Shoeb Javed, chief product officer at iGrafx, discusses the concept of digital twins of organizations (DTOs) as a way for businesses to optimize operations using AI and process intelligence. DTOs are virtual replicas of physical businesses that allow managers to analyze and experiment with how a business is functioning before making any changes in the real world. By creating simulations or testing changes on the digital twin, companies can optimize for goals like cost, capacity, or customer experiences without spending lots of money on potentially ineffective changes.
The first step in building a DTO is the discovery phase, where a baseline of processes, systems, data, and assets is created. AI and process intelligence play a pivotal role in gathering, integrating, and analyzing data from diverse sources. In the design phase, AI-powered predictive models can forecast future scenarios, enabling companies to anticipate challenges and make informed decisions. AI-driven simulations and natural language processing help evaluate strategies, analyze market trends, and extract insights from unstructured data.
Before implementing a DTO, it is important to define goals, metrics of success, and work in stages starting with a focused area such as procurement or supply chain. Leveraging existing software and technology assets is also crucial to uncover opportunities for improvement without investing in new technology solutions. The main challenges with DTOs often revolve around people rather than technology. Using DTOs is a dynamic process that requires constant data collection, testing, and updating, so it is important for users to easily interact with the model over time.
Digital twins allow businesses to make decisions based on predictions of the future instead of past events. By building a model of the organization and monitoring processes on an ongoing basis, predictive algorithms can free companies from rework and re-planning. DTOs can lead to dramatic results and fundamentally change how businesses operate. Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs, and technology executives, highlighting the importance of keeping up with innovative technologies like DTOs.
