In this article we reflect on how organizations are in the Capital Expense (Capex) arms race believe more technology will equate to scalable and sustainable growth. We recommend three actions to consider before jumping into the Capex arms race. Next month we publish The Reframe Marketplace Change Guide Book For Growth Acceleration™. This can be helpful to leaders pursing the technology arms race to growth. It is a growth playbook with a learning experience based on the work we’ve been doing in helping leaders accelerate growth and organizational change that reflects the total addressable and serviceable markets. Have a read and let us know what you think about the article.

If you’ve been to any conference or listened to any business show or podcast over the last 12 months, you’ve heard how machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) is going to transform the world.  While this may be true, before an organization can achieve scalable and sustainable growth using ML and AI, there has to be organizational change.

If you’ve watched CNBC or Bloomberg, you’ve heard how business and technology companies are in a capital expense (Capex) arms race to see who can build the most powerful large language model, the fastest computing system and power grid with the most kilowatts.  For the United States to remain a dominant global technology leader, the infrastructure requirements and investments have to be met.

For marketing and brand leaders…not so fast!  We’ve seen this Capex bonanza before but in a different era.

Over the last 12 months, all of the client rave has been centered around technology and more specifically how artificial intelligence (AI) will transform how they go-to-market.  For some organizations, “first movers” will secure a technology partner and begin implementing solutions without assessing their current technology requirements and strategy.

Based on the work we’ve been doing and what we are seeing in the marketplace, organizations first have to assess their level of change readiness before going on their growth acceleration and change journey.

Since 2015, we’ve used the Reframe Growth and Cultural Maturity Assessment Framework across more than 50 F500 client partners.  We’ve seen our share of organizational mishaps with large platform go-to-market initiatives.

The assessment is the first step in the engagement because there has to be organizational alignment on the growth ambition and priority of resources required to achieve the stated growth ambition.  Once there is organizational alignment, we lock in and build the customer experience design strategy and go-to-market plan.

Below are three actions for marketing and brand leaders to consider before making the big Capex plunge into automating their customer experience using machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI).

Assess Your Organization’s Level of Change Readiness.

When we won our first client pitch in 2015, we naturally assumed every client that asked for growth acceleration was ready for organizational change.  We were very naive. What we quickly realized is most organizations with good intention asked for marketplace growth acceleration but was not ready for the organizational change required.  Our response to the opportunity was the introduction of The Reframe Marketplace Change Guide Book For Growth Acceleration™.

Through 1 on 1 stakeholder interviews, we assess organizations and determine their level of change readiness and growth acceleration.  We’ve conducted more than a thousand interviews asking client partners about their Structure, Strategy, Segments (customer), Systems and Solutions.  After using our proprietary assessment, we then can have a thoughtful conversation about their level of change readiness and capabilities on the spectrum of them being Limited (1), Emerging (2), Basic (3), Intermediate (4) or Advanced (5).  This is an important first step for leaders and organizations because it requires alignment of resources and priorities to make the organizational changes required for scalable and sustainable growth acceleration using AI and ML.

Seek To Understand The Total Addressable Market Opportunity Both Volumetrically and Culturally.

At Reframe Consulting Services, we help leaders operationalize change and growth at scale using our Reframe Marketplace Change approach. We lead with both a qualitative and quantitative approach to uncovering growth acceleration.  In 9 out of 10 client engagements, most brands and leaders do not have primary data with insights reflective of the total addressable and serviceable markets.

Usually they have lots of data and insights for their base customers.  As for their emerging high growth segments, they do have that data with insights sitting on-site or on their servers.  In most cases, it is third party data.  For our client partners we have a playbook that gets them to a place where they have primary data for their base and diverse or high growth audience segments both volumetrically and culturally.

Using the Reframe Growth and Cultural Maturity Assessment, we’ve found that most organizations change readiness scores are at a level two (limited) or three (basic). Systems and structural barriers prevent them from getting to a level four (intermediate) or five (advanced).

The next frontier for brands getting to a level four or five has to do with sourcing and acquiring primary data gleaning cross-cultural and poly-cultural insights.  For ML and AI to be truly effective, marketers and leaders have to make the transformation. Organizations resistant to change and modernizing are likely to remain gleaning mono-cultural and multi-cultural insights, lacking the ability to scale and sustain growth using automation, ML and AI.

Identify and Remove Structural and Systems Barriers.

Within the $1T global marketing and communications industry, it has long been recognized that brands buy goods and services based on the idea of “general” and “multi”.  This construct permeates throughout the halls of brands, procurement departments and industry associations.

This decades-old approach is now being challenged by new entrants like Meta, Google, OpenAI and a host of other advertising and media technology companies.  What does this mean for brands and leaders?  Change and modernize.

When the framework below was first introduced in the Wiley published book Reframe The Marketplace:  The Total Market Approach To Reaching The New Majority, it was met with some resistance by advertising and marketing industry insiders.  The good news, this was not an advertising and marketing framework, it was a change management framework.

What we now know 10 years later is ML and AI will wreck havoc on brands and business leaders slow to embrace the change required that reflects their total addressable and serviceable markets.

What we also now know is large language models (LLM), training of those models with artificial intelligence goes beyond racial and ethnic outcomes.  LLMs are powered by hoards of data for modeling and training of the models for predictive outcomes. The ambition is to deliver higher engagement and conversion in the most effective and efficient way.

What this means volumetrically and culturally for brands is a shift and go beyond mono-cultural and multi-cultural data with insights to now cross-cultural and poly-cultural data with insights to unlock their organization’s technology capabilities using ML and AI.  The question now is who will get their first in a responsible and ethical way.

To learn more about our thinking and growth playbook, contact us.

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Jeffrey L. Bowman is the CEO and founder of Reframe Consulting Services, author of Reframe The Marketplace:  The Total Market Approach To Reaching The New Majority and forthcoming growth playbook, The Reframe Marketplace Change Guide Book For Growth Acceleration. If you would like to learn more and schedule and schedule a meeting, please do not hesitate to contact Reframe Consulting Services: https://getreframe.com/contact/