Throughout the 2010's, digital development was focused on innovations, pilots and digital strategies. These were all formed apart from the general business strategy. However, the business environment and companies' needs have seen a great deal of change. As a result, companies now benefit from a new type of digital advisory and leadership.
During the past year, we’ve focused on analyzing the market changes. Based on our findings, we’ve renewed our digital service offering, in order to best respond to the challenges that the industries currently face. We’re excited to finally release the result. Midagon’s renewed digital service offering is designed to help manufacturing and process industries foster digital capabilities in order to realize concrete and measurable business benefits. Only by doing this, can they deliver better customer value and create internal business benefits.
When the goal is to benefit from digital at an organization-wide scale, the case is not to develop a single small corner or individual player point-of-view, it is to create integrated, ecosystem-oriented solutions. In these solutions digital capabilities are utilized to make products as well as their lifecycle services and production intelligent. Depending on your organization's situation, our digital services can be utilized for overall business solution development or a defined part of the solution, such as tailored advisory services for the development of intelligent, digitally boosted products. Whatever the specific context may be, Midagon's added value comes from our unique role between acting management and technology developers. Management benefits from this by gaining a thorough vision of the ways in which technology and efficient use of data can contribute to their strategic business goals. They also get reassurance, that business goals are in fact translated into purposeful initiatives. On the other hand, we understand the developers' world. This enables better planning and solution design, as management can factor in the requirements and constraints involved.
We encourage the industries to look to the customer and to take the evolving customer demands as a starting point for their digital development. When customer expectations are understood and shared among the developers’ ecosystem, the precondition for successful digital development is in place.
Midagon's Digital Business Services include advisory for the entire development lifecycle, which takes place in four phases:
Strategy: Derived from customer demands for increased intelligence and efficiency
Roadmaps: Defining concepts for smarter products, production and maintenance services
Development programs: Creating digital-enabled integral business solutions
Implementation: Only implemented solutions and development activities count and implementations and business benefits realization is always emphasized.
Throughout the development lifecycle, we prioritize customer demands and business objectives, and see digital as the enabler. Aligning development programs with business strategies is the key to a successful transformation. Crystallizing the high-level objectives and creating solid roadmaps makes actual change possible. In the end, what matters, is to create products and services that improve customer value and internal efficiency.
Our advisory services focus on three core pillars: intelligent product, services and production development. We’ll open each pillar a bit more in this seemingly unconventional order, that is derived from the customers’ point of view. Intelligent products that communicate important information about their functions and condition, are the pre-requisite for intelligent lifecycle services, in which product data is utilized. On the other hand, intelligent production is the key to manufacturing high-quality products with the highest level of overall operational efficiency.
The three pillars described above, are built with a few key elements. Across the development of intelligent products, services and production, these elements are business and capability development, data and analytics, tools and technologies and architecture design. In the area of business development, we emphasize the improved business models that help organizations drive efficiency and growth. Purpose-built and agile operations play an important role in increasing them even further. When technology advances at a fast pace, we must also address the question of adequate and relevant human capabilities.
Data is one of an organization’s most valuable assets. Without proper data and analytics development, a major part of the digital opportunity is missed. We encourage our customers to leverage data, ramp-up new business, optimize operations and boost customer experience. Data collection and analysis must be backed by strategic choices, which make it purposeful and ensure that data is ultimately turned into value.
Digital solutions development and data analysis require elements from both emerging and conventional technologies. Traditional technologies include, for example, cloud, business intelligence and post-modern ERPs, whereas artificial intelligence, digital twins and 5G are examples of emerging technologies. The greatest benefits are generated, by combining the two in a way that best suits the organization.
Midagon brings three levels of crucial competencies into digital development initiatives. It includes solution design and governance, data-based insight and emerging technologies insight. We also help our customers to crystallize the challenge ahead. As mentioned before, this combination creates significant value for our customer’s management as well as the technology developer. We won’t say we’ll do it all. We believe in capturing value from collaboration and finding the best solutions, by co-operating with our network of niche experts.
In the area of solution design and governance, we emphasize programs and cutovers, while also creating strategies and roadmaps. This means that there must be comprehensive leadership throughout the transformation lifecycle, from forming initial concepts to implementing solutions. This also requires the ability to engage and motivate all parts of the organization, as well as third party collaborators, such as technology providers.
Data-based insight is pivotal for any digital solution. It must be backed by statistics and mathematics. We offer the ability to set clear objectives and create models for data analysis. This fundamental insight is what helps to do the right things and avoid any effort that will not result in an implemented, beneficial solution.
Data collection from sensors, actuators and other systems, as well as data integration and warehousing are also important capabilities. However, we highlight the importance of the groundwork that takes place before any of this begins. Without that, data collection and analysis cannot produce valuable information. Therefore, data-based insight means, on one hand, data collection and analysis, and on another, fundamental statistics, goal setting and data modeling capabilities.
In the area of emerging technologies insight, competitive advantage is achieved by combining current technological possibilities with ambitious business goals. Carefully planned, yet open-minded use of emerging technologies creates brand new possibilities for producing, sharing and analyzing data, and turning it into insight and finally, knowledge. However, the maturity level of the technology must always be completely understood, in order to avoid risking the business core with inappropriate or immature solutions. As data collection is already on-going in most companies, the value of emerging technologies insight, is in creating new ways to process it and turn it into value.
As stated above, we deliver solutions that bring intelligence into industrial companies’ products, services and production, through data and emerging technologies. We lead and govern the transformation as a whole, and together with our network of experts, build solution development organizations with the appropriate capabilities to implement organization-wide digital solutions.
Our team of digital experts has vast expertise in product, service and production development, as well as utilizing digital enablers in business solution development without forgetting data and analytics knowledge. They also have long field-tested experience in design, governance and implementation, as well as both internal industry- and consultation expertise in both process and manufacturing industries. Therefore, we make sure management and technology developers speak the same language and stay on the same track. We will have a broader introduction of our digital experts, just after the summer season.
Bringing about large-scale transformation is teamwork. Therefore, we mix and combine Midagon's competencies and methods for the benefit of our customers. Our team includes, among others, state-of-the-art ICT transformation and business intelligence experts, ready to complement the digital experts, when necessary.
We trust that our renewed offering and advisory services are beneficial to the changes and digital challenges that process and manufacturing industries will face in the 2020’s. At Midagon, we want to be the trusted partner for industrial companies in their digital business transformation and digital-enabled business development. Welcome on board, and stay with us, as we will continue to discuss industrial digitalization throughout the year. For all the IT-industry readers: our approach is co-operation oriented. Get in touch, if you have special skills in data-based- or emerging technologies insight. We are more than happy to hear from you.
Director, Process and Manufacturing Industries
