By Juliana Chloe A. Gonzales

Philippine companies must build up their transition capabilities to realize business value from their artificial intelligence (AI) investments, according to global change management firm Prosci, which notes that 65% of organizations remain stuck in the proof-of-concept stage. For enterprises across the country, the finding points to a gap between experimenting with AI tools and converting them into measurable business value.

David Lee, managing director for ASEAN at Prosci, made the remarks during an online interview with BusinessWorld last month. He said AI transformation requires a departure from traditional information technology implementation because leaders cannot predefine final outcomes.

"When I look at AI transformation, I look through this lens of complex change. [It] does behave differently, and we have to treat it differently," Mr. Lee said, adding that AI adoption is more of an innovation process than a standard digital rollout.

"Technology is advancing faster than organizations can absorb it. Every day, we get a new iteration on AI, AI tools, and things that come out. But the organizations have not put the systems yet in place from a change point of view that can actually absorb that."

Asked how Philippine organizations can move from the rollout phase to incorporating workflow design, Mr. Lee said business leaders must reevaluate how they measure return on investment. Rather than tracking project deadlines or traditional system implementation metrics, leadership teams should focus on organizational adaptability, he said.

"The leadership shift is from measuring compliance to measuring learning velocity, from measuring a plan and the results of a plan to measuring what are our postures and our principles that we're using to drive this."

Mr. Lee highlighted Prosci's "tides and waves" framework, in which leaders work to scale their AI capability across the organization while measuring specific tool implementations.

While employee-driven AI enthusiasm is high in the Philippines, with workers independently experimenting and purchasing software subscriptions, he said that turning this momentum into enterprise capability requires senior executives to change their operational approach. That enthusiasm, in his view, is only the starting point — converting it into enterprise capability is a leadership challenge rather than a technology one.

"Leadership at the senior levels have to shift from being directional, defining the future state and pushing that down, to actually creating the environment that allows that change to emerge and happen."

He added that the shift also requires an evolution in executive teams' leadership styles.

"The biggest part of that is it really means, for many people, suspending ego. Saying, 'I've made it to this place, so now I get to direct' to 'I've made it to this place, but I've now got to change how we think and operate so that I'm more of an enabler rather than the person directing the result.'"

To remain competitive amid rapid AI development across the region, Mr. Lee said organizations must be agile.

"The real trick is to step into and start building the muscles for change and realize that the first few times you do it are not going to be easy. AI has compressed organizational time, which means leaders need a system that continuously processes change rather than repeatedly starting new transformation programs."

Prosci has operated in Singapore for 12 years, collaborating with public agencies and multinational corporations, and is now expanding its presence in the Philippines. The firm is hosting Prosci Practitioner Certification programs in Manila on Oct. 20 and Nov. 24 as it helps local businesses build permanent enterprise change capabilities — sessions that put the firm's methodology directly in front of Philippine practitioners.

Source: BusinessWorld