Apparently, The Era of Yadda, Yadda, Yadda is Over

One of the things that struck me the most at this year’s ARC forum is a renewed pragmatism amongst the large technology vendors and the customer C-level suite.  Several years ago a representative of a large technology company said something like Our Genius Codeword division is where we put all the cool new technologies:  AI, big data, IoT, yadda, yadda, yadda.   Being a keen Seinfeld fan I found this quite entertaining.  Unfortunately I don’t think that customers found this useful in addressing real world problems. As a quick google search reveals, “yadda yadda yadda” is used as a substitute for actual words where they are too lengthy or tedious to recite in full.  Or in the case of cool new technologies where actual useful details on real world applications with an ROI are in short supply.

On one panel at this year’s forum a representative of a big technology company actually admitted that it felt like walking around with a bag full of hammers looking for some nails.  As a company that is very focused on aligning our business with customer success we welcome this change of perspective when it comes to new technologies and digitalization.

So what does this new pragmatism look like? Well – it is definitely ROI focused. This has been a repeated theme from vendors and customers alike. Without an ROI, cool technologies are just a science project. Other criteria that customers have used to provide focus include: widespread applicability and reliability on the plant floor. In one of the Dow presentations they mentioned providing value to customers, enabling their employees to be more efficient, and safe.

At HubHead we’ve always been big believers in aligning our solutions with customer success and focusing on quick wins where everyone recognizes the ROI to the business. To find out more about how this approach relates to asset and maintenance master data quality check out our whitepaper on running effective data cleansing projects.