How to guide : LLM strategy for your business
Every business, even small businesses should focus on having an LLM strategy and do it soon.
At Wiseland Inc we have been advising companies on their LLM strategy. Unlike many other technologies LLM is one technology that is improving at an exponential rate and it has potential to disrupt wide variety of industries in most unpredictable manner. Your business's survival depends on it.
A framework to understand how LLMs impact your business
To grasp how LLMs may affect your business, you need a strategy. Their impact is likely to be both positive and negative in various ways. Here's a straightforward framework to help you make sense of it all.
Better is better than best
Instead of spending excessive time contemplating LLM adoption across your business, you should prioritize "quick adoption." Swift adoption will help your organization develop institutional understanding of this technology, and it will enhance your grasp of this technology quite rapidly.
Deploy LLMs wherever you can
For example, if you have programmers, you can encourage them to start using Github Copilot or similar tools right away to assist with their daily coding tasks. Your recruiters can use Google Gemini to screen resumes, and your advertising department can employ ChatGPT or Midjourney to generate creative ideas.
This adoption is often as simple as swiping a credit card and training your existing employees without causing significant disruption. Organizations like Wiseland Inc can assist you with this training.
Focus on building partnerships
Identify companies that are doing pioneering work with AI in your area. For example is there an LLM salesforce plugin that your employees find useful ? Is there some software that you can evaluate ?
These partnerships when crafted carefully can give you first movers advantage. As your partners grow and improve their product you will find it much easier to move fast with them.
Automation and assisted work
Identify areas of your business that can be automated. If you are a retailer, perhaps much of your customer support can be fully automated. For areas that cannot be automated, see if LLMs can improve the productivity of your existing workforce. The key is to enhance output per dollar.
Can AI predict which leads will turn into sales? Can AI help you monitor and curate content online? Can AI assist in designing your menus? How about AI managing your social media presence?
These are the questions you need to ask and address. To simplify thinking you can think around following dimensions.
1. Automating Repetitive Tasks
Data Entry and Processing: AI-powered systems can automate data entry, classification, and organization within documents. This frees up your team from time-consuming manual tasks.
Email Management: AI can categorize emails, triage customer support tickets, and draft initial responses, reducing the time workers spend in their inboxes.
Report Generation: AI can generate reports from raw data, providing summaries and analyses, allowing human workers to focus on decision-making rather than data compilation.
2. Enhancing Decision-Making
Predictive Analytics: AI can analyze vast amounts of data to identify trends, forecast customer behavior, and predict potential risks. This information helps workers make data-driven, informed decisions.
Pattern Recognition: AI excels at finding patterns in data that humans might miss, supporting market research, identifying anomalies for fraud detection, and revealing areas for potential optimization.
Personalized Recommendations: AI can analyze customer behavior and preferences, offering personalized product suggestions, marketing messages, or tailored solutions, boosting sales and customer satisfaction.
3. Streamlining Communication and Collaboration
Intelligent Chatbots: AI-powered chatbots provide 24/7 customer support, answer routine questions, and even book appointments, ensuring quick and efficient customer interactions.
Real-time Translation: AI translation tools break down language barriers in global teams and customer interactions, increasing collaboration and fostering a wider customer reach.
Document Summarization: AI can summarize lengthy documents or meetings, ensuring employees quickly grasp key points and save valuable time.
4. Assisting with Content Creation
Content Generation: AI tools can assist with drafting marketing copy, email drafts, social media posts, and even basic reporting. This frees up creative human work for more complex content generation.
Grammar and Style Correction: AI can help improve the quality of written communication by automatically identifying errors and suggesting improvements.
Image and Video Creation: AI can assist in basic image and video creation tasks, helping illustrate ideas or generate content for marketing purposes.
Overcome institutional inertia
There is a general concern that AI will eliminate jobs. This fear is well-founded and probably accurate. However, it is also true that AI will help your employees free up time spent on mundane tasks, allowing them to focus on more productive and valuable work.
As a leader, you must address these fears and earn the trust of your employees. This might involve reevaluating your future hiring plans, resource allocation, and other related aspects.
The thumb rules of doing this effectively are here.
Do not hire today those you will fire tomorrow
Layoffs are detrimental to everyone involved. It's better not to hire someone if you anticipate having to let them go soon. Instead, consider hiring contract staff and ensure expectations are clearly communicated from the beginning.
Convince existing employees that LLMs will make their life better in long term
No one enjoys tedious and repetitive tasks. Once employees see how the improvements benefit their work, they will be more willing to adapt and adopt new methods. As I mentioned earlier, it's essential to start quickly and start small.
Bring external consultants to help you see what you can not see
Bringing consultants like Wiseland Inc, who understand this landscape better, will help you look at your business more holistically and see how you can overcome institutional inertia.
You can enhance your processes, streamline operations, improve communication, and increase customer satisfaction using AI. However, this requires changes throughout the entire organization, and only an external entity can truly identify the problems you may not even be aware of.
Re-skilling of your existing workforce
It is crucial to equip your employees with the skills they need to succeed. Therefore, train them on LLMs and their usage, even when there is no immediate need. This approach will only strengthen your position for the future.
Conclusion
The key to adopting LLM in your organization is to start quickly, start small and then gradually scale while focusing on people and productivity. There is no right way to do this but you can always rely on external help to achieve this.