NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / September 20, 2024 / MasterCard
By Dorothy Pomerantz
Originally published by the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth
With Colombia being the second largest exporter of coffee, Azahar Coffee’s mission may seem somewhat paradoxical: to keep as many Colombian beans as possible in Colombia. The reason? Colombians deserve to drink the best coffee, too.
As a small business built on a reputation for fresh, on-trend products, Azahar needs to stay on top of things to compete in a growing market. Using artificial intelligence (AI) could help, by giving the café a way to use its own data to make smarter, more efficient business decisions. For example, by analyzing how many sandwiches are sold each day, it could eliminate waste by only buying the amount of bread needed that day. Knowing which tables are busiest at which times could improve staffing, and analyzing how many people prefer oat milk to cow’s milk could help refine dairy inventory.
These types of tools are already adopted by large organizations. a recent studyAbout 42% of companies with more than 1,000 employees have already deployed AI to help their business. But barriers remain for small businesses that don’t have the time or money to hire AI experts and develop their own technology. To truly democratize AI, we need to find ways to make these tools more accessible to small businesses so they can compete in an ever-changing technology landscape.
Small businesses will need customized, easy-to-use, and accessible solutions. Here are three that are being developed with the support of Mastercard Strive.
Building chatbots to leverage data
Azahar is part of a pilot program of Data Sketcha small social tech company democratizing data science to fight social inequality.
The program provides small businesses in Bogotá with access to artificial intelligence based on chatbots. Existing data analytics services are out of reach for Bogotá’s 50,000 independent shops and restaurants that could benefit from using AI to simplify their data and improve their decision-making.
For years, these businesses have faced a major challenge: how to harness the power of their data with limited resources. The local coffee shop or grocery store often relies on instinct, basic spreadsheets, or confusing reports from the various digital platforms they use. Datasketch’s chatbot generates the insights small businesses need to take their business to the next level by working with models trained exclusively on the small business’s own data.
“If you’re a small business, you might have one software for payments, another for accounting, and another for e-commerce,” says JP Marin Diaz, founder of Datasketch. “We’re able to integrate that data and add an AI chatbot interface to it so they can ask questions about their business in a simple way and get an answer based on the company’s data.”
For example, the manager of one of Azahar’s cafes could ask, “How much milk should I buy for next week?” and get a simple answer based on complex analyses of cafe traffic, local preferences and seasonal sales. The tool allows Azahar and other small Colombian businesses to compete with larger companies using the latest technology.
Empowering Community Business Coaches to Get Faster Data Insights
Creating new ways for small businesses to use advanced data science can even have a ripple effect, improving the prospects of exponentially more entrepreneurs. Community Reinvestment Fund, United States (CRF), for example, which provides loans and technical solutions to help community finance organizations better support and grow the small businesses they serve.
In Chicago, the CRF works with Allies for community businesses (A4CB), which provides the capital, mentoring and connections entrepreneurs need to grow stable businesses, which in turn create jobs and wealth in their communities. The partnership brings better prospects to the small business owners they work with.
CRF InformationCRF’s latest technology innovation, allows A4CB advisors to sit down with small business owners and, in one minute, compile a snapshot capturing two years of financial performance and health trends. Typically, this process can take up to two weeks and involves manually collecting financial statements, then data entry and modeling. CRF’s tools use open banking to automate this process, pulling financial data from multiple sources (bank accounts, payment systems, etc.) to present all the information in an easy-to-read dashboard.
Coaches then use this information to help businesses set goals and benchmarks that can be tracked and measured over months and years. The system also reacts to the information gathered, with the ability to provide incentives and alerts to the coach. For example, the platform can help advisors assess the impact of a marketing campaign or address spikes in demand and suggest actions such as a line of credit for inventory needs.
We can’t expect small business owners to be data scientists. We need to create products and services for small business owners that help them understand their data, make better decisions, connect to resources at the right time, and better manage the overall financial performance of their business.
Patrick Davis
Senior Vice President, Technology and Platform Services, Community Reinvestment Fund
Helping small businesses compete in sustainability
It is becoming increasingly clear that for small businesses to compete on a larger stage, they will need to be able to measure and report on their ESG (environmental, social and governance) risks, opportunities and impacts. This may open up new business opportunities, given the proportion of large organisations that are requiring small business owners to disclose ESG indicators. should reach 92% this year. But ESG measurement solutions can often be expensive and out of reach for many small businesses.
“Small businesses don’t have the capacity or the skills to do this,” says Kimberley Abbott, founder of Impact investeda UK-based global company that leverages AI and 300 million scientific and other relevant data points to automatically assess and quantify the impact of businesses and investments. “We need to meet small businesses where they are. Democratizing this technology also means making sure the price is fair for everyone.”
In Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, Vested Impact, with the support of Mastercard Strive, is developing an affordable platform for small businesses that can measure a company’s impact in seconds. Its goal is to assess 1.2 million small businesses by the end of 2024. Its platform takes into account what the company does and where it does it, as well as impactful data points, and measures the company’s impact against the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The platform will be able to quickly create an impact report that small businesses can then use as proof of the good work they are doing.
Ensuring everyone benefits from the AI revolution
These are just three examples of how AI can help level the playing field for small businesses. AI can help these businesses too attract and retain customers, make marketing more targeted and effective and strengthen cybersecurity. For AI to reach small businesses, they will need to be involved in the design process to ensure that solutions meet real needs.
One of the ways we help Democratizing AI through the Artificial Intelligence to Accelerate Inclusion Challenge (AI2AI Challenge) – a partnership with data.org and Dasra to reward organizations that deliver innovative AI solutions that have demonstrated success and are ready to scale with additional funding and technical support.
Mastercard has partnered with Create Labs and various global media partners to develop and pilot a new inclusive AI tool which offers personalized assistance to small business owners.
Ultimately, the AI revolution is here, and it’s up to all of us to make sure that everyone, everywhere can benefit from it. We need to focus on helping small businesses access AI technologies and tools, whether that’s creating easy-to-use chatbots, supporting business coaches in underserved communities, or bringing ESG measurement tools to companies that are already doing good work. The power, resources, and opportunity are there. It’s time to seize them.
Learn more about Mastercard’s work in artificial intelligence.
Dorothy Pomerantz is a senior editor at Fitch Ink, where she writes and edits articles for Mastercard Newsroom and beyond. She spent 15 years at Forbes magazine, where she was the Los Angeles bureau chief.
Originally published by the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth
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SOURCE: MasterCard
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