No ratings yet. As a student consultant, I tackle business questions for companies that lack the time or resources to address them themselves. Our deliverable at the end always results in a slide deck, carefully structured with insights and visually appealing. Creating these decks is very time-consuming with lots of different tasks, aligning text boxes, choosing the right words and ensuring everything looks aesthetics can take hours.

During the guest lecture, I encountered the AI tool Gamma. Gamma AI can produce websites, slide decks and more. It can generate slides from just a couple of keywords. However, in consultancy, this is not ideal for maintaining the required quality. The real potential is using AI to visualize complex information. By feeding Gamma the elaborate key findings of the data, the AI tool can produce draft slides with aesthetic layouts, charts and diagrams. This can free consultants to focus more on refining insights and ensuring value of the data. To ensure the quality, it is still necessary to verify the accuracy of the tool and fine-tune the slides. However, this process is significantly faster than building every slide manually. The result is a professional slide deck in a fraction of the time normally spent on it.

Reflecting on this experience, I see a future for generative AI in consultancy. While AI can speed up the creation of slide, it also raises questions about client perceptions. Some clients might feel hesitant if they know AI was involved in producing the slides. Therefore, it is important to use AI responsible.

AI won’t replace human judgement, however it can be a helpful assistant in transforming data into clear visuals. For instance, in the future AI might automatically generate slides based on the style of the consultancy company. Personally, experimenting with Gamma showed me that it could also be a creative inspiration instead of only saving time.

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Where China often leads the world in various technological and infrastructural innovations, Hong Kong has also been a forerunner in implementing various systems, particularly with the Octopus Card. Introduced in 1997, the Octopus Card quickly became one of the most successful smart cards in the world (Lok, n.d.). Initially launched for public transportation, the card usage has expanded far beyond metros and buses. The Octopus Card is used for a wide range of services, such as restaurants, parking facilities, even access to swimming pools. In fact, in some locations, the only possible way to pay is through the Octopus Card.

How was it possible for Octopus to expand into the food and retail sectors?

The similar characteristics between fast food payments and transportation fares, made the Octopus Card also try out that market. Regarding Hong Kong’s many snack and noodle shops, it is the perfect environment for the Octopus Card payment model, a quick and low-value transaction (Chau & Poon, 2003). As a result, the Octopus Card has evolved into a highly successful multi-use payment system. Its success is not only due to its transportation but also the integration into a wide range of industries, where it is now a part of daily life in Hong Kong.

The Netherlands has adopted a similar approach with the OV-Chipkaart. However, the question arises: could the OV-chipkaart expand in the same way that the Octopus Card has in Hong Kong and would it be beneficial?

Replicating Hong Kong’s success in the Netherlands is challenging due to the variety of payment methods, such as credit cards and iDEAL. The Dutch transport system is also more spread out, with different operators which would be harder to implement (Hermans et al., 2005). At last, the OV-chipkaart would probably not work in restaurants, as people will expect faster payments for smaller amounts.
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References

Lok, C. K. (z.d.). The Octopus in Hong Kong: The Success of a Smart Card-based E-payment System and Beyond. CSUSB ScholarWorks. https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/ciima/vol4/iss4/8/

Chau, P. Y. K., & Poon, S. (2003). Octopus. Communications Of The ACM, 46(9), 129–133. https://doi.org/10.1145/903893.903927

Hermans, G., & Stoelinga, A. (2005). Competition in Dutch public transport. In Competition and Ownership in Land Passenger Transport. 8th International Conference (Thredbo 8) Transport Engineering ProgrammeFederal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.