If you expected the food and beverage industries to be exempt from digital transformation, you’re in for a surprise. Technology is rapidly changing every industry and the supply chains which support them — and that includes how we purchase and distribute food. This is a look at just a few of the technologies changing this industry forever and for the better.
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There’s a classic philosophical thought experiment called the “Ship of Theseus.” If the owners have replaced all the sails, all the masts and every plank on every deck, is it the same ship it used to be?
A study from four years ago found that 90 percent of company owners expected their organizations to do more changing in the coming five years than they had over the previous five. How much different do you think those companies actually are today? How many of them made good on their promise to change with the times?
You don’t need to become a “Company of Theseus” or pursue change for its own sake. But meaningful, deliberate and incremental change is the stuff that magic is made of. So how can you build your culture around it?
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At this point, it’s safe to say that the younger generations — including millennials and Gen Z — are quite different than those that came before.
In fact, they can be so different at times, that many organizations, businesses
Project management in engineering is as vital as it is potentially misunderstood. Like it or not, many project managers have had to learn the hard way that their job is less about frontline engineering work and more about taking a mindful, deliberate, top-down approach to directing projects of all kinds and sizes.
If it sounds like a dusty office job, it’s anything but. Like a project engineer, project managers oftentimes find themselves on jobsites or in the coding trenches if their work has taken them into IT or software development. For the most part, though, project managers have to understand human nature and know how to apply it to the process of solving a problem or getting a product to market. This includes developing some of the internal processes being used, ensuring clients’ needs are top-of-mind and generally making sure all the moving pieces work well together.
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Data science and big data, in general, are changing the world around us. Some of the more prominent industries where data is making an impact include retail, customer service, and construction, as well as manufacturing and development.
It’s no secret that these days, just about everything relies on a digital component — and digital platforms collect, generate and transmit data.
Every so often, however, data applications come as a surprise not regarding their adoption, but how they impact the greater world. That’s precisely the case in food and beverage, as data is fundamentally reshaping the way we eat, drink and sometimes even cook.
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Once reserved for corporations with substantial war chests full of cash earmarked for “innovation” and “disruption,” digital transformations are now comfortably a part of the business mainstream. In 2019, we can expect these and other digital transformation trends to take off in a huge way.
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There’s an upper limit to the amount of foresight and intuition human beings can bring to any complex process. Beyond that, we need to rely on technology and the gathering of data.
The modern supply chain is a wonder of engineering and human cooperation, but it’s come to rely on an increasingly connected web of digital and physical tools. These days, it’s hard to imagine a supply chain operation that doesn’t pull and react to data in real-time. Let’s take a look at this modern supply chain in practice, and how all of this data results in leaner operations and timelier decision-making.
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A lot of conversations about digital transformation today are about B2C businesses. But it’s a mistake to assume things aren’t changing in the B2B world too. It’s thanks to the constant churn of new technologies and methodologies that make what we do — whatever we do — easier, smarter and more efficient.
Whether you call it “going digital” or something else, what we’re talking about is an investment. And investments come with opportunities as well as potential risks. Here’s a brief look at both.
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Big data technologies have changed the way we interact, review and leverage volumes of information. They’ve given rise to a multitude of new solutions, particularly automated and highly-efficient analytics streams that could systematically improve operations.
When coupled with AI and machine learning, those data streams become a veritable treasure trove of insights. Such tools are capable of analyzing unprecedented quantities of information at superhuman speeds with little to no oversight.
Whenever we start a conversation about customer experience, it seems like it’s B2C that gets to have all the fun. But if 2019 and beyond is likely to tell us anything, it’s that there really isn’t a huge division between these two types of buying experiences — not when small businesses speak for about half the workforce and its buying power, and pretty much always has. In other words, there’s considerable overlap between your target market and the “C” in “B2C.”
Make 2019 the year your B2B company rediscovers how to create a great experience in order to speak to, and better serve, your B2B customers, no matter who they may be.
