Business Reporter: Why CFOs Are Perfectly Placed to Make AI Transformation a Reality


PR Newswire

LONDON, June 8, 2020

LONDON, June 8, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Any CFO is going to be invested in saving money – but it's only the forward-thinking ones that make sure to look after the top line as well as the bottom line. Growing revenue, market share and the long-term financial health of the business are just as important. And, although it's often looked at as an expensive and risky endeavour by many CFOs, AI can itself be the catalyst that can help bring these goals to fruition.

Grand data transformation projects, traditionally viewed with scepticism by CFOs, often don't reach their potential, with only 20 percent of AI projects making it out of the pilot stage. But, as Alyssa Simpson Rochwerger, VP AI and Data at Appen, argues in a recent article for Business Reporter, AI is no longer optional – but luckily, it's also not the risky, potentially ruinous nightmare it is often perceived to be. "While many financial officers may shudder, thinking this means they need to invest dozens of highly paid engineers and millions of dollars, this isn't the case," Simpson Rochwerger explains. "CFOs can keep costs down while still finding ROI by focusing on solving a specific, core business problem. From here, the path to scaling throughout the organisation becomes easier, and starting second and third use-cases can be a fast follow."

The devil is in the detail, and the close, granular analysis of a good CFO can make them well suited to keeping such projects ticking over – and a finance department's familiarity with a business's large cost centres and inefficiencies makes it best placed to identify areas that could benefit from AI projects. CFOs could, for example, target reducing call centre costs and improving customer experience. Call centre employees might, say, spend 15 per cent of their time doing drudge work such as tracking down misplaced customer account numbers. That's something an AI solution could perform in half the time, and which likely wouldn't require an agent's attention at all – a relatively simple upgrade that could lead to huge savings annually.

"The project goals for success are reasonable and well within the bound of what is possible," says Simpson Rochwerger. "Machine learning applications can provide measurable business growth, and CFOs can direct the initiatives by showing how the investments are translating into value. "

For more details, read the original article here.

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About Appen

Appen collects and labels images, text, speech, audio, video, and other data used to build and continuously improve the world's most innovative artificial intelligence systems. Our expertise includes having a global crowd of over one million skilled contractors who speak over 180 languages and dialects, in over 70,000 locations and 130 countries, and the industry's most advanced AI-assisted data annotation platform. Our reliable training data gives leaders in technology, automotive, financial services, retail, healthcare, and governments the confidence to deploy world-class AI products. Founded in 1996, Appen has customers and offices globally.



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