Enterprise Relationships Challenged In the Age of AI

CHANNEL PARTNERS CONFERENCE & EXPO — A Channel Partners Conference & Expo motivational speaker said partners should continuously improve their enterprise relationships to prepare for upcoming opportunities with artificial intelligence (AI).

David Nour, a thought leader in relationship economics, gave the keynote. He conducted extensive research to collect case studies of AI’s scary potential and positive learning moments. He shared what he discovered about the power and promise of AI in business, and provided practical insights for every type of leader who is excited about what’s possible with AI.

“Ninety percent of the game is played when you don’t have the ball,” Nour said. “That’s how I want you to see the market today. The best teams are always asking, 'Where should I be? How should I best position myself?' That’s how you need to see your role in this hyperspeed evolution of AI and generative AI, large language models (LLMs) and retrieval augmented generation (RAG) libraries. What should I be? What should I be doing? How do I put myself and my team in the best possible position so when we do get an opportunity we can capitalize on it?”

The Keys to Improved Enterprise Relationships

Continuous innovation and improvement are essential in developing and maintaining enterprise relationships, Nour said.

When proposing something to a client or prospect, “Ask does your solution fit this? Can you defend it, not just regurgitate it,” he said.

“I'm telling you, CFOs are looking at those investments and asking, 'Is this going to give us a competitive advantage? Is this going to materially impact some of our key profit and loss (P&L) levers? Is this going to be something to set us apart from our peers?” Nour said. “If not, they can wait.”

The clarity and simplicity of the message matters, he said.

“If you confuse, you will lose,” he said. “And way too many people in our industry eat a whole lot of their own cookie. No leader I know wants to feel belittled. So when you walk in with an architecture, or when you walk in with technical mumbo jumbo that they don't understand, they don't want to say, 'I don't understand.' How can you simplify that value proposition?”

Nour gave five positives and five negatives associated with AI. The five positives are:

The five negatives are:

“We are at the cusp, and those who invest in learning and growth are going to really benefit from what these technologies are capable of,” Nour said.

It’s important to focus on improvement every day, he said.

“Improve 1% each day,” Nour said.