Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a business force multiplier that is well beyond a “shiny” fad. Of the many AI manifestations, Generative AI (GenAI) is poised to help small and medium size businesses (SMBs) level the competitive playing field, and give toe-to-toe competition to their larger and even enterprise counterparts.
AI’s broad applications may confuse SMBs leaders into believing “it is not for us”, when they read news about enterprises that use it for “data analysis” and “process optimization”, looking for an incremental 20% inventory turns, or the “X” variants of a product that will drive their exit multiplier to >8X.
GenAI is ideal for SMBs day-to-day activities, it is simple to implement, and can impact top line growth in 2024.
Some degrees removed from big data analysis, process optimization, broad or specific trend analysis, GenAI has direct impact on SMB functions that are typically resource limited.
· Marketing collateral creation
· Web and social media content
· Personnel operational training
· Workforce continued education
· Product management and research
· Internal / external communications
· Strategic planning
All of these pull at least on one common thread: content.
For SMBs, and even startups, content creation and delivery is not a trivial hurdle to overcome, and it limits business market growth.
Marketing, sales, human resources, and operations teams can’t keep up with the operational tempo required to create and deliver current, targeted, compelling and well packaged content that supports their day-to-day jobs. They can’t keep up; and they can’t compete unless they remove their resource constraint.
So what can SMBs do with GenAI?
Here are three examples where SMBs can use GenAI as a force multiplier and compete quantitative and qualitative with larger competitors.
#1 – Marketing: GenAI for presentations, images and video content
In today’s world, every member of your marketing team is a “working member” and none of them have the time to sift through hundreds of images in Shutterstock, Getty or Adobe to find the ideal picture and make you a sales or corporate PowerPoint deck. Take that to the limit and crush their spirit by asking them to generate a one with a video, and the answer may be “we’ll get this to you in a few days, maybe the end of the month.” Good luck with that.
You can help your marketing team by making sure that they have tools like Canva, Fuel For Thought, or similar tools that can generate exactly what you want and need now, rather than conforming to “close enough” after hours and days of work.
In some instances you can, with the proper permissions of course, use images of your executives or sales professionals (their avatars) and produce customized and on demand short videos for the web or presentations, all without taking a single minute of productivity from their all so busy schedules.
Unique, efficient, productive and affordable content in a hot second. GenAI can make your stretched thin marketing team deliver product like they are a power squad, freeing them from the more mundane to do work of greater strategic value to the corporation.
#2 – Sales: social media content
B2B or B2C, your sales team must have a presence in at least one of LinkedIn, Insta, Meta, TikTok or other social media platform. We already discussed on #1 that the marketing team is stretched thin, so let’s not even go there. Help your sales professionals by giving them tools that they can use to research, create, generate and post content all in one “click-to-create”™ moment.
Sales professionals don’t have the time to sift through sponsored google ads, produce, post and optimize social media. The right GenAI tools can simplify this process such that in a single 20-30 minutes, in one morning they have posted and scheduled social media content for a full week (and that includes the time to review and ensure compliance with corporate branding and content guidelines).
Your sales team’s thought leadership messages can be drowned by your larger competitors, or you can leverage GenAI to make sure you are relevant and top of mind.
#3 – HR: internal staff / employee training
Staff turnover: ‘nuff said. Statistically speaking, nearly 100% of your team is in transition, into or out of your SMB. Your human resource “team” may be one single professional (and we appreciate you). Your shorthanded SMB HR team will be on its heels or outsourcing the workforce onboarding and training process; and that may feel good, but may not be adequate for your business.
As an alternative, you could use GenAI in integrated fashion with your HRMS, LMS and other systems. Imagine the ability to develop a customized onboarding program by employee education, background, training and function; all done when needed and delivered to the employee when and how they need it.
The faster you onboard a new employee, the sooner they become productive. We also know that for training to be effective, it must be continually updated and periodically reviewed. Your “one” HR resource can’t do it all; unless – they have the help of tools like GenAI, that make this a reality today.
The normalization and use of AI technologies (like GenAI) will force a gigantic shift to the competitive landscape in business. If SMBs could easily and affordably implement AI technologies, it could lead to a surge in innovation and competition, challenging the dominance of established corporations.
That is not a “could” any longer. It is a “can”, and it’s happening. The time is now for SMBs to make a move on GenAI.