can be designed to optimise your company's specific results.
This includes reducing costs, increasing productivity or even improving the quality of your products or services.
With a customised AI tool, your company can ensure that the results obtained are the most relevant to its needs and objectives.
Better integration
A customised AI tool can be designed to integrate easily with your company's existing systems. This allows you to benefit from the advantages of AI without having to make major changes to the infrastructure that has already been in place for many years. It complements your existing tools.
Fewer errors
Using a customised AI tool can reduce human errors in your company's business processes. By limiting errors, you can improve the quality of your products.
This reduces the risk of financial loss and the negative impact on your reputation. As the saying goes: “A very satisfied customer tells 3 people, an unhappy customer tells 10”.
Competitive advantage
Thanks to a personalised AI tool, companies can differentiate themselves from their competitors by offering more innovative products or services. But above all, tailored to their specific needs. This can help strengthen the company's position in the market and increase its market share.
Innovation
AI can help identify new business opportunities and create innovative products and services. You just need to know how to ask it the right questions. Once this is mastered, the results can be highly beneficial.
Improving the customer experience
Artificial intelligence can help personalise the customer experience by providing recommendations based on customers' preferences and previous behaviour.
To sum up, we can say that investing in the development of your own personalised AI will save you both time and money.
According to a McKinsey study, Companies using AI can achieve cost savings of up to 20% and productivity improvements of up to 40%. Similarly, a PwC study has shown that companies that invest in AI can achieve productivity gains of between 15% and 30%.
The dangers of AI
Algorithmic bias
AI systems can be influenced by biases in the data used to train them. This can lead to inaccurate or unfair results. It is important to ensure that the data used to train AI is representative of the target population. It is also important to ensure that the algorithms are regularly evaluated to detect any bias.
Job losses
The automation of certain tasks thanks to artificial intelligence can lead to job losses for workers whose tasks are automated. It is important for companies to plan a career reorientation strategy for these workers. But we remain convinced that this will above all help employees to produce more. This increase in production will lead to faster growth for companies... . And therefore create new employees.
Confidentiality and data protection
AI systems can process large amounts of data, which can pose risks to the confidentiality and protection of customer data. It is important to ensure that customer data is stored securely and that confidentiality practices are in place to avoid any risk of data breaches.
This is one of the reasons why we advise you to use personalised AIs rather than “general public” AIs like ChatGPT, with which members of your company would share confidential data.
Complexity
AI systems can be complex and difficult for employees and customers to understand, which can lead to problems of acceptance or understanding.
High costs
The use of personalised AI can require high levels of investment in development, training and maintenance. It is important for companies to set aside adequate budgets for AI.
These costs should be seen more as an investment to help you stand out from the competition and gain an advantage that could be described as “unfair” because you will stand out from the crowd.
Technological dependence
Excessive use of AI can lead to technological dependency. This dependency can limit employees' ability to make independent decisions or solve problems creatively.
Example of personalised AI for an SME
If we take the example of an estate agency that has decided to configure Artificial Intelligence for its teams, here are the advantages of having your own AI:
Better data quality
AI tools can be programmed to analyse and interpret property data. This can help estate agents to make more informed decisions (estimating a property, asking the right questions about the year of the building, etc.).
By having its own AI tool, an estate agency can ensure that the data is of a higher quality, more standardised to guarantee quality for sellers and buyers.
Team results will be more accurate and more relevant.
Confidentiality and data security
Thanks to personalised artificial intelligence, estate agents can better control and protect their confidential customer and business data.
For example, an agent could give all the private data of a buyer and a seller to the AI and the latter could complete the sales contract template already configured in the system, in the blink of an eye... and without any encoding errors.
Improving the customer experience
Personalised AI can be used to personalise the customer experience. It can offer more relevant recommendations and advice based on customers’ preferences and previous behaviours, while using the company's tone and conveying the company's values. All this 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And that's no mean feat!
The customer experience becomes even more personalised and satisfying.
Writing ads
Estate agents can use AI to automate the writing and publication of property advertisements. This would generate personalised and attractive property descriptions to attract the attention of potential buyers and increase the chances of a sale. AI can analyse property characteristics, property market data and potential buyers' preferences to generate an accurate description. And why not even create an ad simply by providing it with photos of the property: the ability to know whether there is any work to be done, whether the flat is bright, etc.
iterates at the service of your company's growth
SMEs that also want to benefit from this technology rarely have the resources or expertise to develop their own AI. The number of professionals in the field is still limited. This is where iterates, our IT services agency, can help.
So who are we?
Multidisciplinary approach
Our team is multidisciplinary and has all the skills needed to set up your own AI. We are experts in development, machine learning, architecture, infrastructure management and deployment (DevOps, DevSecOps, Ops). Our team also includes a project manager and a tester to manage your project from A to Z.
Developer expertise
There are different levels of developers depending on their level of expertise, such as juniors and seniors. It is advisable to call on senior developers for this type of complex project. Good news! Our team is made up entirely of senior developers.
Use of new technologies
iterates uses the latest technologies available to carry out its projects. Thanks to this, we can ensure that your project benefits from the latest optimisations and can be maintained for as long as possible.
Use of Agile methodology
Why is the Agile method the best method for developing this type of project? It's a flexible method that works in development stages. It allows you to get the first results very quickly. Thanks to this method, it is possible to adapt the project according to the initial feedback.
Ultimately, it helps to reduce project development costs. To find out more about the Agile method, take a look at this video.
Finally, our team of skilled developers will put in place effective solutions that meet the specific needs of your SME, as opposed to a generic solution that may not meet your expectations. Our solutions are built around your needs. They enable you to improve your company's services.
Our agency can help you automate tasks such as stock management, operations planning, high-volume data analysis, competitor analysis and much more.
In addition to this, we can provide training and support to your team to ensure that they are able to use and maintain AI effectively.
Make no mistake, AI is not a magic solution that solves every problem. Not everything can be automated!
So are you ready to take the plunge?
Conclusion
So we've seen just how many benefits the use of artificial intelligence can bring to small and medium-sized businesses.
AI can help your SME automate repetitive tasks, improve productivity, optimise business processes, make strategic choices, enhance your customers' experience and reduce errors. This will give you a strong competitive edge in the marketplace.
However, it is important to note that this tool cannot completely replace human expertise. That's why SMEs need to work in collaboration with AI tools to achieve optimal results.
In summary, the use of AI can offer great potential for SMEs in terms of growth and efficiency. They need to be ready to explore the possibilities offered by this technology and work with IT development experts, such as iterates, to make the most of this constantly evolving technology.
If you're interested in AI, find out more about how use AI to automate your tasks in our other article.
