---
id: "action-align-ai-with-business"
type: "action-item"
source_timestamps: ["§ 3. Align AI investments with business priorities."]
tags: ["strategic-alignment", "use-case-selection"]
related: ["framework-value-driven-ai-deployment", "concept-smart-allocation-system"]
action: "Identify primary business goals first, then select AI use cases specifically required to achieve them."
outcome: "AI applications that optimize metrics critical to business competitiveness, rather than optimizing irrelevant edge cases."
sources: ["tail1"]
sourceVaultSlug: "hbr-seg-tail1"
originDay: 1
articleStem: "hbr-tail-107-lenovo-ai-supply-chain"
sourceUrl: "https://hbr.org/2026/05/how-lenovo-built-an-ai-powered-supply-chain"
sourceTitle: "How Lenovo Built an AI-Powered Supply Chain"
---
# Align AI use cases with business priorities

**Action:** Identify primary business goals first, then select AI use cases specifically required to achieve them.

**Do this because:** Do not start by looking at what AI technology *can* do and then searching for problems to solve. Instead, identify the primary goals of the business (e.g., resilience, revenue growth) and ask which specific processes *require* AI to achieve those goals. This is the disciplined execution of [[framework-value-driven-ai-deployment]] and the practical form of the contrarian stance in [[contrarian-business-first-ai]]. Lenovo's [[concept-smart-allocation-system]] is a model instance — executives specify priorities, the AI optimizes to them.

**Expected outcome:** AI applications that optimize metrics critical to business competitiveness, rather than optimizing irrelevant edge cases.