“Absorptive capacity is the ability of a firm to recognize the value of new information, assimilate it, and apply it to commercial ends.”
Wesley M. Cohen and Daniel A. Levinthal
Absorptive Capacity: A New Perspective on Learning and Innovation, 1990
We have been friends for 35 years. Across our careers, we have approached the same question from different sides:
How can large global enterprises ensure that major transformations deliver the value they were intended to create?
The age of AI has made answering that question imperative.
AI is spreading across enterprises at a scale and pace their existing systems were not designed to manage. Much of the attention has focused on adoption, safety, governance, and cost. The fundamental value questions remain harder to answer.
What value did the enterprise commit to create? What evidence will establish whether conditions are changing? How should contribution and attribution be evaluated? Where should accountable owners intervene? When can value be responsibly recognized?
Ultimately, how can an enterprise strengthen its capacity to learn from each AI investment and realize more value from the next?
Our decision to build together began when Sesh developed the founding thesis for Absorptive. It articulated a problem we had each pursued throughout our careers: acquiring technology is not the same as developing the organizational capacity to convert it into value.
Our paths had converged on the same problem. We joined forces to turn that thesis into Absorptive.
Our experience is complementary.
Sesh has served as a Chief Data and Technology Officer and led global AI, data, analytics, and technology organizations across Maersk/APM Terminals, Disney, Liberty Mutual, and Capgemini. His work has focused on connecting enterprise technology strategy, operating transformation, and measurable business value.
Dev has led global technology portfolios, sales, customer success, and enterprise transformations at Cisco and SAP. He has built and transformed multibillion-dollar businesses and helped global enterprises translate major technology investments into customer and business value.
Absorptive is the first company we have founded together.
We are building The AI Value Realization System to help enterprises establish what they have committed, connect the evidence, guide accountable decisions, improve outcomes, and strengthen their capacity to realize value from AI.
Every AI commitment should create value and increase the enterprise’s absorptive capacity for the next.