Are you comfortable with your strategy? If not, that’s good. Real strategy is like playing a game where you make smart bets. You have to take risks and make tough choices. You’re not trying to eliminate risk entirely, you’re working to increase your chances of success. However, one wrong move can come back to bite your career. That’s why business leaders constantly seek better ways to think strategically. Increasingly, most CEOs are exploring GenAI tools like ChatGPT. Curious if GenAI can help you? Let’s explore together.
“The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence; it is to act with yesterday’s logic.”
– Peter Drucker
Okay, get ready? Close your eyes… wait, don’t—it’s hard to read like that. But imagine this anyway 😬:
You are the boss of an FMCG company that makes delicious Vietnamese snacks. You have 50 employees and a strong local brand. Your ingredients come from local farmers, and people love your products.
One day, you gather your executive team of 2 for the annual strategy retreat to develop your company’s five-year strategic plan. You said to your team: “This retreat allows us to step back and see the big picture. It’s crucial to evaluate our long-term strategy”.
You show them a list of the “key strategic issues” that your company face. You emphasize: “These issues will shape our strategy and tackle key challenges”
Now, let’s look at your “key strategic issues” list:
- Competition
- Market expansion & distribution (Whether to expand into rural areas or focus on high-margin urban markets)
- Human resources
- Product pricing
- Consumer preferences
- Profitability (due to raw material inflation & supply chain inefficiencies)
Everyone is satisfied with the list. Then—bam! A eureka moment hits you out of nowhere: “Are we missing something?”. You realize that your entire executive team work in the same industry for a long time. That means they tend to see problems and solutions in a restricted perspective—this is called a “blinkered view”.
“If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”
– the Law of the Instrument
You want to think outside of the box. “Someone from outside my industry help me, please!” Replace the executive team with others right now? Nah. The best options now is to ask GenAI! So, to test AI’s potential, you input the following prompt:
“We are a fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) company based in Ho Chi Minh City. With 50 staff, we manufacture and distribute packaged foods and beverages. What are the key strategic issues we’re likely to face in the future?”
Then, ChatGPT identified 8 critical strategic issues for your business, including:
- Market Competition & Differentiation.
- Changing Consumer Preferences (consumers like ethical & sustainable products)
- Supply Chain Disruptions & Costs
- Digital Transformation & E-commerce Growth
- Regulatory & Compliance Risks
- Talent & Workforce Management
- Financial Pressures & Cost Management
- International Expansion & Export Challenges
Let’s discuss whether it adds value to you or not.
❌ AI miss something!
Surprisingly, AI DON’T mention some of your biggest concerns (in your original list):
- Market expansion & distribution strategy: AI didn’t acknowledge your company’s critical challenge—whether to focus on expanding into rural markets or urban centers. This issue is vital as your team recognises significant growth opportunities in Vietnam’s rural areas.
- Product pricing: While AI pick “competition” as one of those issues, it completely missed the critical issue of “product pricing”. In the highly price-sensitive Vietnamese market, pricing strategy is so IMPORTANT. It directly impacts the bottom line—especially in the FMCG sector where small price changes can dramatically influence consumer behaviour. And guess what? Your competitors are working their asses off to outprice you and steal your customers!
- Profitability: AI did not explicitly mention profitability. Instead, AI responded with broader financial topics like “cost management” and “financial pressures” rather than your specific concerns. Did AI actually miss it, or did it assume we already understood the link between cost and profitability?
AI lacks company-specific context.
While it can generate broad industry trends, it does not know what’s most important for your business. This is because it is trained on a general, publicly available data rather than an organization’s internal data, goals or unique market position.
To mitigate this, you can regenerate responses to receive alternative answers. Another trick is to ask “Give me 10 more ideas” to get a longer list and avoid missing important points.
✅ On the positive side, GenAI identify some additional factors that you overlooked.
- Technological advancements in FMCG manufacturing and distribution
Your team may have been focused on traditional production and logistics without considering how technology could improve efficiency and scalability.
- Regulatory changes impacting food production and labeling
Your team overlooked this because you are thinking operationally, not considering how laws and policies could impact your company’s ability to operate in the future.
- Consumer expectations for ethical and sustainable sourcing
Your team may have focused on market expansion but not considered how sustainability could impact brand perception and competitiveness.
- Funding and investment
You can explore government grants or investor funding to sustain and grow your business.
Have you explored adopting automation technologies to enhance production efficiency or streamline distribution? Are you prepared for upcoming changes in Vietnam’s new food labeling regulations? Have you factored in the rising consumer demand for ethical and sustainable sourcing? (Some brands switch to fair-trade partnerships and biodegradable packaging to attract more consumers). Have you explored government SME grants to scale production and enter supermarket chains?… (Beyond these, there are still a lot of things we must consider 👀)
All of these are pertinent your business strategy, which your executive team might not have considered. So, do you think if GenAI succeed in providing you with a non-FMCG perspective? In my opinion, GenAI helps businesses generate fresh ideas, fostering divergent thinking, essential for driving transformation in a competitive market. However, we must carefully think of what it would take to achieve what we want and then assessing whether it’s realistic to try. AI can help you have a more comprehensive strategy by adding new strategic considerations. But remember, AI still cannot replace your expertise because it still needs your meticulous judgment! And DON’T get stuck in your old ways of doing business.
You also want to ask AI: “Can AI forecast future demand for our products?”. Well, it is really challenging for AI to answer this question. It cannot predict the future, despite being a sophisticated technology. This is because AI are trained with historical data. You are looking for a forward answer, not backward. This is where your team plays a crucial role. You and your team know the business context and understand the nuances to comprehend what should be noticed in this game. So, it should be done by your team!
However, it doesn’t mean that AI cannot help. You can approach a more clever prompt (change the way we ask) to exploit gen AI better with your team.
Instead of asking for demand prediction:
❌ “What will impact the future demand for our products?” (AI can’t predict this directly)
Your team could ask for demand drivers:
✅ “What will impact the future demand for our products?”
Instead of chasing uncertain predictions, you use AI to uncover the why behind future demand. You do not get random numbers. You get reasons that drive demand. Then, your team can get more insights to think broadly and develop flexible strategies for the future.
GenAI is both a blessing and a curse. Although it offers significant advantages, we should not put all our eggs in one basket by relying on it blindly. By using our heads, we can separate the wheat from the chaff, keeping what’s valuable and discarding what’s not. When used wisely, GenAI will be a good ally (aka a cheap & fast tool) that helps us stay ahead and win the game. So why not give it a run?
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