Tackling the top technology concerns for producer leadership.
Technology applicable to ready mixed concrete (RMC) production is rapidly evolving—more so in the past two years than in the previous two decades. Your options are to choose right and prosper or choose wrong and perish. The stakes are high, and it’s imperative to avoid being blindsided by the promised opportunities and challenges of new technology.
What is the fundamental recipe for selecting the right solutions? Let’s rip off the Band-Aid and confront some edgy truths to reveal the formula.
We’re special—really!
RMC is perishable and structural, making production and delivery real-time and fraught with liability. Few (if any) industries have a lower profit-to-liability ratio than ours. As a “bonus,” producers operate at a frantic pace all day, every day.
The technology concrete producers choose as a companion becomes nothing short of a marriage. Against the real-time, high-liability backdrop of concrete production, the friction of change makes tech adoption much more binding for producers than for other businesses. This inhibitor drives us toward “for better or worse” relationships with the systems implemented, which often feels like “till death do we part.”
Compounding the issue, the technology sales cycle is often finely tuned to exploit the purchasing authority’s limited technological expertise. The tech provider knows that once installed, the cost of change for RMC is so high that producers will endure enormous pain in exchange for maintaining the status quo and keep paying.
To avoid the above scenario and make smart technology purchases, you’ll need to:
1. Create a culture of incremental, continuous change.
2. Sniff out “tech-washing” (trendy, new labels for legacy solutions) with relentless, unabashed questioning.
3. Commit to systemic cyber security first with your people and then with technology.
Step 1: Foster a culture of constructive change
Incremental changes are more manageable and less disruptive.
Change is inevitable, especially when it comes to technology. The best approach is to make incremental updates to your core business processes. The following is how phased implementation can look for artificial intelligence (AI)—the poster child for change.
A first step could be leveraging AI to push decision-making out to the edge. Empowered with real-time analytics and AI tools, a junior employee can be entrusted to make well-informed decisions that directly influence your company’s fortunes. This will flatten the organization, reducing the vast middle levels of structured control.
Next, AI can eliminate many repetitive “thinking” jobs. Consider routine financial tasks, such as accounts receivable, accounts payable, inventory receipts, etc., currently executed by a sizable group of people in the accounting department. The fundamental process will become automated, changing the structure of the organization and the roles within it.
Finally, customer self-quoting is within reach for all but the biggest projects. RMC producers have legions of information about customers’ behavior, and AI can mine customer data combined with competitor pricing, logistics, quality control, operational, and other data to present a 360-degree perspective. The salesperson, freed from the routine of quoting, will blossom into an extremely valuable business consultant for the contractors and finishers, using analytics to help them become more profitable.
These are just a few examples of incremental change based on only AI. The scope and depth of opportunity to improve business performance through change management is big and will become even bigger. Your job is to help your employees embrace the culture of constructive, incremental change by courageously working together to craft new forward-looking business processes.
Step 2: Avoid tech-washing
Make sure promises made are promises possible.
Even the most intelligent people can fall victim to fancy presentations and buzzwords. If a tech salesperson unleashes jargon and concepts that don’t make sense yet seeks to assure you the product will increase sales, profitability, or anything else, stop the conversation. Insist on clarity, and take as much time (and as many meetings) as needed to get all questions answered until you fully understand how things will work. This is challenging work that should not be delegated to junior staff.
Once you can connect the dots, ask for proof points of operation via case studies, references and/or demonstrations. It’s one thing to understand the vision and a totally different thing to see it in action.
Software is particularly prone to falling short of expectations, so be sure to demand contract-based guarantees for performance.
Step 3: Prioritize the cybersecurity of people
Beware, cybercrime is on AI steroids.
As much as AI can change your business processes, it can threaten your business security even more. Cybercriminals, especially state-sponsored entities, are now armed with extremely sophisticated tools to manipulate human behavior. If you think you currently take cybersecurity seriously, think again.
Consider that AI can now mimic anyone’s voice and image. A controller could receive a shared-screen meeting request with the chief financial officer, during which a deepfake of the CFO instructs the transfer of a large sum of money to a new account for a confidential project. The boss said do it NOW, so the controller did—and now the money is gone for good. (This scenario has happened!)
Ironically, the best cybersecurity revolves not around the computer or network but human behavior. There are countless new processes to put in place as checks and balances against penetration, and many specialist security companies are available to help.
The good news
To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, those who would give up the essential competitive advantage of change to purchase a little temporary stability deserve neither advantage nor stability.
The change required may seem overwhelming, but it’s essential to stay competitive. You don’t need to transform overnight or outpace every competitor—you just need to be a step ahead of enough of them. After all, in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. Incremental improvement in technology, cautious decision-making and a commitment to security will make a big difference.
Craig Yeack has held leadership positions with both construction materials producers and software providers. He is co-founder of BCMI Corp. (the Bulk Construction Materials Initiative), which is dedicated to reinventing the construction materials business with modern mobile and cloud-based tools. His Tech Talk column—named best column by the Construction Media Alliance in 2018—focuses on concise, actionable ideas to improve financial performance for ready-mix producers. He can be reached at [email protected].