AI, wars… The concerns of business leaders in the face of crises – L’Express

The political and geopolitical situation thus emerges as a significant source of concern: it is even the first for 24% of French managers and 18% of entrepreneurs on an international scale. Indeed, “European countries are experiencing the war in Ukraine with more intensity” on their continent, Mathieu Wallich-Petit, from the executive committee of KPMG France, tells L’Express. According to the expertise firm, this geopolitical risk should be placed today ahead of operational risk (losses linked to failures), technological upheavals, supply problems, adaptation to different regulations or even climate change. .

Internationally, 64% of companies say they include these risk factors in their strategy. “Faced with the multiplication of crises, companies are wondering not what the nature of the next instability will be, but rather how they will manage to cope with it,” explains Mathieu Wallich-Petit. “This involves, for example, the multiplication of their sources of supply and the diversification of the markets in which they are present.”

And for good reason, events such as the global pandemic on the one hand, but also the war in Ukraine, have highlighted the complexity of supply chains in energy, raw and agricultural materials, or even electronic components, for example. . In a study carried out at the end of 2022 by the Anglo-American insurance company WTW among 800 companies around the world, 65% said they had made improvements to their sources of supply and 18% of them had completely transformed them after the pandemic. More than half planned to continue these changes throughout 2023.

In recent years, companies have moved from a “just-in-time” and “zero stock” strategy to “just in case” management, according to the consulting firm specializing in risk management Control Risks. . The latter consists of maintaining “a safety stock of critical materials or finished products in high demand. This strategy increases costs due to the additional needs for storage space, labor and insurance, but also the risks of stock obsolescence”, analyzed Control Risks at the beginning of 2023. Faced with these risks, artificial intelligence could make it possible to anticipate crisis situations by modeling different scenarios.

But it is above all for its advantages in terms of profitability and productivity that this technology is favored by seven out of ten managers, who plan to invest in generative AI in order to improve their commercial offers. “It is therefore interesting to see the very rapid integration of these transformations within companies,” notes Mathieu Wallich-Petit.

65% of French managers and 54% of foreign managers say they “give priority to investments in new technologies rather than developing the skills and know-how of their employees”. Sources of ethical problems, half of them say they see the current lack of regulation as a difficulty.

Another element of concern, the question of sustainable development would have been integrated by 75% of the French companies surveyed, seeing it “a way to create value” and to respond to customer demands. But many point to difficulties in terms of expertise or even technological gaps making the decarbonization of their production process complex. “Here too, artificial intelligence, by verifying and making a large quantity of data malleable, could promote transparency mechanisms. It would, for example, make it easier to calculate carbon footprints, or the traceability of sources of supply” .