Leveraging Legacy: How Companies Can Innovate Themselves Into a Sustainable Future

Can you harmonize sustainability and business fundamentals? Data analytics and AI make it possible.

Innovation is not just about financial returns — you need to stay relevant and capitalize on previous investments. But equally important is positioning your company at the forefront of sustainability. Those imperatives used to be in contradiction, but technological advances have opened new possibilities. With the right combination of cutting-edge technology and experience-based insight, you can go green while bolstering your balance sheet.

Sustainability and business value

Cost savings and revenue gains still determine whether a project is feasible — large enterprises need tangible business value when they adopt new technologies. But they also need to know how certain technologies will position them for a sustainable future.

How, for example, can data analytics, AI, IoT, and robotics help you reduce environmental impact or reach net-zero emissions, one of the pillars of the EU’s Green Deal? That question is pressing, considering that many real-economy companies are starting with high emissions levels and struggling with outdated technologies.

While such companies might be particularly hard-pressed to go green, they also aren’t fully taking advantage of one of their crucial advantages. Having a long history on the market means that they possess unique subject matter expertise and have probably been collecting data for years. The challenge is leveraging this knowledge capital to achieve a technological advantage based on data and emerging tech.

The promise of modern data analytics

No one doubts that data analytics is the key to making industrial processes, resource extraction, agriculture, and supply chains — in fact, the entire value chain — sustainable.

Indeed, we are now a solid decade away from the time when big data and AI were mere gimmicks. Those technologies are no longer restricted to light-hearted applications like detecting cats in YouTube videos. On the contrary: They make it possible for companies to gain even deeper visibility into — and ultimately automate their control over — their production.

The cost of data acquisition, storage, and processing is shrinking at an exponential rate. That has enabled new business cases to emerge, delivering tangible value to the innovative companies that invest early.

Using core expertise to innovate

Take, for example, the situation one of our clients found themselves in. With a storied history as one of Europe’s top food producers, the company has consistently emphasized exceptional agricultural practices and a commitment to sustainability. Because of these values and their understanding of the shifts taking place in agriculture, the team tapped us to develop a full-scale hyper-automation platform for precision agriculture.

That project resulted in a cloud-based agricultural robotics platform that takes pictures of each plant. Not only does that reduce personnel costs, but it also provided deep insight into the plants’ growth using AI-based analytics. By leveraging those insights into AI-based analytics of the plants’ growth history, our client can minimize the use of pesticides and fertilizers while optimizing crop yield.

In one fell swoop, that reduces environmental impact, delivers an immediate business advantage, and positions our client at the forefront of innovation in the agricultural sector.

Unlocking the value of data for a brighter future

Just 10 years ago, it would have been economically impossible to store and analyze individual photographs of plants, since the operation would have cost more than the plant itself. Today, it’s a reality that brings us closer to a sustainable future. Our client was uniquely positioned to take advantage of this insight for two reasons: A deep understanding of the agricultural sector and a willingness to embrace the power of data and AI.

Unlocking the advantage of large enterprises means leveraging unique subject matter expertise and data to build robust digital solutions. The first step to getting there is establishing a technological foundation to drive your data strategy.

So, if you are ready to unleash the business advantage locked in your data and history, and start innovating your company into a sustainable future, let’s talk.