or thousands of acres on foot or by vehicle, farmers have the ability to fly drones faster and more efficiently over large areas. That helps reduce the time it takes to monitor fields, as well as reducing the amount of fertilizer and pesticides they must use to maintain crops.

“We identify diseases and pests and fungus and weeds in the crop at an earlier stage,” U.K. farmer Colin Rayner told German broadcaster DW. Some drones are even used to spray fields with pesticides. According to DW, Chinese drone company DJI sold 20,000 pesticide-spraying drones in 2018 alone.

In all of these examples, the drones are being piloted remotely by experienced professionals. For instance, DroneBase claims it has the “largest network of professional drone pilots in the world,” but they are all still human beings.

Right now, this gives an advantage to bigger companies that can scale and capture cost advantages that offset the expense of human pilots.

“While the market for drone photography and data capture is massive, it’s close to saturated right now, both in terms of platforms and operators,” says Peck of Swoop Aero. “We’ll see a lot of movement as big players gain advanced regulatory approvals [for more extensive drone applications], which allow them to gain a cost advantage based on economies of scale and drive smaller operators out of the market.”

That dynamic has led companies like Swoop Aero to look at use cases for drones that involve delivering high-value commodities.

 

Drone Doctors

One high-value commodity that makes a lot of economic sense to deliver via drone is medicine.

The market need is clear: when it comes to perishable medical samples or life-saving vaccines, time is of the essence, and few technologies are better at traversing crowded or hard-to-reach areas than aerial drones.

Swoop Aero operates drone net-
works that deliver medicine quickly
in countries like Pacific island-nation
Vanuatu, which is composed of doz-
ens of islands. Often, the deliveries
take a fraction of the time they would
if conducted by boat. Vanuatu is a
country in which, the United Nations
Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimates,
a full 20% of children under five do
not receive all the vaccines they need
because of the logistical challenges
around medicine delivery.
Last December, Joy Nowai of Vanu-
atu was, according to the company,
the “first child in the world to be
vaccinated with a vaccine delivered by
a drone under a commercial contract,”
thanks to Swoop Aero. The drone trav-
elled 30-plus miles to deliver the vac-
cine, while keeping it at the optimum
temperature during the entire trip.
After the successful delivery, the
company conducted a further four-
month trial in Vanuatu, which Swoop
Aero says led to continued work with
the country’s Ministry of Health.

Swoop Aero is now preparing to deploy additional drone networks to countries that lack easy logistical ac-

 

Digital transformation, in which companies utilize advanced technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, and the Internet of Things (Io T), has become a business imperative for virtually any organization that wants to stay competitive and meet customer needs.

Many organizations have moved beyond Digital 1.0, where improving the speed of response was the strategic imperative, to Digital 2.0 and being able to anticipate customer requirements, according to Jamie Snowdon, chief data officer at HfS Research. “Having the right data to anticipate customer needs and support decisions that serve customers ahead of time delivers significant digital competitive advantages,” Snowdon says.

Companies’ chief information
officers (CIOs) continue to
drive digital transformation
initiatives most often (28%),
Digital Transformation.

Yet organizations often struggle with digital transformation initiatives, and have varying degrees of success. A 2018 Capgemini study of 1,300 executives found that only 39% have the digital capabilities required, and only 35% have the right leadership capabilities (mainly because digital isn’t in their DNA).

In terms of the aftermath, a September 2018 survey by management consulting firm McKinsey of 1,733 executives involved in digital transformation efforts at their companies found only 3% of respondents have had complete success at sustaining their digital efforts.

Some 89% of information technology (I T) decision makers said their digital innovation investments have been “moderately or very successful,” according to Insight’s 2019 Intelligent Technology Index.

Nevertheless, organizations
are forging ahead, and those with
well-defined objectives and goals
and a digital mindset are reaping
the benefits.

JetBlue Airways, for example, is expanding its brand beyond travel and reinventing itself as “a tech company in the customer service business,” said Eash Sundaram, JetBlue executive vice president and chief digital and technology officer, during remarks at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology CIO Symposium in May. The airline’s customer strategy has become “personal, helpful, simple,” and “not more tech; better tech,” Sundaram said.

That sentiment was echoed by Kris Rao, CIO of Ricoh USA, who said his firm is moving away from its roots as an office equipment provider to become a digital company “empowering digital products.” Reaching across the aisle [from within the silo of IT to the business] is the job of a technologist,” said Rao, who also spoke at the Symposium.

McKinsey’s April 2019
survey found organizations
reporting the greatest levels
of success in their digital
transformations “ruthlessly
focus on a handful of digital
themes tied to performance
outcomes.” Additionally, these
organizations “boldly establish
enterprisewide efforts and build
new businesses.”
In addition, McKinsey found
such companies create an
adaptive design that allows for
flexibility in the transformation
strategy and resource allocation,
and adopt agile execution
practices and mindsets by
encouraging risk taking and
collaboration across parts of the
organization.

Perhaps most importantly,
the management consulting firm
wrote in its summary of results,
“In successful efforts, leadership
and accountability are crystal
clear for each portion of the
transformation.”
—Esther Shein is a freelance
technology and business writer
based in the Boston area.

ACM News

Digital Transformation: A Business Imperative