A recent post on LinkedIn by Bill McCabe raises a fundamental question: What are your thoughts on the profitability of using IoT?
In the post, Bill reports that according to Gartner, “63% of organizations investing in IoT believe they will get returns in three years.”
Bill then says, “By embracing the latest digital technologies, businesses can create more efficient processes, optimize operations, and use better data and analytics to drive growth and innovation.”
CPOs Speak Out
Earlier this week, I was the moderator of a panel discussion with CPOs from three large enterprises overseeing successful digital transformation initiatives.
One of the questions from the audience was how the CPOs felt about emerging technologies such as AI (I include IoT in the category of emerging technologies).
While each CPO indicated that their digital strategy had enabled them to replace their reliance on email, they were not yet ready to fully embrace AI to reduce their dependence on spreadsheets. They then said that they fully believe in the promise of AI but that its universal adoption would not happen for another generation.
Based on their response, the gap between acknowledging AI and other emerging digital technologies’ promises and actually taking action to realize its benefits is still quite wide.
How do we bridge that gap sooner and finally abandon the reliance on “old tech” such as spreadsheets?
Procurement Insights 
Tim Root
May 31, 2022
Did they say … why, “they were not yet ready to fully embrace AI to reduce their dependence on spreadsheets”?
I understand what they said. I don’t understand the reasoning behind it.
piblogger
May 31, 2022
Great question, Tim.
My takeaway is that this generation of procurement professionals is very comfortable using spreadsheets. There isn’t the confidence in AI to do the same job as reliably and accurately as this familiar tool.
I liken it to when ATMs were first introduced to a certain extent. My elderly mother refused to hand over her cash to a faceless machine, choosing instead to line up and deposit with a teller (a “real person”).
What are your thoughts?