AI is everywhere. It’s nearly impossible to go a day without seeing it somewhere or seeing someone mention it. 

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It’s important, we all know that, but it takes time, money, and resources to implement. Plus, it’s not only enough to implement it and call it a day, you need to integrate it into your business in the right way to give your business the best AI boost possible. 

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Wagonex were experiencing a very similar problem to the one above– they knew they wanted to implement AI as soon as possible, so as to not get left behind, but didn’t have the time to tackle it just yet.

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So, we worked with them to help them bring their AI dreams into reality. Here’s what we did: 

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Firstly, who are Wagonex? 

Eight years ago, Wagonex set out on a mission to 'Redefine Vehicle Ownership' with their unique car subscription offering.

Today they are a leader in this space, helping people choose from their vast selection of trusted car subscription providers and are trusted by major brands across the UK. 

Their challenge: They already used multiple AI-enabled services in-house and knew AI is a huge priority. What kept AI just out of reach was the time and team capacity to give AI their full attention. 

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Wagonex also wanted to implement AI to improve customer experience, profitability, internal operations and experience for various business stakeholders– the typical business objectives we're all trying to improve. But… they also have a couple of close competitors they need to stay ahead of. 

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Because of this, they want to harness AI to become the thought-leaders in the car subscription industry, to give them the extra edge over the rest. 

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How did we help? 

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We kicked off the project with a strategic workshop. During this workshop, we lifted the hood on Wagonex's business to understand their business goals and objectives, core products and services. We did this in detail to ensure that everything we recommend to Wagonex moves the needle towards their strategic objectives for 2024 and beyond. 

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From this workshop, we then uncovered 15 AI opportunities within Customer Experience, Internal Inventory Management, Sales and Marketing, Internal Operations and more. All of these opportunities we knew could make a direct and immediate impact on Wagonex as a business. 

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While finding 15 AI opportunities is great, they can’t all be tackled at once. We then focused Workshop 2 around prioritisation for Wagonex. We worked with the team to understand how much time it would take and from whom, what infrastructure is needed and what skills to understand their internal capabilities and where they might need help. 

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Finally, we mapped each opportunity via a business and product/AI matrix and, with the team, assessed each one from a risk and opportunity perspective and prioritised them accordingly.

In our final wrap session at the Wagonex office in Cardiff, we ran through all of the opportunities we found, which opportunities were at the top of their priority list, how long they would take to implement and what team was needed. 
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What were the outcomes? 

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As a result of these workshops, Wagonex now has: 

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1. 15 AI opportunities mapped against their business goals. 
2. A prioritised AI roadmap and plan cross-referenced to team priorities and mapped against perceived value vs effort. 
3. A Wagonex team who are now much more confident to get properly started with AI and know where to focus their attention. 

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What did the Wagonex team think? 

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"I felt I had a good grip on the areas that we wanted to tackle with AI as a business. But throughout the workshops, there were far more opportunities identified. Even though I thought I was well informed, this showed me there was even more we could do."- Leon James, CTO.

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“I’m amazed at what we’ve covered in the time we’ve had. The team at Founder & Lightning structured the workshops really well and we had strong levels of engagement during the sessions. This really helped us realise what could be possible and including the relevant internal stakeholders from different areas of the business has been really useful.”– Joel Livermore, Head Of Product.

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Summary: how we approach AI.  

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1. We’ve observed that some companies sell (or even give away) their specific AI tools in the hope that they are adopted. While this appears to be a good thing, tools are useless unless you know how to use them and know if they’re the right tool for your business. Instead of providing a tool, we take the time to understand the goals and strategic objectives of every project we conduct. Based on this, we then recommend the best tools and suggest where to focus efforts for a quick return. 

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2. Some companies also decide to hire a data scientist to implement AI across the business. We never advise businesses to hire just yet. Implementing AI requires multiple skills, including understanding and analysing where it can be best utilised and determining if it's worth the investment. Simply hiring a data scientist won't give businesses the strategic thinking you need to work out where to focus your efforts for a quick return. A small, multi-skilled team is far better for strategy and execution. 

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3. Other companies will advise you to hire a CDO (Chief Data Officer) or data consultant to map out your AI strategy for the next 2-3 years. They will take businesses through a process that will be costly and time-consuming for the team and then create a plan that will very likely be out of date by the time it's completed. And they still won't have actually delivered anything! We don't think businesses need a consultant and months of strategic thinking either. We look for a few quick wins and iterate on them so our clients benefit from our efforts in weeks, not months or years. 

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If you’d like to discover how to get ahead and stay ahead with AI, like the Wagonex team, please reach out by emailing CX@founderandlightning.com. 

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