Free up time, reduce errors, and develop business processes with the help of artificial intelligence. Properly targeted automation quickly pays for itself.

Artificial intelligence is no longer just a topic or a pilot project for technology experts but a concrete tool for streamlining work, improving quality, and using resources more efficiently.

When used correctly, artificial intelligence can significantly enhance business processes in several ways: it reduces manual work, minimizes errors, speeds up responses to customer and stakeholder needs, and unlocks entirely new opportunities for developing business processes.

Yet many organizations are hesitant about where to start when it comes to leveraging AI in business processes. The key is not to choose the right technology or tool from the start but to begin with a business-oriented approach: identifying repetitive, burdensome, and slow work steps and assessing whether they can be automated or revamped with AI.

Organizations no longer need to consider whether they should leverage AI in their business processes but rather ask: where should it be leveraged first?

Artificial intelligence in practice: savings, speed, and reliability

One of the most concrete examples can be found in the processing of requests for quotations. Incoming emails in the customer organization were previously reviewed manually, and the requests were directed to the correct business units by personnel. The process was slow, prone to human error and consumed the time of experts.

In the new solution, artificial intelligence automates the business process, i.e., reads incoming messages, recognizes the content of the offer, and automatically directs it to the correct team. In clear cases, artificial intelligence even produces a preliminary offer text, which an expert then reviews and approves before sending.

The results were noticeable: response time was reduced, workload was reduced, and the payback period for the investment was less than a year. The solution’s ROI was 33% in the first 12 months. The saved resources can be allocated to value-creation work, such as solving customer needs and developing new solutions.

Artificial intelligence is also more fault-tolerant than robotics process automation (RPA). Another one of our customers’ RPA solutions, which was developed to support the order-delivery process, was replaced with an AI-based solution because the robotics often broke down and were prone to errors.

An AI-based business process solution replaced robotics, and at the same time, a system was obtained that adapts to process changes, is easy to maintain, and operates reliably without IT dependency.

Which process is the best place to start using AI in your business?

Many people wonder where AI will provide the most benefit from a business process perspective. The best starting point is usually everyday tasks – those that are repeated frequently and require a significant amount of time. Before reviewing the list, it is a good idea to pause and consider which work steps consume time, introduce errors, or require ongoing processing. These are the ones where AI often has the most to offer.

Here are a few questions that will help you identify the possibilities of AI:

• Do we have work steps that are still done manually?
• Do we process large amounts of emails, orders, or reports in a repetitive manner?
• Do we have to perform the same work multiple times across different systems?
• Is the time of experts being spent on tasks that AI could handle faster?
• Do we have data that is not currently being utilized in decision-making?

Often, the costs of AI services are small compared to the benefits achieved – especially in high-volume business processes. Once the proper use case is identified, the return on investment can be rapid.

If you answered yes to even one of these questions, this could be a good starting point for a business process that can be boosted with AI – especially since AI does not tire even when the workload increases. Instead of requiring more human resources, existing ones can be used more efficiently.

AI is not a fix for the old way of working

One of the most common mistakes is attempting to optimize a part of a process with AI without considering the entire process as a whole. An AI solution works best when the process is rethought:

• What do we input into the process?
• What results do we expect?
• What manual steps are no longer needed?

An AI solution works best when the process is rethought rather than simply trying to automate the old operating model. This way, you build something truly more innovative and more sustainable – not just an accelerated version of the old.

Intelligent processes are created in collaboration with the right partner

Implementing AI doesn’t have to be difficult. A small, well-designed pilot is sufficient to initiate the journey of utilizing AI in business processes. At Solu Digital, we help you identify the best use cases, choose suitable technologies, and build solutions that serve both users and the business.

Together we can:

• Identify the most valuable points to automate
• Map available data
• Design a pilot that brings visible results quickly
• Scale the solution into everyday life

Contact us – let’s discuss where your AI journey should start.

Marko Koskela
Chief Commercial Officer, partner