Skip to content
SPAIK
Back to blog

Save time for your best people with AI

Save time for your best people with AI
2 min readLast updated: Jochem van Laren · Architect

AI starts with small changes

For most organizations, starting with AI sounds like a massive project. Connecting systems, cleaning data and documenting processes costs valuable time. Yet you can take steps today, without replacing your entire IT environment. By starting small and learning from gained knowledge, you steer step by step towards an AI-mature organization.

Systems don't talk to each other and data is a mess

Many organizations face two objections: they work with different IT systems that don't communicate, and the data has no structure. But that shouldn't stop you from using AI. An AI layer connects your existing systems and lets them work together without having to replace or rebuild anything. And your chaotic data? That's actually a reason to implement AI in your organization. Because AI makes concrete what cleaning up delivers: an automated process that saves you X hours per week. An investment you can actually measure.

How to get started

To determine where AI fits best in your organization, use the model above. The more complex the task and the higher the human value, the more people check and evaluate the task. That's why it's wise to let AI start with a simple and repetitive task that's currently done by people but can be automated.

Start with automation

A good example of a process you can easily automate is invoicing. There are enough examples for AI to base itself on to ensure quality. Everyone knows what an invoice should look like, and quality can be objectively checked.

Make it measurable

Once you've determined which process to automate, do a baseline measurement first. Map how much time the process currently costs, how many errors occur and what the lead time is. This way you can later calculate what automation delivers. Make the effects measurable.

Ready to start

To introduce your organization to AI, you only need three things:

  • A defined task with a clear beginning and end.
  • Enthusiasm and willingness to try. Look around your organization and start with a small team of enthusiasts.
  • A baseline measurement, so you can later compare what difference AI has made.

Written by

Foto van Jochem van Laren, Founder & CEO
Jochem van Laren

Founder & CEO

Jochem founded SPAIK in 2024. Before that he worked on change inside large organisations. He started at Randstad as a management trainee, first in sales and then in marketing, where he built customer experience from nothing: design thinking, an innovation space of his own, and a lot of colleagues learning to work with it. After that came a Belgian operational excellence firm, including a year at Philips as scrum master on OneBlade. The same three things kept pulling at him: people, change and technology. He never quite got hold of that third one until AI came along. That became SPAIK. With clients he sits down with the leadership team and then walks the floor, because a decision at the top only changes something once it holds up at the bottom. You will hear him press on what actually goes wrong in practice, not on what the model can do.

Written by a SPAIK practitioner and reviewed before publication. Read our editorial policy.

Related articles

Jochem van Laren

Which process should you start with?

We know that after a half-hour call. Then you also know whether we are the right partner.

Jochem van Laren

Founder & CEO