What if that ML / Deep Learning model – could not only help you optimize your current processes – but deliver a sustainable source of competitive advantage?
When a company has a Cement Production factory – It has an (very tangible) asset – that allow it compete in a specific field. The factory – both physically – and knowing how to operate it – delivers a “licence to compete/operate” – that a startup company does not have and would require significant investment to acquire, thus a source of competitive advantage.
What is the digital equivalent?
It is very common to quote Tesla (TSLA) nowadays – – as a part of their huge evaluation by the stock market – there is a fundamental belief that Tesla – with there now many cars on the street – all equipped with (at least) – radar, 8 cameras, and 12 ultrasonic sensors (Model 3). All of these sensors are streaming data back to Tesla – which they subsequently can use to improve the ML/AI to ensure that Tesla will be the company that reaches full autonomy as the first one.
The dataset – that enables Tesla to produce these ML / AI models – is the digital asset for Tesla.
Any incumbent in the market today – will be years behind Tesla on both the data collection and the understanding of how to apply it and use it.
Examples can be thought up in pretty much all industries:
- Pharma (a dataset that delivers a model to predict how Cancer interacts with compounds) (or other diseases)
- Fashion (a dataset that delivers a model to predict next years trends)
- …
Digital for optimization.
There are plenty of examples where data is being collected and ML / AI models are trained and they deliver strong value back to the business:
- Predictive maintenance (pro-actively maintain to prevent breakdown in production facilities)
- Predict consumer behavior ( to keep stock accurate an be capable of delivering to demand)
- .. continue the list.
If you’re not already looking into this – then I suggest to move in that direction and at lease scout the area.
These examples are for optimizations purposes – they accelerate already known processes and are good examples – but would most likely not be a source of strong, sustained competitive advantage.
How does it look in your industry?
Above examples delivers inspiration (and a way to divide things) – now is the time to figure out how it looks in the industry you’re competing.
What is the one (or more) digital assets – that would change the rules of the game in your industry – and are you currently building it ?
The Cement Factory up in example above – Thinking about building Digital Assets – being as important as a source of competition as the physical assets for a company and investing with equivalent management attentions to implementation and outcomes will deliver crucial first steps.
Assuming that the data that delivers the asset of tomorrow – will naturally spillover of todays processes seem to be a common line of thought – which is also what makes life hard for Data Scientists – because the data is simply not crafted for the purpose.
You probably wouldn’t establish your next cement factory in your office-building – just because those buildings were available?