Making AI smart: How process drives business value

At Forvis Mazars, we’ve seen the gap widen between the promise of AI and its operational reality. The reason isn’t lack of data, technology or willingness. It’s a lack of process clarity: a solid, reliable foundation on which AI can actually create value.

Our perspective, shaped by almost a decade of process engineering experience, is that data intelligence only creates value when embedded into operational design. That means looking at the full system: people, data, systems, and decision loops -- not just models. AI alone doesn’t fix business problems. That’s why our Smart Information Solutions don’t offer AI in isolation. They’re part of a broader portfolio of process-based improvements engineered to deliver better decisions, not just smarter tools. We use AI to get there, but it’s never the point. That’s what makes our offering different; it’s what allows us to bridge the common disconnect between AI proof-of-concepts and scalable business outcomes.

Our recommendation is simple: don’t start with AI, start with the process: what’s the actual work people are trying to do? What gets in their way? And how do we design a smarter way of getting it done?

Our Offering: Smart Information Solutions

Our Smart Information solutions help businesses get the right information, to the right people, at the right time, without making the system more complicated than it already is. What we offer is not a product, but a process-first intelligence approach:

• Identify critical decisions that are being slowed down by information overload, fragmentation, or inconsistency
• Map the surrounding processes: where data enters, where judgment happens, where bottlenecks emerge
• Integrate AI capabilities where they make decisions faster, better, or more consistent
• Ground every solution in operational context: your systems, your teams, your workflows

Here’s what that looks like in practice:

• Information Management
  Before anything else, we help you clean, organise, and connect the data you already have. We structure and validate your unstructured data so that downstream systems, both human and digital, can rely on it -- whether it lives in PDFs, spreadsheets, or enterprise systems.
• Smart Insights
  Using natural language processing, AI-powered classification, and trend detection, we build insight layers that surface what matters -- market shifts, client sentiment, operational anomalies -- based on your context, not generic models. But more importantly, we make sure those insights reach the right decision points, linked to real business processes.
• AI-Driven Decision Management
  We don’t automate judgment. We enhance it. Our AI tools offer contextual recommendations that are transparent and auditable. This allows your teams to move faster while retaining control -- ideal in regulated or high-stakes environments.
• Intelligent Processing
  We integrate AI into operational workflows so that teams can shift from manual processing to analysis and oversight. Using tools like OCR, data extraction, and rules-based routing, we reduce manual load in repeat-heavy processes such as procurement, case handling, and compliance tracking. But automation is never the goal. It's the by-product of better process design.

Why Start Now -- Even If You're Not “AI-Ready”

There’s a misconception that you need to be at the cutting edge of data maturity to begin extracting value from AI. In our experience, the opposite is often true. The biggest gains come when organisations use AI to strengthen foundational processes: cleaning messy inputs, reducing manual handoffs, and improving visibility.

You don’t need a five-year roadmap or a new platform to begin. You just need a clear process that isn’t working as well as it should and a willingness to try something more intelligent.

Whether your business has a nascent data strategy or a sophisticated analytics stack, we tailor our solutions to your level of digital maturity. We help organisations lay the groundwork for AI-readiness and guide them through implementation, scaling and governance. We meet you at your current state and help you take the next meaningful step.

Let's Talk.

If you’re already experimenting with AI, but struggling to scale or see impact -- we can help you realign. If you haven’t yet started, we can help you identify three to five high-value areas where smart information can drive better processes this quarter.

If You’re Thinking About AI, Ask This First:

What’s one process we wish worked smarter?

Author:

Caitlin Tallack, Manager