Why India Inc.’s Next AI Challenge Is Strategy, Not Adoption: Sandeep Barve of InUnison Strategy Consulting

Sandeep Barve, Founder & Managing Director, InUnison Strategy Consultancy

New Delhi [India], September 28: As Indian companies move beyond AI experimentation, they are realising that more use cases do not automatically create enterprise-wide value. Many companies now have multiple GenAI applications in production, yet only 25% of AI initiatives are delivering expected returns and just 15% have scaled across the enterprise.

From AI Pilots to Business Reinvention

Most current AI initiatives improve an activity without changing the final business outcome. A bank may accelerate credit assessment while documentation and approvals continue to delay disbursal. A manufacturer may predict equipment failure while fragmented maintenance decisions keep downtime high. A sales team may produce proposals faster without improving conversion, pricing power or time to revenue. Now imagine the future possibilities by thinking differently; A manufacturer can move from selling equipment and maintenance to guaranteeing uptime. An IT services company can convert delivery knowledge into repeatable AI-enabled solutions and outcome-linked revenue. A financial institution can redesign fragmented credit processes around faster, risk-adjusted decisions for selected customer segments. That’s where the real change must happen. Instead of using AI to make its existing model more efficient, it’s time for companies to redesign their customer promise, remove entire layers of work and introduce outcome-based business model. That’s leading with strategy where AI strengthens what the enterprise can uniquely master, deliver and monetise value. InUnison Strategy Consultancy helps founders, boards and CXOs reimagine what their companies should become and build the architecture required to scale it. Through UniShift™, the AI-Era Enterprise Redesign & Evolution Framework it connects AI decisions with the future direction of their businesses. Reimagine with Strategies, Build with AI, Scale through Redesign India Inc’s next advantage will come from using AI to build a more valuable business and not merely a more automated version of the current business. Sandeep clearly states that “Strategy gives AI a business purpose before technology gives it capability”. It determines the market position the company wants to build, the customer outcome it will own, and the few enterprise capabilities it must master. Strategy defines what differentiated value the business can create, how will it deliver faster, better and cheaper outcomes to customers. The strategic choices lead to decisions that ensure how the advantage will be converted into premium pricing, recurring revenue, outcome-linked fees, additional capacity, stronger retention, or access to new markets. This makes the commercial model as important as the AI model. Each direction requires different data, workflows, talent, partners, investment, and governance. AI Adoption before strategy can lock capital into disconnected use cases and eventually reinforce a business model that changes for the better by leading with Strategy.

A path to create the next competitive advantage

The real threat won’t be from competitors using AI better but from those who use it to compete differently, before you do. Therefore, for founders, boards and CXOs, the priority is now to select the right future, concentrate investment behind it and redesign the enterprise to deliver it. AI adoption should follow those choices. At InUnison, the strategic sequence begins by defining the future business opportunity and differentiated value. It is followed by defining the future customer promise, market advantage and revenue opportunity. We then redesign the complete journey from customer need to delivered outcome before applying AI, while linking capital & resource allocations connected to the initiatives that create recurring revenue, higher capacity and stronger customer value. It helps Leaders decide which capabilities should remain core and determine what should come from partners or a wider ecosystem. That is the path India Inc needs to move from AI pilots to business reinvention and leading with strategy to create next-level competitive advantage.