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is AI making your labor a commodity?


The year is 2028 and the leadership team was gathering for our annual "forward - back" meeting; a key component of our culture reinforcing the commitment to trust and transparency. Technocrat Tom starts off by reflecting on the impact of our decision to transition to conditions-based service delivery, leveraging IoT and intelligent systems. Tom reflects back over the last decade and shares his thoughts:



The fact is our customers have always trusted us, we have taken great efforts in building relationships and always doing the right thing.  Over the last decade, learning models leveraging the data which we facilitated by installing IoT devices, are shifting the "system smarts" from the service provider to the intelligence-based solutions (ironic).  We had to change the customer perception of us from being only the tuba player to the band leader, essentially anything they need to run their facility.  Here is how we transformed:



  • Trusted service hub:  we aligned ourselves tightly with the clients business objectives and relieved them of any activity related to the facility.  Our business model evolved to allow self-perform work and responsibility for service across trades
  • Solution centricity:  the OEM, armed with equipment (asset) data and in some cases the ability to lease equipment to customers,  has systematically edged the agnostic service providers out of the market.  Our focus on solutions and not products provided us the opportunity to push the manufacturers out of their comfort and profit zones, holding them at bay. 
  • Black Box syndrome:  years ago we went out of our way to show data coming from connected systems and how that data was influencing decisions. This move built trust both internally and with our clients. Having visibility , and pairing a human with the intelligence, allowed us to react in a way using empathy and intuition to advise our clients.  We imagine in the next few years, enough data will have been gathered to begin general intelligence, and our human edge will be diluted.



Some of our competitors got wrapped up in the technology and inadvertently distanced themselves from their customer, allowing them to become simply a labor provider.   Pure labor, based on skills required to execute a task, is a commodity in 2028.  Thinking that this will not touch your business?   Hang tight while I find a pay phone, look up my buddies number (ex-truck driver) on my rolodex, and dial him on my rotary phone.



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Next post:  who's data is it?
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