The Fallacy of Tech-Led Returns Take a look at the current landscape of Technology and AI adoption. Everyone bought invtested into Technology, and then later on into AI tools. They ran pilots, automated functions, introduced AI when the AI boom came, built agents, and scaled them. Yet the vast majority are left wondering at empty balance sheets, wondering where the promised returns went. The reason for this failure isn't technical. It is a fundamental misunderstanding of corporate finance and organizational architecture. The truth is simple: ROI is not and will never be a technology function. It is a business function. Why ROI Belongs to Business Leadership First of all, revenue KPIs in the managerial performance sheet only start from Senior Manager or AVP on up, where revenue and cost parameters actually appear. There is a reason for this – achieving ROI needs a business perspective, an eye for cross functional detailing, an ability to execute across...
It is time to reverse the approach. Let us start asking our prospects a fundamentally uncomfortable question: Are your data, processes, and people actually ready for AI solutions? In a recent poll, I asked this exact question across my network, offering four distinct perspectives: that you cannot deploy AI when you aren't ready; that it is the AI vendor's job to teach readiness; that data and processes will remain a mess so we cannot wait; and that asking this question is simply too risky because it may turn away customers. Having vacillated between all four options at various times—depending on whether I was consulting for a vendor or a client—I know firsthand that there are no easy answers. That is precisely why I asked the question. What remains undeniable, however, is that AI requires robust, uncompromising preparedness. A single difference of just one letter in two data sets within a critical field, when replicated across thousands of records, can and does ...