Learning the Machine: ANOVO Ibérica Introduces AI in Operations (Portuguese version)

Winner of a 2022 Research Excellence Award by the IESE Alumni Association in its annual recognition of the best research by IESE faculty members.

In 2018, Anovo, a service provider for technology products, began studying the possibility of introducing AI to improve the efficiency of its operations. In 2020, it was already piloting its first implementation - a new automated diagnostics process that employed machine learning (ML) to optimize the company's smartphone repair business. So far, the results of the pilot had been encouraging: aftersales service was a low-margin business, which made efficacy and efficiency key factors for achieving customer satisfaction while maintaining low costs. The new automated diagnostics system, developed by tech provider Novaquality Consulting, made repair operations simpler and faster. Furthermore, if this first project was successful, the company was already considering further possible applications of ML inside Anovo's smartphone operations. The case takes a look at the history of how the AI-driven diagnostics project was conceived, developed, and implemented, analyzing the challenges and decisions that Anovo and Novaquality faced at every point of the process. At the end of the case, the results of the pilot are presented, advancing several questions: Was the project ready to be scaled up to the whole company? Was the improvement in Anovo's operations tangible enough? Was the system accurate enough? Was the chosen integration process the best one possible?