Businesses across the world are keen on leveraging 5G to develop exciting products and solutions for customers and deepen their engagement level with the end user.

From agriculture to viticulture, and everything in between, every industry has several exciting use cases that are built on 5G’s theoretical capabilities.

READ NEXT

Why the future of 5G in Europe faces a fragmentation challenge

Among all, the healthcare industry seems to be leading the charge with 5G, according to a recent Accenture survey, although others reported being keen and optimistic as well.

The average adoption rate among businesses using 5G at scale is currently only 10 percent. Keeping in mind the current state of commercialized 5G rollouts, however, the figure seems reasonable.

What’s interesting about Accenture’s study is that businesses didn’t seem to be sure about the impact some of 5G’s features will deliver. Only two in five said they believe real-time data transfer, high capacity, and a faster service will revolutionize their industry over the next five years.

More importantly, the study revealed a number of perceived barriers to adopting 5G applications and technology – although for the most part, these concerns have diminished from 2019 to 2020.

Last year, for example, 36 percent of respondents were worried that the upfront investment will be too great, 28 percent were worried that software developers won’t be ready, and 29 percent felt it would be a struggle to get employees to embrace the new ways of working.

Those figures have improved marginally in the 2020 study, falling to 31 percent, 24 percent, and 26 percent respectively.

Although there’s no direct indication of what caused the improvements, it seems as though networking companies, telcos, government bodies, and other entities, through participation in working committees and the creation of ecosystems, are spreading awareness and making 5G more accessible as an up and coming technology.

YOU MIGHT LIKE

5G

BT supercharges 5G rollout through partnership with Ericsson

An important question asked in this year’s edition of the study found that 26 percent of respondents were also concerned about the potential health impact of 5G.

Obviously, that’s not good for business and will significantly and negatively impact the adoption of the technology if not addressed soon.

The only other issue that can cause severe adoption hiccups for businesses exploring 5G is the marginal rise in security concerns among businesses.

Security is something that most businesses are very serious about in today’s day and age, and 5G chip makers, networking companies, and cybersecurity vendors all need to come together to ensure that customers’ can be reassured when thinking about the cybersecurity risks of adopting 5G.

Truth be told, 5G is here and offers something to every business looking to delight its customers.

Those concerned about certain aspects of adopting 5G must find ways to ensure they can tackle the issues and get on with their roll-out rather than sit on the fence and lose customers to bold competitors.

The post When it comes to 5G, what are businesses worried about? appeared first on TechHQ.

Migrating to the cloud has proved to be key to thriving in the digital world. It’s something that organizations, regardless of size or industry, have decided to pursue – and it’s certainly getting a lot of limelight right now.

READ NEXT

Public cloud muscle has proved it can bear the strain

In the experience of many business leaders, moving to the cloud has been the first step of their digital transformation journey.

For some industries, say financial services or healthcare, the move has been cumbersome because legacy applications built using archaic frameworks and hosted on infrastructure designed for previous generations of systems were difficult to transition to the cloud.

Abandoning those applications was almost impossible because of the years of data that they host and the sheer importance of it in the organization’s ‘business as usual’ operations.

However, the reality is that the transitions have been made — regardless of how difficult the journey has been. Since many of these journeys started ten years ago, it is important to note that the technology itself has evolved.

Cloud computing today isn’t what it was just a few years ago.

In the past, companies had to make the choice between hosting data on a public (shared) cloud or a private (owned) cloud.

While the private cloud was something companies could exercise complete control over, vendors aimed to augment their public cloud offering to provide flexibility and support in a way that made it easy for their customers to move to the cloud.

They did this using IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS offerings.

IaaS, or infrastructure as a service, is essentially the cloud computing infrastructure offered to companies, on demand. Organizations that wanted the most control over their cloud migration plan preferred IaaS as it allowed everything to be customized.

For those that wanted to simply focus on moving applications to the cloud, platform as a service (PaaS) was the ideal choice.

Others, especially those that worked with leading software vendors, could choose to simply migrate their data to the cloud onto the software that was hosted and delivered on the cloud.

This is known as software as a service (SaaS). All of the largest software companies that want to stay relevant offer a SaaS option today.

While IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS are still relevant, the reality is that organizations have limited resources and need to focus on migrating, upgrading, and maintaining applications rather than on managing cloud resources.

Further, all three of the offerings are public cloud offerings, and regulations often require the use of private clouds to protect data.

To overcome such obstacles, engineers designed a model where companies could leverage the public as well as the private cloud —this became known as the hybrid cloud model.

YOU MIGHT LIKE

SOFTWARE

Collaboration, cybersecurity & cloud tools – remote working’s winners?

Today, however, a hybrid cloud model isn’t enough. Companies realized that moving to the cloud comes with a variety of risks and working with a single cloud provider (vendor) was not ideal and was not something they would do as part of standard procurement processes.

This gave birth to the multi-cloud model that companies now use. The multi-cloud model allows companies to work with several vendors at once based on the needs of the team and the applications and experiences they’re looking to deliver.

Obviously, the involvement of multiple vendors, applications, and users in the cloud requires extensive management.

Cloud services are transparent and flexible but they can be costly if not managed appropriately. Hence, IT teams work with cloud management platforms to monitor and manage cloud resources.

However, for companies that want to avoid distractions and focus on the apps that are critical to their business without really worrying about managing the cloud infrastructure that they’re using, there is the option of working with a cloud broker.

A cloud broker essentially takes on the role of a facilities supervisor and helps IT teams manage and optimize their resources across cloud providers using a variety of tools. They further bundle additional services along with the cloud, including cybersecurity, to provide more peace of mind.

This is where we are today. True, some vendors are offering add-ons such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) along with data analytics features — but they’re all part and parcel of ‘cloud brokerage solutions’ irrespective of how they’re packaged.

For business leaders, gaining a simplified understanding of the cloud is very important because it can help them make better decisions about the organizations’ next steps in the digital world, helping it climb the digital maturity curve faster and optimize its resources better.

The post A quick cloud computing competency course for CXOs appeared first on TechHQ.

Experts discussing cybersecurity in any forum say that the weakest link in any organization’s defense is its staff.

While that’s absolutely true, there’s unfortunately no guidance on what business leaders can do to raise awareness about cybersecurity in the workplace. 

YOU MIGHT LIKE

CIO

Just Eat CISO: How to earn respect in cybersecurity

And, in the midst of a pandemic, with remote working employees now scattered, ensuring any message hits home has become that much harder, and that much more important. 

Of course, there are training programs being offered by vendors and there are learning and development teams tasked with creating campaigns and programs for this purpose, but creating something tangible is hard.

Raising cybersecurity awareness is different from most other training provided in a workplace because they’re neither prescribed by regulations nor standardized in any way. There’s no user manual.

To make things more complex, the nature of the organization’s business, its industry and geographic location, and its particular cybersecurity strategy must be factored in when raising awareness within the business. 

However, none of these details are clear to those planning activities and training programs related to cybersecurity awareness. As a result, staff are unable to get the most out of these programs despite their best efforts — and that needs to change.

Here are the three things that organizations keen on raising cyber awareness in their workplace must do in order to make an impact and see tangible results:

# 1 | Pair learning & development professionals with IT professionals

The first step to creating an effective cybersecurity program is to pair IT professionals with professionals in the learning and development team. 

Doing so will ensure that the two are able to collaborate and develop something that is not only comprehensive but also easy to understand and recollect when it really matters.

“By working to the context of the company, people understand that you’re not an old-fashioned security function that wants to say ‘no’, you’re one that wants to enable,” Fielder explained,” Kevin Fielder, CISO of Just Eat told TechHQ. 

“The more joined up you can become with the organization, the more you become a part of the fabric, so you’re not just the security team, you’re a helpful team that does security.”

YOU MIGHT LIKE

OPERATIONS

Get used to remote working – it may be the new norm

# 2 | Create a consistent message that can be shared often in various formats

One of the biggest obstacles to raising cybersecurity awareness is the fact that it is treated as a learning module rather than a part of the organization’s culture.

When treated like the latter, the organization can repurpose the awareness program to reinforce key messages.

Those messages need to be visible, and for a remote workforce that means getting creative. While a long email from CTO might get lost, key messages could pinned on the company-wide Slack channel, for example, or time could be allotted for a team cybersecurity webinar on a Friday afternoon, where screens can be shared and all staff have the chance to ask questions, or interact with polls. 

# 3 | Update the cybersecurity awareness kit as and when the landscape changes

Most organizations that have a cybersecurity awareness issue have a kit, irrespective of what it is called internally. That kit needs to be updated frequently, as and when the landscape changes.

Take malware, for instance, if it’s mode of delivery changes, organizations must quickly communicate how things have changed, its impact on staff, and what constitutes responsible behavior — through training as well as cultural messaging channels.

While the suggestions are fairly simple, they require management support to be implemented because cross-functional teams aren’t easy to build.

Of course, raising cyber awareness is just one part of the puzzle, and investments in the right tools is still going to be key to putting up a strong defense against cybercriminals.

Once done, however, success is almost guaranteed, and the organization is more likely to keep its data and networks protected from cyberattacks.

The post How do you raise awareness about cybersecurity among the workforce? appeared first on TechHQ.

Football Club (FC) Barcelona is well known offline as well as online, there’s no doubt. 

However, to keep fans close in an age where attention is fleeting, the team’s directors have committed to digital with the aim to create a revolutionary experience using innovative digital products and services.

READ NEXT

What we can learn about fan engagement from NASCAR

This effort, of course, is expected to boost revenues for the club and become a top source of income in the coming months.

“From this new approach, the club needs to take a further step forward and focus on a paradigm shift in terms of its digital strategy in order to be able to meet these challenges,” FC Barcelona said in a document outlining its plans.

According to the club’s directors, at the center of its digital strategy is a need to be “close and permanently connected to more than 350 million followers on social media, most of whom will never be able to watch a game at the Camp Nou [FC Barcelona’s home stadium in Spain] in person.”

That is the “key to fostering loyalty in an increasingly more competitive world” — and the club is quite right. 

What FC Barcelona has honed-in on is something that clubs and associations in other sports are also exploring, be it NASCAR or American football.

FC Barcelona wants to put ‘fans at the center of everything’

Of the 350 million followers that FC Barcelona has on social media, only 4 million are able to make it to Camp Nou each year. It’s new fan-centric approach, the club hopes, will take it closer to those that never have an opportunity to visit the stadium in person.

“The […] model is based on the creation of an integrated ecosystem of club products, services, and contents in order to offer the best […] experiences to its fans, wherever they are, and whether or not they visit the stadium. 

“The focal points for achieving this are, first, Barça Studios with regard to the creation of entertaining content to feed this ecosystem, and the FRM (Fan Relationship Management) data project, to get to know fans better and deliver what is most relevant to them at all times.”

From the document that the club has put together and shared with media, data seems to be a core element of driving and thriving with digital.

The FRM data project is interesting because its main purpose is to acquire, manage, and analyze data on behavior and interaction [of fans] with the club. 

The club’s directors believe that the new FRM platform will help clearly understand where the interests of fans lie so that interactions with the club can be better focused, tailored, and geared for maximum engagement.

YOU MIGHT LIKE

NETWORKS

How we got a taste of 5G potential at Super Bowl

This data can also help amplify the message and emotions conjured by the content created by the club’s ‘Barça Studios’.

Overall, the studio and the new data platform are expected to help boost e-commerce revenues, accelerate efforts to grow the club’s membership and support its ticketing efforts, and also help generate income from on-demand content (OTT).

While there’s a strong emphasis on growing revenues, the investment in digital is not only commendable but also extremely exciting for fans — who will be happy to spend more with the brand hoping that the funds will be used to augment the club’s activities on the field as well.

The work that FC Barcelona has embarked on is exciting. Others must follow suit if they want to keep up. They must also remember that their competition isn’t just FC Barcelona or teams and leagues in other sports but the entire online entertainment industry. That’s their new reality.

The post How FC Barcelona wants to use digital to delight fans appeared first on TechHQ.

Facial recognition products created by leading technology vendors such as Amazon, Google, Dell, and Microsoft are easy to implement.

READ NEXT

Microsoft, Google clash on proposed EU facial recognition ban

In recent times, the use of the technology by law enforcement and global conglomerates has been criticized on the grounds that it erodes public trust and infringes on citizens’ and employees’ rights to privacy.

That being said, facial recognition has also delivered results that cannot be ignored, especially to security professionals – law enforcement or otherwise – looking to manage large crowds.

Further, in the current environment with the coronavirus outbreak, facial recognition is being used by China and others to prevent the spread of the disease and protect the wellbeing of people everywhere.

Clearly, despite the uproar against facial recognition, mostly from uninformed citizens, there are benefits to augmenting and scaling up its use.

To make the transition into a facial recognition-powered world responsibly, the World Economic Forum (WEF) has put together a set of four best practices to keep in mind when designing such solution.

# 1 | Justify the choice of facial recognition technology

“This implies defining the problem to be solved and explaining how facial recognition technology might better solve this specific problem compared with alternative technologies,” explains the WEF’s document.

Given the ease of deployment and the low cost of implementation, the use of facial recognition technology is growing fast. However, in many cases, its use could be excessive. That’s what the WEF wants to draw attention to and avoid in coming months as spending on facial recognition grows.

# 2 | Design a data plan that matches with end user characteristics

“Based on the defined characteristics of the end users, a data plan needs to be designed that includes fairly equal samples of these subgroups and collects data accordingly.”

Since facial recognition offerings are becoming common, the WEF reminds those looking to acquire and implement the solution that testing it using appropriate data in the right conditions is key.

Imagine using a solution that was developed to recognize members of a club and provide them with access to facilities while they were in a well-lit premise such as a clubhouse. That same solution will pose challenges if rolled out in a dimly lit parking lot and hence, needs to be trained using better data.

# 3 | Mitigate the risks of biases

“Define the risks of unfair biases in the system to be developed for flow management use cases.”

According to the WEF, it is important that businesses rolling out facial recognition evaluate each step in their process of use, document the characteristics of end users to identify and eliminate the risks of discrimination, and finally define the environment in which each of the identified risks will be evaluated.

When businesses pay attention to these factors and work on mitigating them, they’ll naturally be more mindful of how solutions work to best serve users.

YOU MIGHT LIKE

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Why bans on facial recognition could stifle tech innovation

# 4 | Inform end users, and be transparent

The WEF understands that the biggest issue with facial recognition is the lack of transparency.

Hence, the guidelines suggest that governments and businesses using the technology should not only ensure that everyone has access to information about the functioning of the system, but also the principles that guided its design and use.

Further, the WEF recommends adopting a consent policy that includes intended use, data retention periods, data protection and sharing policies, and so on — all of which gives people more control over the use of the technology and over time, helps get their support.

Although the WEF clarifies that the best practices suggested apply more closely to ‘flow management’ use cases, as against facial recognition-based payments or healthcare solutions, there’s nothing stopping more developers from adopting these as a ‘bare minimum’ criteria going forward.

Governments deploying the technology to protect and serve its citizens might determine the criteria set by the WEF on a case by case basis but businesses could definitely take a steer from the WEF’s latest document when rolling out facial recognition-powered solutions for internal and external use.

The post Justify, Design, Mitigate, Inform – is that how we should use facial recognition? appeared first on TechHQ.

Moving to the cloud yields many advantages, especially because there are no upfront costs and the technology itself is extremely scalable and agile.

READ NEXT

Let’s talk about responsibility in cloud computing

In most instances, the transition of apps and data to the cloud is the first step to digital transformation — a major challenge in itself.

For organizations in the financial services industry, the move to the cloud isn’t simple. Data and apps are both bound by law and must meet specific criteria before being migrated.

In a recent conversation with McKinsey, Deutsche Börse’s Executive Board member, CIO, and COO Christoph Böhm explained how the company moved to the cloud, its obstacles, and what it learned.

“In our growth strategy, the cloud plays a major role as an enabler for other areas such as distributed ledger technology, automation, and big data.”

The organization, which facilitates the exchange of billions of dollars worth of financial instruments every month, decided to follow a multi-cloud approach.

The choice was made because it allowed them to reduce the risk of depending on a single provider and enabled them to optimize its portfolio by choosing the most innovative service providers for each of its applications.

“So we intentionally set up cloud environments at various providers and often let the development teams decide where to put their workloads.”

Böhm explained that teams made the decisions about their workloads based on which platform can best run a given workload, and the dependency on other applications, such as the need to share data among applications with certain latency requirements.

The company’s decision also meant that developers were given the flexibility to choose cloud environments based on their own team’s competency as well, which would directly impact delivery.

Obviously, being a major stakeholder in the financial services industry in Europe, the Deutsche Börse had to abide by strict regulatory requirements.

Böhm, however, explained that those requirements were uncertain because of the sheer size and function of the entity. Hence, the organization engaged in dialogues with various stakeholders in the industry to gain some clarity and avoid roll-out hiccups.

YOU MIGHT LIKE

CIO

Tech spending will drop as demand for cloud computing services rise

“Much has changed in the past few years in terms of discussing technological innovation with regulators.” 

An example that Böhm pointed towards was the recent update to Bank of England’s policy framework which gave regulated entities assurances about using cloud technology, and helped institutions gain confidence in using the cloud. 

“We expect this trend will only accelerate in the future,” said Böhm.

Having completed the move to the cloud rather successfully, there are lessons that the Deutsche Börse can teach. However, getting a good understanding of what the cloud is and isn’t is most critical.

“I’ve heard too many overly simplistic business cases that account only for cost reduction driven by IT infrastructure changes. These expectations are often not met, since the pure hardware cost benefits are typically not big enough.”

Böhm, who has worked with several vendors around the world, concludes by sharing that the potential of the cloud is significant — businesses that really understand it can leverage it for significant gains in ways only limited by their creativity and technology prowess.

The post Deutsche Börse’s journey to the cloud – an insider view appeared first on TechHQ.

In the US, the state of California made history when it announced a bill (now Act)— the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) — that would protect consumers’ data and award them certain rights when it comes to how it is collected and what it’s used for.

The bill was passed last year and came into effect at the start of this year. However, anticipating the challenges businesses will face with compliance, the California Attorney General (AG) decided to enforce it after another six months, starting from July 1, 2020.

Following the announcement of the CCPA, there has been pressure on other states as well as the federal government in the US to create similar laws at state and national levels.

Truth be told, the CCPA is a landmark privacy act because it holds companies to high standards similar to those by global peers, and puts the onus on businesses to really care about how consumer data is stored, governed, and used.

The rising demand and need for a data privacy act

We live in the information age where data is dubbed ‘the new oil’ and just a few kilobytes of data are worth kilos of gold in many instances.

This data is generated by companies — in banking, retail, hospitality, and so on — and is often collected without the consent or knowledge of the consumer.

Logically speaking, given the value of the data and the many ways we already know it to benefit companies, consumers should have a right to know what and when data is being collected and how it is being used (even if they don’t yet have a right to be rewarded for it).

With the help of social media activist groups and forums, consumers are lobbying for regulators to grant them these rights and protect them against the misuse and misappropriation of their data.

To add fuel to the fire, the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal which isn’t history yet and the numerous data breaches at companies causing customer data to be stolen by hackers, have gotten regulators antsy.

As a result, lawmakers are keen to craft and implement laws to protect consumers’ data. The European Union pioneered the roll out of such a law when it enforced the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) back in May 2018 (after drafting it in 2016).

Similar laws were enacted by regulators in Southeast Asia as well — but like the EU, they were at the federal or national level.

In the US, however, these laws were slow to be drafted and it seems like state-level action is driving the initiative to protect consumer data. 

Although this approach might seem to make compliance a little challenging for companies operating in the ‘united’ states, the expectation is that it will set the bar high when all these laws are harmonized.

What companies really need to focus on

The CCPA is applicable to organizations doing business in the state if they: (1) have a gross annual revenue of more than US$25 million, derive more than 50 percent of their annual income from the sale of California consumer personal information, or buy, sell, or share the personal information of more than 50,000 California consumers annually.

Given the low revenue parameter and the low consumer number set in the CCPA, several organizations, especially consumer-facing retail businesses, will find themselves needing to comply.

Fortunately, what the law really requires from such businesses is also as simple as the criteria set to bring them into the pool of “responsible consumer data users” in the state.

According to the CCPA, businesses need to let consumers know when their personal data is being collected, offer consumers with the right to delete their data, and provide them with the option to opt-out from their information being sold to third parties.

Of the three requirements, the third, of course, has been met with criticism from activists demanding that the word ‘sold’ be replaced with ‘shared’ as organizations often form collaborations that benefit each other without actually transacting monetarily. 

This is true in the case of, say, telcos offering entertainment providers such as Netflix and Hulu with access to customer data in exchange for benefits accruing to them as part of an ‘ecosystem’.

The CCPA, in reality, is simple. Its requirements are clear-cut and easy to understand. Implementation, however, might mean that organizations change how they operate. Businesses that don’t want to be slapped with a fine need to think about accelerating their compliance plan now.

The post CCPA is in effect – what you need to know before it’s enforced appeared first on TechHQ.

When organizations change the way they work, they need to train their staff to be able to either do things differently or do different things.

READ NEXT

Chatbots now play a central role in the Airbus recruitment strategy

In the digital era, it’s usually the latter that causes managers to be concerned, because teaching staff to do something different (fit for the technological age we live in) requires more skill.

Anything from automation engineering to artificial intelligence takes patience and hard work, plus a lot of dedication and commitment.

That being said, the reality is that a majority of businesses using new-age processes tend to only need staff to do things differently. 

Take a retail store, for example. With cashless checkouts, fewer staff are needed to run a store (that means more stores can be opened without hiring new staff) and those people only need to perform certain tasks such as ensuring systems are running smoothly, IDs are checked where needed, that there are no electronic or system errors, and so on. That’s the extent of the job in the future.

That means staff need jobs to be redesigned for them, consciously, to continue to stay employed in the digital era and benefit the organizations all the same.

Oliver Wyman’s team recently put together a whitepaper on job redesign and pointed out that the process where tasks assigned to roles are realigned to ensure that work is aligned with the organization’s future strategy, easy to perform and productive, and engaging for the individual.

Since outlining the organization’s future strategy is part of the job redesign process, it is critical to involve senior management so that upskilling and reskilling programs created match the upcoming needs of the business and help absorb staff in new, relevant roles.

YOU MIGHT LIKE

ANALYTICS

Data-first culture is now a recruitment deal-breaker

In the earlier example with automated checkouts, staff at stores have new tasks to perform but they’re almost as easy and productive to do, if not more — which is why they create better results for the organization.

Finally, the jobs must be engaging for the individual. At a time when optimization, efficiency, and productively are measured rigorously, if jobs are redesigned but not engaging, they’ll be ineffective as the organization risks hemorrhaging staff despite its efforts. That’s not ideal.

According to the consulting giant, the retail industry is redefining jobs at an accelerated pace — and others could take a cue from them in mapping the transformation of their own human capital.

Given the nature of Oliver Wyman’s work, it notes that retailers are being disrupted by technology quickly, and therefore need to proactively think about ‘job redesign’ as a concept. The sooner this is done, the better it is for the business.

“Initiating a job redesign plan enables the organization to proactively take stock of work being performed today, understand inefficiencies, and realign work in accordance to the organization’s future operating context. 

“There are many instances where the job redesign committee has eliminated obsolete operating processes, some of which have resulted in productivity savings by up to 50 percent.”

Job redesign is important. It’s something that will help organizations a great deal, whether in retail or not. 

However, to be truly successful, Oliver Wyman suggests ensuring that managers encourage and motivate staff to participate once the new training programs have been developed and deployed.

The post Oliver Wyman on the need for job redesign in the digital era appeared first on TechHQ.

Technology is exciting for farmers, especially those who look after large acreage and cultivate a variety of crops. 

READ NEXT

Is agriculture going the way of robotics?

In many parts of the world, the biggest challenge to technology adoption in the agriculture industry is the lack of access. France has that covered.

French farmers, with the support of the 250-plus agri-tech startups in the country, are able to better understand the technology, trial it, and implement it at scale.

A recent study commissioned by the European Union and produced by Euractive France said that the country has been using technology in agriculture for a while now, even if end consumers don’t know it. 

The country’s generous funding offers allow farmers to make the most of opportunities that agri-tech offers.

Based on the study, here are three key areas where technology is currently making a big difference to farmers and their farms in France:

# 1 | Robotic weeding

Weeding helps farmers get rid of inferior and unwanted growths around their crops. The process allows food crops to grow unencumbered.

Originally, the task was laborious and carried out by hand. Hence, it was time consuming and cost a lot of money. 

To overcome this challenge, farmers were introduced to pesticides by agri-chem companies. Although effective, pesticides are effective, they cause damage to the soil and the consumers of the crops. Hence, farmers are now trialling robotic weeders — which goes back to the original method but reduces time and costs significantly.

# 2 | Farming automation

The EU study found that farming automation is unique and has a lot of potential.

From distributing seeds evenly to irrigation to cultivation, there are automation solutions that can be created for every step of a commercial crop’s lifecycle.

The study found that animal husbandry can also use automation to help boost output and quality.

A goat breeder the study quoted said that automation allows farmers to personalize food, fodder, fertilizers, and so much more for each individual animal or row of crops — which makes the process far more efficient.

# 3 | Drone-based pesticide distribution

Truth be told, drones are already quite popular in farmlands in the US and parts of Southeast Asia including Malaysia and Indonesia. Farmers in France have recently been introduced to them.

Drones are most effective in pesticide distribution as the amount to be distributed can be calculated and an exact volume can be sprayed over an exact area, making the process safer for consumers as well as better for the soil.

YOU MIGHT LIKE

AUTOMATION

How is big data analytics disrupting the agriculture industry?

The future of agri-tech in Europe

All of the use cases of technology are neither new nor novel but they’re exciting — simply because they help the country and the region immensely.

The country imports about US$5 billion in coffee and chocolates each year, it exports wheat is a top export and brings in US$3.37 billion per year. Corn and barley are also in the list of top five exports and earn France US$1.63 billion and US$1.07 billion respectively each year.

Any boost in productivity of the country’s agricultural produce will only help revenues grow further, adding to the economic prosperity of the country, aside from helping it comply with the United Nation’s sustainable development goals and food security goals where possible.

In the coming months, France is bound to implement more agri-tech solutions — because it has plenty of access and opportunity to do so.

The post How French farmers are leading with agri-tech appeared first on TechHQ.

Technology has evolved to a point where automation isn’t hard to roll out, in the office or the shop floor. 

READ NEXT

UK C-levels taking command of automation programs

For most organizations, automation is simple, requires a comparatively low investment, and delivers faster results – compared to more sophisticated technologies such as artificial intelligence or even big data analytics.

However, the reality is that automation of any kind puts a bulk of the staff in any organization at risk. They not only fear losing their job but could also become obsolete if the industry decides to automate a certain job function or task altogether in order to stay competitive at a local or global level.

Shunning automation in the interest of helping employees isn’t a good idea either – it could damage the efficiency of a specific industry, making it vulnerable to imports from overseas produced cheaply, with the help of automation.

To help businesses navigate the challenge and allow its leaders to walk the tightrope, protecting people as well as profits, the UK’s Business in the Community (BITC UK) – an organization created by the Prince of Wales to support responsible businesses – partnered with Deloitte.

Together, the two organizations came up with a study outlining how businesses could go about automating responsibly.

The report is chiefly focused on the skilling of employees to enable them to stay employed for the foreseeable future. Here are three of the most important things for organizations to remember:

# 1 | Plan for reskilling

There’s a lot involved in the planning phase, especially when it comes to employees.

When an organization decided to go the automation route, they need to assess the kinds of jobs that will be eliminated and map out the skills and interests of the displaced staff. 

They must then assess the organization’s overall transformation agenda to identify the new skills that will be needed to help the organization thrive in the digital era.

At this stage, the organization can match interests and skills of displaced employees to the portfolio of new skills required. They can then craft reskilling programs that make an impact quickly and help the organization’s people transition seamlessly.

# 2 | Encourage employees to reskill

Despite the best efforts and intentions of an organization, it is often hard to encourage employees to reskill because they have their own inhibitions.

Some members of staff, especially the ones close to retirement or looking to retire in the next decade, have a tendency to believe that acquiring a new skill or learning something new poses a real challenge. 

Although there’s some truth to that, the reality is that making the effort is necessary and if the individual’s skills and interests are matched appropriately to new and more relevant skillsets, the chances of their success go up significantly.

Organizations making the effort to reskills staff that will be displaced as a result of automation need to be empathetic and offer all the support, help, and encouragement they possibly can.

YOU MIGHT LIKE

AUTOMATION

Could automation make outsourcing history?

# 3 | Help staff develop the right skills

In any upskilling or reskilling program, it’s crucial to ensure that skills are being taught to displaced employees result in them finding new jobs immediately, within or outside the organization.

Failing to do so could negatively impact the first batch of staff undergoing training and dampen the spirits of future batches looking to upskill or reskill themselves.

Organizations therefore need to be very careful, not only in finding new skills that can be picked up easily by staff based on their interests but also ensure that those skills (ideally) match the organizations’ immediate needs in the digital era so that staff can be retained in the long term.

Ultimately, the reality is that employees need new skills to be able to hold a job in the future. 

Since picking up new skills are hard, and making sense of what skills could be important and also match an individual’s specific interests, any and every support that a business provides will go a long way – automating responsibly to protect employees as well as profits.

The post How do businesses automate responsibly? appeared first on TechHQ.