As localities slowly begin to reopen, technology will be an essential part of the process. The digital infrastructures at the heart of many modern cities may prove critical to keeping the coronavirus at bay. There are many other potential coronavirus-related applications for video in digitally connected cities and the organizations within them. Some, such as using facial recognition for contact tracing, may be controversial, and there are certainly privacy and security issues that municipalities must address. But the fact that a device as simple as a mounted camera combined with powerful analytics software might be used to accomplish in just a few seconds what would otherwise be quite difficult — that’s something localities and other organizations must consider.

Given today’s unique environment, companies are looking to technology, current and emerging, to help navigate the business landscape that exists before them — and the one that is to come in the near term. To help our customers through this constantly evolving environment, we’ve identified three key phases that organizations are moving through as a result of the pandemic. In mapping out this journey with our customers, CDW’s Consulting Services has determined where organizations should focus their technology investments.

For organizations to realize the potential value of AI, according to McKinsey, their AI strategy must align with their corporate strategy. They need a “clear data strategy that supports and enables AI,” and they must invest in staff and technical training to ensure they have the skills to implement AI at scale.

I keep those imperatives in mind when I work with business and IT leaders who wonder how AI might help their organizations. My advice to them: To get the most out of the technology — to make AI work for you — it pays to take a phased approach to implementation.

Organizations use data analytics in a variety of ways: A health insurance company may want a way to identify emerging risk factors for disease in its patient populations; a nonprofit that connects bone marrow donors with people requiring transplants may look for ways to slash the time it takes to identify a likely match; a national retailer may seek to better understand the shopping preferences and habits of its target customers.

On the surface, at least, there’s little in common among these organizations and what they hope to achieve, but they each must excel at the same thing to succeed: They have to be adept at organizing and analyzing data, and they need a data strategy that ultimately works for them.

Organizations keep their data in a lot of different places: onsite, in the cloud (another person’s data center) or in an all-in-one data warehouse. Often, this data is siloed. But if an organization could harness the power of its data and become a data-driven organization, it would be able to grow and compete more effectively. The company could move mountains — or so the idea goes. So why do data projects fail, and how can changing the organization’s culture turn things around?

Retailers are looking for technology solutions that can meet a particular need, whether it’s improving the customer experience, enhancing productivity or increasing revenue. I was excited to see some of the latest entries in the field in January at the National Retail Federation’s annual convention.

Retailers, vendors and industry experts at the event demonstrated an array of solutions and shared their perspectives on how technology will affect the industry this year. Here are four takeaways from Retail’s Big Show.