by Daniel Lambert (book a 30-minute meeting)

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In today’s digital era, strategic business transformation through technology is not a luxury. It’s a necessity. As markets evolve and competition intensifies, organizations seeking innovation, agility, and operational efficiency must harness the power of artificial intelligence (AI), particularly AI agents. These offer a powerful means to enhance strategic planning and accelerate decision-making. This article presents a structured, three-phase methodology for crafting a business technology use case using our AI agents[i], as shown in Figure 1 above. Each phase guides organizations in stages from high-level corporate strategy to concrete delivery and execution, ensuring alignment between business objectives, customer value, capabilities, and technology solutions for impactful, customer-driven transformation.

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PHASE I – Customer-Driven Business Planning

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A successful business technology use case should start by aligning with one of the corporate strategic objectives of their organization [i], such as revenue growth or market expansion, where one or several value propositions need to be created for one of the customer segments of the firm.

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Stage 1: Strategic Objective

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A business technology use case begins by aligning its initiative to one of many corporate strategy objectives elaborated by the top management of your firm. It is essential to understand the underlying reasoning behind this objective. For instance, a company may be seeking to grow its revenue by 15% next year and wants to expand one of its product lines into a new territory.

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Using our AI Agent "Starting a Business Case", a business can begin the planning of their business technology use case, by aligning it to a specific corporate strategic objective, one or several business unit(s), customer segment(s), territory(ies), channel(s), and product line(s) that will result usually in at least one, but usually in several distinct value propositions.

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Stage 2: Customer Needs and Value Proposition

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A strategic business technology use case of importance very often includes revenue growth objectives and addresses real customer needs. At this stage, the needs, pains, or gains of the targeted customer segment need to be clearly identified to ensure that the proposed solution delivers genuine value both for the customer and the enterprise.

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Here, our "Customer Value Map" AI Agent can be used for a targeted customer segment or persona served by an organization [ii]. It resembles a value proposition canvas. It includes a description of the customer segment, detailing their specific needs, gains, and pains(ii) addressed by a value proposition, made of a product and/or a service with specific features offered by the corporation. Gaps where needs, pains, or gains are not addressed will need to be resolved with the solution proposed by this use case.

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PHASE II – Architecting and Designing Potential Solutions

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After completing the customer-driven business planning for your business technology use case, the next phase is to architect and map value streams to their enabling business capabilities and targeted business outcomes. This sets the foundation for identifying capability gaps and designing potential solutions that align technology investments with strategic objectives and deliver measurable value.

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Stage 3: Value Streams

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A value proposition is delivered using one or several value streams. Value streams represent end-to-end activities that deliver value to the customer, such as “Obtain a Loan”, “Acquire a Car”, “Buy Insurance Coverage”, “Eat at a Restaurant”, “Implement a Product”, etc.

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With our "Generating Strategic Customer-Driven Value Streams" AI Agent, businesses can model one or several value streams delivering one or several value propositions for a particular customer segment.

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Stage 4: Business Capabilities

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To effectively support value streams, organizations must identify and assess their business capabilities. They are the building blocks that enable the delivery of a value stream. Identifying underperforming or critical enabling capabilities is crucial. These gaps will need to be resolved with the solution proposed by this use case.

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The AI Agent "Finding Enabling Capabilities of a Value Stream", one of many of our AI Agents regarding value stream mapping, assists in identifying enabling capabilities such as “Customer Analytics” or “Order Fulfillment.” For example, if a marketing capability is underperforming, it may hinder customer acquisition efforts, warranting investment or adjustments.

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Stage 5: Business Outcomes

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A key enabling capability of a value stream must be tied to a measurable outcome tied to the corporate strategic objective identified in stage 1. This ensures the organization maintains focus on business results and impact, rather than activities alone.

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At this stage, business outcomes—such as a 10% increase in customer retention or a 15% reduction in order processing time—are defined and mapped back to enabling capabilities. This structured linkage from strategy to outcomes fosters accountability and clarity.

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Stage 6: Potential Solutions

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With business outcomes now defined, the organization will need to explore several technical and operational solutions to close capability gaps and achieve business outcomes. This includes leveraging AI, cloud, automation, or process redesign.

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This stage is exploratory, encouraging broad thinking. Solutions might range from deploying a new CRM module to integrating IoT sensors into supply chains. Multiple options need to be considered for feasibility and fit.

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Stage 7: Solution Design

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Now it's time to solidify the ideas. This stage involves creating a comprehensive IT architectural and implementation plan for each potential solution. It includes systems architecture, data flow, integrations, user interfaces, and security frameworks.

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Multiple architectural blueprints should emerge, each reflecting a different path to achieving the desired outcomes. These designs are the foundation for risk and financial evaluations in later stages.

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The AI Agents "Finding the Right Application for a Capability" and "Finding the Processes of a Business Capability", can be of great assistance while designing potential solutions for your business technical use case.

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PHASE III – Financial Analysis & Roadmap

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After designing potential solutions for your business technology use case, the next phase involves assessing risks and conducting financial analysis for each option. Once the most viable solution is selected, you’ll need to develop a comprehensive digital transformation roadmap to guide implementation, align resources, and ensure the solution delivers its intended business value effectively.

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Stage 8: Potential Risks

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No solution is without risk. This stage uncovers both business and technical risks associated with each proposed solution. Factors such as integration complexity, vendor lock-in, cybersecurity vulnerabilities, and organizational readiness are evaluated.

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Our AI Agent "Find the Risks of a Potential Solution" supports this by scanning proposed designs and implementation paths for known risk patterns. It facilitates informed decision-making by providing a balanced view of benefits and challenges.

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Stage 9: Financial Analysis

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The viability of each solution is tested through rigorous financial analysis. This includes calculating expected revenue, cost savings, capital expenditure, overall return on investment (ROI), or other financial ratios used within your company.

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A suite of AI Agents, like our "Finding Revenue of a Potential Solution", "Calculating Cost Savings of a Potential Solution", "Finding Cost of the Potential Solution", and "Calculating Financial Ratios of a Potential Solution", can support this stage. These agents analyze historical data, benchmarks, and business context to produce projections and compare options.

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For example, if Solution A yields a higher ROI but a greater upfront cost than Solution B, decision-makers can weigh these trade-offs based on organizational goals and investment capacity.

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Stage 10: Build a Digital Transformation Roadmap

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With a clear winner among the potential solutions, the final stage is about execution. This stage converts strategy into an actionable roadmap that defines the timeline, key milestones, resource allocation, and dependencies.

Our AI Agents, such as "Building a Business and Technical Roadmap", "Elaborating Requirements", and "Elaborating Epics", ensure thorough and agile planning. These agents help break down the chosen solution into deliverables with business outcomes, define technical specifications, and align business and technical stakeholders with the transformation journey.

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The result is a pragmatic, result-driven roadmap for digital transformation, which can be continuously monitored and refined based on performance and market dynamics.

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Orchestrating Strategy with AI Agents

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Planning a business technology use case using AI agents introduces a level of precision, speed, and intelligence that traditional methods lack. By breaking the process into ten structured stages from identifying a business problem to building a transformation roadmap, organizations can ensure alignment between strategy, customer value, capabilities, and technology.

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Each AI Agent acts as a specialized assistant, guiding users through analysis, design, and decision-making. This customer-driven methodology not only accelerates digital transformation but also reduces risks and maximizes financial return on investment.

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In today’s complex business landscape, embracing AI as a strategic planning partner is not just a competitive advantage. It is a necessity.

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[i] For additional information about our AI Agents, explore this webpage.

[ii] For additional information about a Customer Value Map, examine Figure 5 in this article entitled “Using Architecture to Improve Product Management”.