Page 7 - BOSS Today Issue 58

BOSS Today #58

Q: What do you currently see as the Q: The pandemic has completely
biggest opportunities generative changed how people now work.
AI can bring to a business? “Office Power has Can you give some examples
established a dedicated of how AI is helping businesses
*
A: Large Language Models (LLM’s) taskforce to delve into the and employees adapt to these
potential of AI. Our commitment
are suddenly able to not only changes?
to providing dealers with the best
encapsulate knowledge but possible services and technology
understand the structure of has prompted us to examine A: AI is enabling companies to
language and the physical world. every aspect of our business. deeply understand the skills,
Instead of building and combining This includes support services, preferences, hopes, dreams,
commerce management, trading
hundreds of machine learning desires of their employees. AI
features, technological automation,
models, we can now contain all marketing, and operations, all aimed helps us understand and size
those insights (and more) in a at ensuring optimal solutions for our work in a more accurate way.
single model. This will allow us Office Power dealers. Being a data- And AI then allows us to allocate
to do much higher order task centric organisation, Office Power people to work that aligns
is ideally positioned to harness
automation and assisted decision the transformative capabilities of and benefits all stakeholders.
making. AI through automation and data Organisations are becoming more
utilisation. This technology not fluid, adaptable and resilient to a
Q: In your experience what are the only promises to revolutionise our rapidly changing world.
biggest challenges companies face business operations but also to
redefine our competitive strategies.
when implementing AI solutions Our excitement for the future is Q: In the business supplies industry
into their businesses? palpable. We’re keenly looking our members are continually
forward to leveraging AI for higher looking to support their
A: Companies face one major efficiencies, improved customer customers (through products and
challenge. They are being advised delivery, and more informed services) with these changes in
by consultants or startups that are decision-making.” the working world. How can AI
not experts at applying the right assist them to do so?
technologies to solving the most Richard Sinclair, Chief
valuable problems. This leads to Operating Officer, EO Group, A: Anywhere there is a friction in
massive miss-investment and very Office Power a company, or an opportunity
disappointing outcomes for AI. to improve the effectiveness of
a process you can use AI. The
challenge is allocating budget
“Our Marketing team have been using AI in some of our content writing, marketing that drives value in the short
communications, social media posts and image creation. AI also has the potential terms but future proofs the
to provide recommendations for office furniture, design elements, and ergonomic organisation in the long term.
solutions to promote employee comfort and well-being. This data can be used for
example to re-design office chairs and desks to better support the user’s posture Q: A common fear from employees
and prevent musculoskeletal injuries. is that AI will make their jobs
We are currently testing AI-powered chatbots to enhance our customer support redundant. What would you say
services, which can handle basic customer queries, provide product and order to that?
updates and assist with order tracking for example. This service can then be used
by our customers to get quick and accurate information so they can focus on other This is one of my favourite topics.
tasks. We also strive to help dealers grow their business by going the extra mile in In short, I believe that AI will
terms of the marketing support we offer. That’s why we’ve developed a whole host create a Cambrian explosion
of leading-edge marketing support and we are integrating AI into our marketing of opportunities for people to
support services to produce better and more personalised content to give our create and innovate over the
customers an advantage over their competition and gain those all-important sales next decade. It is going to be
leads. an incredible time to be alive.
The biggest benefits we see of adopting AI solutions for Dams are increased Anyone who thinks they know
efficiency, streamlining and speeding up processes and operations, together with what the world looks like beyond
personalised support for our customers with regards to products, services and the next 10 years is nonsensical.
marketing support. But we only see AI as an extension to the services we currently
offer, not a replacement.”
Simon Howorth, Marketing & Design Manager, DAMS

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