Here's a note for every company that has applied AI-based solutions to their processes:

1/ Congratulations! I hope this makes your business faster, more profitable, or whatever else you'd planned.

2/ You remembered to map AI's impact on the entire process, right? Not just that one department?

I recently experienced this first-hand. The front end of the business had gone high-tech, but the back end of the business was still paper-based and manual. That high-tech/low-tech difference created friction between the two sides of the business.

The take-away lesson?

If you manage to power one side of your business with AI, make sure you account for how that will impact every upstream and downstream department in the process!

It makes no sense for one department to run ten times faster if the departments on either side of it are still running at their original speed. The newer, faster process will either become starved for input from its upstream partners or it will overwhelm the downstream department. This will lead to a net-negative impact on your business.

Need more guidance? I cover just this kind of situation in my new book – it's the section on Strategy & Planning, Rule 9: "Prepare for success."