Insights

Companies need to push multiple buttons instead of just one

Read time: 6 minutes

Over the past century, businesses have made huge improvements when it comes to optimal and cost-efficient planning, as well the organization of processes. However, efficient processes alone won’t solve the challenges of today’s world. Because demands and needs are changing, traditional performance indicators are now being outcompeted by others, such as customer satisfaction, employee engagement, and impact on Sustainable Development Goals. (SDGs) The puzzle of success is becoming more challenging. Businesses will need to adopt new methods to thrive, and perhaps even to survive. Data and mathematics can help to solve the puzzle; fortunately, there is always more than one button that businesses can push.

An interview with Patrick Hennen, Chief Technology & Innovation Officer at ORTEC.

Date23 Aug 2022
Companies need to push multiple buttons instead of just one

New techniques and data for today’s challenges

Today’s world faces immense challenges when it comes to sustainable development. Becoming as profitable as possible is no longer enough. Employee demands, environmental impact, government regulations, and increasing customer power are changing the development game. To be successful, companies need to bet on several horses at once. For example, you could set up the most cost-efficient production process, but if no one wants to work for you, even the most optimized process won’t deliver the goods. Without doubt, the optimization of business operations is very different and much more complex, than it was ten years ago. Using new techniques and available data are essential in solving challenges both today and in the future.

For companies across the globe today, the focus is not only on being more efficient and savings costs. Instead, they are having to balance multiple important goals (people, planet, and profit) and push multiple buttons instead of just one, to secure the future of their organizations and that of our planet.

Planet

Environmental impact
Organizations need to adopt more sustainable ways of doing business to protect the future of our planet. To achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals defined by the United Nations, companies need to come up with a strategy to improve their contribution to creating a better world. So, how can you optimize your company’s environmental impact and contribute to improving the world?

Environmental impact

People

Customer satisfaction
Consumers are becoming more demanding. Are you still relevant? Are you contributing to a better world, and how are you doing so? Are you staying abreast of new developments? Do you deliver (or overdeliver) value for money? Consumers are spoiled, and in an ‘as a service’ world, they can switch to your competitor in a blink of an eye. So, how can you improve customer satisfaction and make sure your customers stay loyal to you?

Employee happiness
The fierce battle for talent is jeopardizing the continuity of businesses. There is more work available than there are people to do it, and employees are more demanding than ever. This makes retaining your current workforce as important as attracting new employees. So, how can you improve employee happiness and engagement?

People employee engagement customer satisfaction

Profit

Business bottom line
On top of all that (and partly as a consequence of it), operations and production are becoming more expensive. Costs are rising while competition is getting fiercer, putting prices under serious pressure. To remain competitive, and to keep meeting quality standards, companies need to become more innovative and efficient. So, how can you utilize your assets to improve your business bottom line, while safeguarding the sustainable future of your company?

Business bottom line

Solving problems that never have been solved before

The digitalization of the world is rapidly increasing. The distribution of information, communications technology, and global interconnectedness, have great potential to accelerate human progress and sustainable development. For companies across the globe, it is a matter of keeping up, adapting, and innovating to benefit from these technological developments and tools.

Every company needs to adapt to and use new technological developments to innovate and benefit from them. So, how can you apply data, mathematics, and cloud computing to solve larger, more complex puzzles? And how can you use these tools to balance multiple goals for 'People, Planet and Profit'?

  • – Interconnectivity
    Machines, devices, software applications, people, and processes are more and more interconnected. Technologies like the Internet of Things are boosting this development. As a result, more actions can be automated, and more decisions can be made integrally (leading to a decrease in silos).
  • – (Real-time) Data explosion
    A major accelerator of the ever-growing data streams is the fact that just about every device is connected to the internet these days. This leads to new, real-time, and untapped data sources that organizations can use to their benefit.
  • – Mathematics
    Artificial Intelligence (AI) is symbolic of the power of mathematics. An enormous collection of mathematical techniques can be applied to automating and improving decision-making. AI is one of these techniques and has increased in power due to the availability of data and computing power.
  • – Cloud computing
    Cloud computing makes computing power available on demand, and at an almost unlimited scale. It enables the capture and storage of large data sets and the utilization of as much CPU/RAM as is necessary to run very heavy algorithms.

The combination of technological developments makes it possible to solve problems that have never been solved before. By using more detailed, real-time data, applying advanced mathematical techniques (like machine learning and optimization), and utilizing the unlimited availability of computing power, it is now possible to solve more complex and integrated models, leading to better decisions.

Data and AI in the Boardroom #2: The Quest for New Business Models

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An example: scheduling of employees in hospitals

Previously, scheduling of employees in hospitals could only be done by linking the job to be done with the skills required for the job. The schedule had to comply with the collective labor agreement, and the work had to be done with as few people as possible. This approach is no longer adequate. Employees are becoming scarcer, so it’s important to keep them happy. To this end, employee experience can be utilized to optimize the schedule and continue to meet their changing needs and demands. This in turn balances employee satisfaction and operational efficiency. Optimization and machine learning techniques are effective tools for balancing these multiple goals.

Another example: road transport
All transportation companies will soon face legislation requiring a certain percentage of the fleet to be electric. The distance a petrol-fueled truck can travel on a full tank is a known factor, regardless of circumstances. With an electric truck, however, you need to calculate/recalculate the performance under different circumstances, such as weather conditions. The software you use must incorporate these new factors, for example by having real-time weather forecasting. Another factor is the well-being of the truck driver, who might prefer to have lunch at noon, for example, and not at 13.30. Keeping drivers happy means satisfying those needs and demands as well. It is no longer sufficient to deliver as much as possible in as little time as possible; there are more buttons that need to be pushed.

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Balancing act

In short: efficient processes alone won’t solve the challenges of today’s world. To be successful, companies need to balance multiple goals. Businesses will need to adopt new methods to thrive or perhaps even just to survive. Advanced technology, data and mathematics enable organizations to solve more complex and integrated models, leading to better decisions and sustainable development. Fortunately, businesses always have more than one button available to them. Which buttons will you need to push to solve your challenges, both today and in the future?

About Patrick Hennen

Chief Technology & Innovation Officer (CTO) at ORTEC

He embarked on his first challenge when he was fresh out of University and hasn’t looked back since: Patrick Hennen has held a variety of positions at ORTEC, ranging from Data Scientist to Program Manager and from Architect to Executive. One of his career highlights to date has been his role in positioning ORTEC as a key player in the domains of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Data Science, and optimization. In his current position as Chief Technology & Innovation Officer (CTO), Hennen is responsible for driving technology and innovation – which he believes are key factors in expanding and intensifying the impact of applied mathematics.

Patrick Hennen CTO ORTEC