But having data is one thing. The real issue is what we do with it. Like water, data is no good to anyone if it's dirty or filled with nasty infections that will make you sick. That's why it's up to businesses to filter, clean and purify their data if they're to get the best possible value from it to make their organisation fit for a digital era.
Industry renewal
The forest industry is going through digital disruption, as is the case for all other industries. And at the heart of this will be the use of data, which will be the prime driver for improving customer experience, re-engineering the value chain and developing new services and products.
Data is now gathered, reported, assessed, analyzed to a greater degree than ever seen before. But the key question that businesses are still asking is: What are we going to do with all this data? My answer is simple: Don't do anything. Or, rather, don't do anything alone. This is because if businesses are to truly make the most of this data and turn the inevitable disruption to their advantage, they must co-create new ideas together with the ecosystem.
One good example of this in the forest industry is a new way of working where different industryplayers come together to co-create new value. Our cooperation with UPM around Junction is another great example of how organisations can collaborate to pull together start-ups and co-innovate new ideas.
New ways to make a difference
I am a firm believer in openness and co-innovation. Together with our customers and partners in the ecosystem, we can fully embrace data and use it to create exciting new opportunities and innovations. Getting the best value from new data-centric business models requires co-creation and co-innovation, and together, we and our customers can actively look for new opportunities.
This will require new ways of working among established companies. Developing new ideas and turning them into real business opportunities will need effective idea incubation and commercialisation, following lean startup methods. In many cases, this may well be a radical departure from the way businesses have approached innovation in the past, so it's essential partners are able to work closely together to get the best results.
Value from data-driven innovations – making the future more intelligent
To help our customers in this journey, we've established a new Data-Driven Business unit in Tieto. Our mission is to drive co-creation and co-innovation around data, and we're actively looking for new models to bring more value to our customers.
One of these initiatives is our work to run a series of data-centric hackathons. These will explore new ways of using data to make the business more efficient and work better for both employees and customers. I find it fascinating to see how clearly these new ways of working are bringing value and new innovations with our customers and ecosystem partners.
The journey with data will only accelerate – I welcome you all to co-innovate and create the future as a part of the data-driven ecosystem!
Read more about the UPM challenge here »
The author is heading Tieto's new data-driven businesses unit and a firm believer in co-innovation and co-creation
