(US & Canada) VIDEO | You Don’t Need Massive Investments to Get Started With AI — Franklin Templeton SVP, Head of AI and Digital Transformation

Deep Ratna Srivastav, SVP, Head of AI and Digital Transformation at Franklin Templeton, speaks with Nazar Labunets, Product Marketing Manager at Ataccama, in a video interview about the challenges with AI and digital transformation; bridging the technical and business gap; collaboration within teams, approaches to ensure ROI, and the importance of having a functional mindset.

Franklin Templeton is a global leader in asset management with more than seven decades of experience.

Commenting on the challenges with AI and digital transformation, Srivastav discusses the organizational aspect of product development and how AI teams come into the picture as product developers. The challenge in the process, he says, is that the technology teams do not know much about the business and vice-versa, which creates a gap.

To address this, talent management is crucial, says Srivastav. He states that talent becomes a massive player in bridging the technical and business gaps, as breaking the silos requires talent that can cut across boundaries.

Srivastav further states that the organization is addressing the challenge by working on talent management, which also affects organizational policies. He says that organizations must ensure that all the different teams have an understanding that aids in creating a dialogue between them.

Delving further, Srivastav maintains that bridging the gap is not the responsibility of one team, rather it is about collaboration. He notes that while an AI team can put the possibilities and propositions on the table, it boils down to collaboration with business teams and corporate functional teams to align their strategies in a way that creates a dialogue.

Adding on, Srivastav says that the AI team plays a two-fold role — It brings the capabilities to the table and then stays with the partners to comprehend how differently they run their daily affairs and build up functions and practices.

When asked about approaches to ensuring ROI, Srivastav asserts the need to have an ROI mindset from the beginning. He says that one must assess how to evaluate success across different functional areas, and have those benchmarks at the start to set the right milestones.

In continuation, Srivastav says that early milestones may not give results but are a good indicator of being in the right direction. While measuring usage and adoption becomes the intermediate metric, the long-term metrics tend to be around financial implications, therefore, he mentions having a framework going from early stages to evolved levels.

Moving forward, Srivastav highlights the massive ecosystem, with internal and external capabilities playing crucial roles in bringing ideas to the table and implementing them. With the technology and solution partners bringing capabilities to the table, it is imperative to couple such capabilities with internal research specific to the domain, he adds.

The transformation roadmap is much dependent on internal research at times, Srivastav says. The element of success and failure attached to internal research takes the predictability down, making it difficult to plan the chart in the right way.

Therefore, when it comes to AI, it is crucial to think about these capabilities in terms of products, says Srivastav. Accordingly, the organization has a solid focus on product management, development, and bringing them together.

Thereafter, the organization brings together subject matter experts, and business stakeholders in driving that adoption, says Srivastav.  He stresses the importance of getting into a functional mindset and amalgamates talent management to synchronize the entire effort.

Sharing his opinions on starting with AI, Srivastav maintains that AI should not be confused as something massive that will bring a radical change in the future. Many a time it can be as tactical and fundamental as day-to-day actions like reading research reports or extracting information from internal sources. Similarly, it can be about operations management or oversight dashboards.

Furthermore, Srivastav asserts that a lot can be done in various areas, irrespective of the industry and one does not need massive investments to get started. He reminds fellow AI enthusiasts that there is a once-in-a-generation opportunity and responsibility to do it the right way to bring significant change.

CDO Magazine appreciates Deep Ratna Srivastav for sharing his AI insights with our global community.