VIDEO | Stanley Black & Decker Sr. Director: Data Leaders Must Identify Untapped AI Opportunities

(US and Canada) Phanii Pydimarri, Stanley Black & Decker Senior Director, AI & Analytics Products, speaks with Savio Rodrigues, Trianz VP of Client Partnership USA and CDO Magazine Editorial Board Member, in a video interview about AI application opportunities, devising an effective AI implementation strategy, and the role of change management and AI.

Pydimarri says that AI is set for massive adoption growth, backed by a positive outlook from businesses. He maintains, however, that anxiety and fear in AI investments remain, and he urges chief digital, data, and analytics officers to invest time in driving and identifying untapped AI opportunities. He adds that they should get board members and the C-suite excited about these opportunities.

Elaborating further, Pydimarri says that AI adoption has been expanding across industries in domains such as marketing and sales, product development and quality control, customer care, monitoring and diagnostics, inventory management, personalization, cybersecurity, and fraud detection. If a midsize company is struggling to identify such use cases, the chief data officer or the head of data analytics should take responsibility and showcase them, he adds.

Pydimarri urges companies questioning AI investments to try out a few use cases to see how they perform for their organization.

To help leaders get their AI strategy right on the first go, he suggests they:

• Understand the opportunities at hand, identify the current maturity state, and devise a strategy to improve the maturity. Tie the strategy back to organizational goals — use it to drive the digital transformation strategy, which will drive the data strategy.
• Identify simple use cases with minimum investments and showcase the value they're bringing to the organization. Implement the product mindset — proof of concept-alpha release-beta release — and establish a continuous improvement cycle.
• Improve literacy to deter the lack of clarity on artificial intelligence.

Next, Pydimarri discusses effective change management and how digital transformation can be a part of a company's culture. He says that change has to be top-down, and it all comes down to the people, not just the doers but also the leadership providing the guidance.

In conclusion, he mentions that the overall strategy has to tie back to the outcomes and the technology and data strategies.

CDO Magazine appreciates Phanii Pydimarri for sharing his insights and data success stories with our global community.

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