The interplay between contemporary business and AI: What should SMEs do to catch up?

By Jacob AZAARE

Business is the lifeline of every nation, whether state- owned or privately owned. Businesses account for significant part of the economies in both developed and developing countries across the globe ⁽¹⁾.

Literally, business involves selling and buying of goods or services ⁽²⁾. As defined by ^(3), a business is an establishment where goods and services are exchanged for money, buyers acknowledge a need for a good product or services and exchange money with the seller to acquire it ^{(1, 4)}.

Although many businesses solely depend on profits to sustain their operations and to continually expand their products and services, there are also not-for-profit businesses ⁽³⁾.

Contemporary businesses have taken a sharp shift from traditionally buying and selling to using advanced technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to enhance productivity, sustain customers ^(3,4), improve marketing, reduce costs and maximize profits ⁽¹⁾.

Recently, modern businesses are becoming more sophisticated and innovative as technologies keep evolving ⁽⁴⁾. Thus, Businesses are experiencing a face lift with the emerging technologies in the digital space as indicated by ⁽⁷⁾ that there is an increasing demand for online businesses as compared to the traditional in-person buying and selling of goods and services.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) as ⁽⁴⁾ postulates, entails the development of programs that process data and offer intelligent outputs like humans. AI has advanced capabilities of computers beyond receiving and processing data to give information, and has enabled computers to offer intelligent decisions like humans by thinking and learning from data patterns ^{(1, 4)}. AI has transcended to how intelligent systems manipulate data to give better and human-like thinking outputs ^{(1, 4)}.

The emergence of AI has drawn the interest of the world as it promises to make lives easier and to revolutionize industries.  According to ^{(6) ,} AI is an aspect of Computer Science (CS) which is keen on developing intelligent systems that performs tasks that would have otherwise need human intelligence. AI has improved how computers make intelligent decisions, process natural language, make predictions from patterns and solve problems with precision and accuracy ^{(1, 6)}.

Additionally, Generative AI (GenAi) and Machine Learning are the new dawn in contemporary business operations ⁽⁸⁾. Business are gradually transitioning from the traditional in-person buying and selling to digital platforms which require strategies to pace up with these changes ⁽⁹⁾. Growing businesses like small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) need to embrace this technological shift to improve efficiency, productivity and maximize profits ^{(1, 4, 6,)}.  As ^{(1, 8)} posits, Machine Learning outperforms the traditional methods of identifying patterns and making predictions on customer demands and sales.

In Ghana, SMEs are characterized relatively by their small or medium size, one to one hundred employees and limited fixed assets and turnover ^{(10, 15)}. The integration of AI in business operations has enabled SMEs to automate processes, make data-driven decisions and predictive analysis on customers demand ^{( 6)}.

As competition and hunger for growth among SMEs hinge on the adoption of AI, business in advanced countries like China, Europe, United States and beyond are heavily investing in technological infrastructures to leverage on its benefits ⁽⁴⁾.

Notably, the essence of AI tools such as GenAi and Machine Learning is reflected in its capabilities to effortlessly create content, images and flyers for advertisement, as well as offer predictive analytics as to where SMEs should channel their resources ^{(6, 11)}.  Moreover, these authors pointed out that GenAi presents easier and faster means of creating content and flyers for digital advertisement, which saves SMEs the cost of engaging the services of graphics and content creators.

SMEs stand the chance to benefit more than large firm in revolving markets, when AI is strategically implemented ^{(1, 4)}. AI has been proven to significantly improving lives, enhancing productivity and reducing costs. Several studies have found that AI is continually changing the dynamics of contemporary business ^{(4, 6, 10, 11)}.

Particularly, ^{(6, 11)} have noted that businesses worldwide are currently using Generative AI tools; such as Chatbox, Jasper AI, Synthesis, Midjourney and Canva AI to swiftly respond to customer complaints, brand products, and create advertising contents without necessarily seeking expert services. Besides, Modern businesses are leveraging on the predictive and the automotive ability of AI and machine learning to track the growth and trends of consumers’ behaviors and preferences to maximize sales and profits ⁽¹²⁾. Nonetheless, ⁽¹⁰⁾ postulates that though AI has the potential of significantly improving business operations, its adoption into businesses in most developing nations like Ghana is still faced with challenges such as lack of experts, insufficient funds, resistance to change, lack of innovation and competition and organizational climate or culture.

The ever-growing application of AI especially, GenAi and Machine Learning in businesses is gaining recognition worldwide, yet the Ghanaian context presents lower adoption and challenges ⁽¹³⁾. Globally, artificial intelligence tools are seen as an avenue to transform the operations of Small and Medium-sized businesses (SMEs) ^{(6, 10, 11)} however, limited attention has been given to how GenAi and Machine Learning are being adopted by SMEs in Ghana.

Additionally, though few Ghanaian businesses are beginning to rely on Chatboxes to respond to customers’ grievances to increase customers satisfaction, most of these SMEs do not use the data sets from these Chatboxes to build predictive models on customers preferences and market trends ⁽¹⁵⁾.

Conclusively, artificial intelligence has come to stay and will continuously evolve, though SMEs in Ghana are challenged with financial constraints, regulatory policies, organizational structure, lack of quality data and experts ^{(10, 13, 14)}. In order to keep up with competition and to fully benefit from these advanced technologies, SMEs in Ghana should invest in training employees. This necessitates a collaboration between higher educational institutions and SMEs in Ghana ^{(13, 14)}.

Specifically, SMEs in Ghana can keep pace with AI applications by Preparing Data and Infrastructure, cultivate an AI-Ready Culture (Upskilling), Implement Responsible Governance, Focus on High-ROI Applications and Leveraging on External Support; whether technical or financial with the immediate way forward for the latter is to continuously push the Government for loans with moderate interest rates to assist them in acquiring these technologies ⁽¹⁾.

Ultimately, policies and regulations hindering the adoption of AI should be reformed and if necessary repealed to ensure that SMEs in Ghana make the best out of these advanced technologies to gain market competitive advantage.

References:

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About the author: ?

Jacob AZAARE holds a PHD in Management Science and Engineering, He is a Senior Lecturer, Department of Business Computing, School of Computing and Information Sciences, University of Technology and Applied Sciences, Navrongo

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