This sense of adventure and ‘can do spirit’ has seen some of the early adopters of technology gain the all-important ‘First Mover Advantage’. When it comes to technology, risk takers seem to be rewarded more than their more cautious counterparts. At least this is what Verizon Enterprise Solutions think as they and the Harvard Business Review have released a study that demonstrates how early adoption of new technologies leads to better business outcomes.

According to the study, 20 percent of companies who are quick to adopt new technologies, otherwise known as ‘Pioneers’, experienced more than 30 percent revenue growth. This growth is more than twice the growth experienced by companies that invest after the benefits of adopting new technologies are proven, termed as ‘Followers’ and three times more experienced by ‘Cautious’ companies that wait till the technology is well-established.

Challenges & Motivations

Being the pioneers however, is not all rosy according to Arun Kundu, MD, head of Asia Pacific professional services, Verizon.

“There are pros and cons of being a pioneer. Choosing to be a pioneer, you are also embracing the fact that comes with leading and bleeding edge technology and the ripple that comes with it,” he said at an exclusive interview with APMEN.

“Challenges are multifold because the impact to the business can be multifold. It can have a negative effect that impedes the brand. This is a key consideration when we do early adoption of technologies.”

Even though the pioneering route may potentially be a treacherous hike rather than a walk in the park, there are quite a few factors motivating companies to take the plunge.

According to Mr Kundu, some companies, especially the newcomers, may find incentive in creating hype as they try to leapfrog their rivals in a competitive landscape. Another is the sheer ‘force’ of the technology. It may be so high in the revolutionary stakes that the pain and cost of implementation is an acceptable risk for a company to take up.

Hear The Machines Sing

M2M is known to connect machine tools. While the concept may be easier to explain and absorbed by companies with deeper pockets, what about the typical job shops in Southeast Asia? Mr Kundu thinks the answer is all in scaling.

“M2M has done great things and has impacted in terms of lines of business. In the manufacturing space, it allows the ‘talking’ to machine, and then creating repository of more data and the possibility of running analytics behind it. Not only you get machines to talk, you are also getting information out to people in the supply chain.

“The challenge here now is how you scale M2M. That has been a challenge for M2M for quite a while. In that space, there are some packaged M2M solutions that allow job shops to be more agile and more efficient. I think it is another three to five years before the proliferation of M2M and its capabilities into every job shop,” he said.

Away from metalworking, in the general manufacturing arena, M2M is typically used to track parts or performances, according to him. He said by using M2M technology, they were able to help one of their customers track the wear on tyres on vehicles deployed in the mining industry. This may not seem like a big issue on first glance but he said tyre wear and the problems that come with it can cost his client millions of dollars in terms of efficiency and effectiveness.

M2M technology was used to provide feedback from the tyres to help the operation centre conduct better evaluation as they can now identify the area of misuse. He added that the technology can be elevated or automated to such a level that the tyres can ‘talk’ to black box devices within large functioning units.

Up In The Clouds

SMEs may be followers in the M2M segment but when it comes to cloud technologies, they are fast adopters who are highly selective in what they adopt.

“In fact, the adoption of cloud in the SME space is very interesting. The first entry of SMEs into cloud is the core IT productivity suites, more so in the business cloud adoption. Cloud solutions are suitable for a company that is just starting, an SME that wants the maturity of a mid-size enterprise,” he said.

Email systems, collaborative suites and sales tools are systems sought after by SMEs as they are generally solutions not expected to cause a serious dent in the budget, he said.

In modern manufacturing, even though being a pioneer may give a company an advantage, it does not mean followers will be consigned to mediocrity. With productivity being very much the cornerstone of what is important to everything related to manufacturing, success may well be down to who is more consistent in their operations.