As the world fights the coronavirus outbreak, businesses are crippled and economies experience a downturn. While the extended lockdown discourages companies to continue operations, emerging technologies are introducing a silver lining to dodge virus implications. As an emerging provider of AI development services, Oodles AI explores how AI technologies can reignite business growth across domains. From production, supply chain, and customer service, let’s discuss the major business challenges and counter applications of AI during COVID-19 crisis.
Here’s a glimpse of AI’s impact on retailers’ supply chain as elaborated by Business Insider.
3 Major Business Challenges During COVID-19 Crisis
1) Disrupted Supply Chains
Under a nationwide lockdown to contain COVID-19, manufacturers, suppliers, and distributors are all bound to halt their respective exercises indefinitely. The industrial shutdown has compelled companies to rethink their supply chain strategies and recognize the often overlooked advantages of “supply chain redundancy”.
However, redundancy or maintaining extra inventory across supply chains entails higher operational costs covering more raw materials, equipment, new factories, etc. To sustain such global shocks, it is imperative for businesses to reintroduce value chain redundancy in a smarter and more efficient way forward.
2) Shifts in Consumption Patterns
In the face of minimum and restricted pubic movements, companies are witnessing a major shift in consumption patterns. From FMCG products to health and fitness services, company revenues are getting dramatically affected due to the unavailability of consumers.
In this course of changes, consumerism is beginning to adopt a new normal patten that includes-
a) Moving from offline to online purchases
b) Eliminating luxury items in lieu of essentials
c) Increasing consumption of digital media while locked at home
3) Communication Barriers
Another blow of challenge for businesses comes in the form of disrupted work routines. While remote working is an efficient move to mitigate the risk of community spread of COVD-19, it hinders work-based collaborations tragically. However, as employees experience more of remote-working benefits than drawbacks, businesses are compelled to explore new ways of collaboration, including-
a) New ways of engaging resources online
b) Readiness for on-demand labor, and
c) Efficient platforms for online collaboration.
Rejuvenating Business Strategies With AI During COVID-19 Crisis
As businesses grapple with COVID-19 and its economic implications, artificial intelligence is emerging with innovative solutions to combat operational challenges significantly. Here’s a closer look at the future of business with AI during COVID-19 crisis and its aftermath.
1) Automation of Manufacturing Houses
To tackle supply chain challenges and redundancy, artificial intelligence offers the potential to augment manufacturing operations while optimizing costs.
AI along with 3D printing technologies can be deployed in an effort to move past traditional high-volume factories at minimum locations. It enables businesses to multiply production with various small facilities closer to their customers for improved supplied and continuous revenue streams.
Recently, the car manufacturing giant, Volkswagon initiated an AI-powered 3D printing project to produce light-weight car components.
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) will bring a significant boom for automation and AI during the COVID-19 crisis with its time and cost-efficient manufacturing techniques.
Also, AI’s predictive analytics and maintenance capabilities falling under machine learning development services will gain momentum among manufacturing businesses. It will enable businesses to track equipment functioning remotely and take preemptive measures to prevent accidents automatically.
2) Personalization of Businesses
With tectonic shifts in consumption patterns, major eCommerce and food delivery giants are evolving their services to maximize customer satisfaction. At this stage, customer data serves as the most crucial powerhouse of intelligent and customized services including-
a) Personalized recommendations
Demographic data can be used by companies to train AI models for recommending accurate products and services to online customers.
b) Augmented analytics
By analyzing complex consumer data from myriad sources, AI can gauge the variations in demand to alert supply accordingly. Also, AI’s predictive analytics technologies are introducing>c) Digitization of services
As lockdown continues, more and more businesses are exploring innovative customer outreach strategies. AI can accelerate the delivery of personalized digital content including videos, webinars, movies, and live events for better engagement and experience.
Exploring Business Opportunities With Oodles AI During COVID-19 Crisis
At Oodles, we are encouraging companies to combat operational and functional challenges with artificial intelligence and its underlying technologies. As part of our contribution to the fight against COVID-19, we recently developed a diagnostic chatbot that facilitates remote screening of patients and spread awareness.
The risk assessment chatbot collects actionable data from users to alert authorities about the potential cases and also provides immediate medical advisory.
In addition to chatbot development services, we assist businesses to increase their topline growth post COVID-19 crisis by offering dynamic AI services, including-
a) Personalized recommendation engines
