From Hype to High Impact: Practical AI for Your Enterprise Strategy
This article first appeared in our Jacksonville Daily Record Industry Insights Column To the surprise of no one, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is becoming a cornerstone of enterprise strategy. As a business leader, understanding the potential of AI can help you drive efficiency and innovation and maintain a competitive edge. As with any new tech, the gap between innovation and implementation is usually the toughest to bridge. The majority of business leaders are waiting for Generative AI (GenAI) to advance past the hype. After all, the true value of AI lies not in quick wins or buzzworthy applications but in long-term software and technology strategies that integrate seamlessly into everyday workflows and enhance customer and employee experiences. While there’s still a lot of over-hype, AI’s potential in automation, data analysis, and predictive capabilities holds promise for significant, lasting impact. But waiting around for the dust to settle on the excitement around AI is a mistake. The most forward-thinking leaders are the ones who see what components of AI are already exceeding their own capabilities and find ways to implement them to start streamlining processes and rerouting tasks from humans to machines that can do them more efficiently, allowing their people counterparts the opportunity to focus on more high-level, creative thinking tasks. Where to Begin? Increasing your company’s productivity is the best way to implement AI and get everyone on board with it. It’s not as simple as slapping an app on top of your existing workflows, however. AI’s uncanny speed, precision, and attention to detail need governance before being turned loose, and that governance needs to be multi-pronged, covering how data is collected, used, stored, and disposed of. AI feeds on data, but can get greedy when it doesn’t have boundaries and can become a liability, leading to potential legal repercussions or damage to your company’s reputation. Find Your Fit Take an objective view of your company and determine where your biggest areas of need are, and then figure out what AI can do better. Maybe it is reasonable in your line of work to use bots to answer your FAQs. If you need to streamline your operations, there might be a way to implement AI to assist in automating repetitive tasks. If you’re looking to enhance your product offerings, that could mean using GenAI to develop intelligent features, such as personalized recommendations, advanced data analytics, or predictive maintenance. Don’t think that AI is some sort of catch-all for your company’s shortcomings. Identifying your areas of need and aligning them with the right AI capabilities will help fortify your long-term strategy, driving both efficiency and innovation. Keep the Cycle Going Like any emerging technology, AI is a work in progress that is going to need constant attention. This comes in the form of investing in your existing infrastructure to ensure it can support the AI-driven solutions your software development team is implementing. You don’t want to waste time and money deploying solutions that aren’t paying off. Finally, engage with your peers to see what’s working and share your own innovations. Leveraging the influence of the business community can create an innovation ripple effect, where sharing local best practices strengthens everyone. Conclusion AI is the most exciting technology since the dawn of the Internet and can level the playing field in any industry with incredible speed. As your local tech partners, Valyr is here to help you navigate AI. Reach out to us today and let’s start strategizing how your company can plan for and leverage AI to its fullest potential for your organization. Ready to take your enterprise strategy from hype to high impact? Connect with us at hello@valyr.com or take a look at our website and start turning potential into practical solutions.
Technical Debt: How Quick Fixes in It Can Lead to Long-Term Costs
This article first appeared in our Jacksonville Daily Record Industry Insights column. Shortcuts are a good thing when you’re stuck in Jacksonville’s traffic. Not so much when you’re the one responsible for keeping your digital infrastructure healthy. Detours and shortcuts in your IT projects lead to technical debt. Just like consumer debt, technical debt is not a good thing. It eventually will drag down your bottom line and hurt your brand identity as things get slower, less efficient, less reliable, and more costly. In a nutshell, technical debt is the result of poor decisions including not fixing buggy code and sacrificing proper design to get a problem back to working order quickly. Business leaders fall into this trap because it’s cheaper and easier in the short term, and maintenance isn’t as exciting as new tech initiatives. Or, they might rely on a development team that lacks the necessary skills or training, exacerbating the issue. Imagine a family business that has turned into a big-time company over the years- they sell pipes and fittings and deliver them all over the state. One of the original family members wrote a proprietary software system back in the 1980s – basically their own enterprise resource planning software (ERP). Over the years, different development companies have added features here and there, but it can take weeks and months for new employees to understand how to do even the simplest of tasks inside the walls, and trying to de-bug or perform maintenance on the whole system is a task that no one has time for, and nobody wants to do. At one point, out of desperation, management hires a consultant to come in and document the entirety of the software, talking to every major stakeholder and working through the system on-site. Their investment leads to the same conclusion: the system is a dinosaur and it’s costing the company more money than it’s saving them at this point, slashing away at the company’s revenue, efficiency, and customer service. The software, while somewhat functional, is outdated, unstable, and full of technical debt–which also impacts their company’s overall value. There’s a better way of doing business to minimize technical debt, but it requires business leaders to be proactive and make the right call at the right time. 1. Assess (and maintain!) the health of your system 2. Don’t procrastinate on fixing issues 3. If a new feature isn’t up to snuff, don’t approve it. 4. Fight the urge to compromise in the spirit of quick fixes. 5. Collaborate with a trustworthy and proactive software development team with a proven track record. Workarounds that circumvent the workflow of any digital system are a risk to its integrity. The more an organization uses shortcuts to patch a problem the more technical debt it accrues – drifting away from the intended use of their software and making it more costly to return to the straight and narrow later on, or when you’re forced to replace the system altogether. It’s the digital equivalent of putting a warped house frame on a solid slab. Each level up will get warped as a result of the earlier veer from the path. Technical debt results in lower business value, higher upkeep costs, slower development, and increased security vulnerabilities–to name a few. Remember, all of these things stack up into a company’s ability to innovate and scale. In the digital age, falling behind can be a death knell on both brand identity and the bottom line. Don’t let technical debt drag down your business. Ready to make a change? Reach out to my team at hello@valyr.com and start prioritizing long-term solutions. About Valyr Valyr (“valor”), a local family-owned and operated software development company, is certified as a Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) and Minority-Owned Business Enterprise (MBE), and is dedicated to excellence in creating the tools and systems that help Jacksonville businesses run smarter and faster. Visit us at valyr.com.
Top Development Terms Business Leaders Should Know
Knowing standard web development terms gives you credibility within your organization, broadens your knowledge base, and empowers you to ask the right questions to get ahead.
Global Plastics and Chemical Company: Simplifying Complex Processes Through Enhanced UX
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How CMU Created an Efficient & Secure Workflow for Research Collaboration
Client: CMU Robotics Institute – Carnegie Mellon University Mission: To support Big Data governance and data access controls by developing a workflow that takes requestors and approvers through a process that ensures authentication and proper access. With Valyr, CMU found a trusted partner that could architect and develop both the process and experience for data access requests, authentication, and secure distribution. “We needed the processes to be user-friendly and secure,” said Kitani, “We also sought a partnership that could align with our continued commitment to student leadership while also being sensitive to our timeline.” Valyr checked all of those boxes, welcoming participation from a student in the Computer Vision Program, giving him direct exposure to the development side of the project. Results 2-day average time to process 13 approvals for each data access request 27 separate steps now automated Estimated 1,200+ hours in manual effort saved annually Improved Research Collaboration Faster time to authenticate and access data When Kris Kitani, Associate Research Professor at the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh, approached Valyr, the Computer Vision Program had just completed a vast data collection project. The research included hundreds of hours of wearable tech video footage but there was no straightforward way to continue research collaboration or authenticate distribution requests for the data. Because the project was an international collaboration between CMU and 12 other universities, there were essentially 13 “owners” of the data and, therefore, 13 different entities responsible for the data’s integrity and governance. This meant that for each request for data, 13 approvals would be required, which contributed to a time-intensive and burden-heavy process. Researchers, graduate students, and sponsors of the research expected downloadable content, but taking requests one at a time, collecting signatures authorizing their requests, and manually sharing massive amounts of unstructured data was not secure, sustainable, or aligned with expectations. As a result, international collaboration had reached a near standstill until data access could be streamlined. This forced significant pressure on developing a timely solution. CMU and their research partners knew they needed a user-friendly interface and digital workflow that could streamline this process. “Valyr did a great job from start to finish. They carefully listened to what we needed, outlined the specifics of the job, were upfront with costs AND they delivered on time. I’d certainly reach out to Valyr again for our development needs in the future.” Kris Kitani Associate Research Professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh Streamlining the Process with Electronic Signature and AWS With multiple process steps and approvers, the path was not a straight line, but rather a carefully orchestrated sequence of between 25-27 steps (depending on conditional variances) designed to optimize efficiency and enforce governance. In a nutshell, here’s how it all unfolds: The journey initiates through an inviting landing page, designed to encourage those needing access to submit a request. The process then calls for the requester’s electronic signature on a data usage agreement. The pivotal moment in this workflow comes after the requester’s electronic signature event. An approval workflow is triggered, ensuring that all 13 approvers authorize or deny the request. So that permissions didn’t slow down the process, this is a timebound event: if no response is given, the system would automatically approve the request. This process ensures that only the right individuals gain access, which in turn safeguards restricted content. If authorized, the process is completed by granting access to the downloadable data. Throughout the workflow, the system was set up to provide notifications and real-time status, indicating whether a request was pending, rejected, or approved. The integration of HelloSign provides a secure and user-friendly electronic signature solution, while AWS plays the central role in data storage, safeguarding the integrity and accessibility of data. Now, everyone benefits from a faster and more transparent process that’s centralized and secure. Collaboration: The Driving Force What set this project apart was the emphasis on collaboration. It was important to CMU that its students contribute a vision and voice, and Valyr fostered a collaborative relationship with open communication. Together, CMU and Valyr ensured that the workflow and interface aligned with the project objectives and timeline. The launch of the new digital workflow went smoothly. For CMU and its research partners worldwide, having that kind of ready access to data with the proper safeguards and user traceability has dramatically reduced the number of manual requests while increasing the level of security in data sharing.
How Companies Are Redefining Success With Cloud Technology
A concept that was a bit nebulous (pun intended) a decade ago is now a modern mainstay of how business gets done.
7 Questions to Ask a Software Development Company to Find the Right Fit – Guide (2023)
It’s not always easy finding a development shop with a team that’s easy to work with and delivers solutions that perform the way you expect. To help you navigate, we’ve created seven questions that will help separate the pack.