Servitization adds a service or solution-based offer to traditional product offering. It can be lucrative. But where do you start? The Manufacturer is presenting a new webinar at 10.30am on 28 September to help manufacturers get to grips with the opportunities available through servitization. The webinar presenters, James Woudhuysen (visiting Professor at London South Bank University) and Matt O’Neill (Independent Futurist), have […]
With the arrival of the web came ‘Disintermediation’; a watchword for the removal of middle-men – dealers, wholesalers, advisors, representatives, agents etc. – facilitating producers being able to sell directly to consumers. The theory was that manufacturers could receive a larger share of revenues while prices to consumers dropped. It didn’t work out that way. A […]
What used to be the supply chain is increasingly the ‘supply network’. This is the inevitable result of the challenges facing today’s global supply chains. As organisations seek to grow and expand into new markets, they have to look at whether existing supply chains are capable of servicing these objectives. Supply chains have never been […]
Since beginning my journey as a Futurist 8 months ago, I’ve become incredibly optimistic about the power of innovation to solve so many of our challenges. In part 1, we looked at the challenges facing food production today. Here, we’ll explore some of the new developments which present solutions to those challenges. Let’s begin with […]
The UN predicts global population is set to rise by 2.5 billion by 2050. Effectively, that’s adding a population the size of China and India combined. It will require us to double our food production output. Throw in the fact that 1 in 9 current inhabitants of our planet are ‘chronically hungry’ right now, and we’ve […]
“This is what virtual reality holds out to us – the possibility of walking into the constructs of the imagination.” – Terence McKenna Most of us love words as they let us conjure up ideas in the imagination. I remember well the telling of campfire horror stories as a Boy Scout. The storyteller had us […]
As the well-worn phrase has it, “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter”. And as an equally well-worn phrase tells us, “history is written by the victors”: those with power mould the ongoing narrative of countries and governments; and decide which groups are characterised in any particular way. For the purposes of this article, […]
There’s a lot of talk in marketing circles about the potential for ‘Augmented Reality’ (AR). Unlike its more totally immersive cousin, Virtual Reality, AR creates new layers of experience over what we already see in the real world. Wikipedia defines AR as ‘a live direct or indirect view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements […]
My job is to help you make better decisions by understanding what’s just around the corner. I deliver tailored keynote speeches, presentations or immersive discussion sessions, always with the aim of leaving audiences with actionable ideas that they can take forward in their organisations. “Matt has a keen eye on what’s next. This came through […]
“The future demands from us something more than a nostalgia for some rose-tinted version of a past that did not really exist in any case. You’re about to graduate into a complex and borderless world.” (US Secretary of State, John Kerry). These were Kerry’s words in his commencement speech to this year’s Northeastern University graduates. […]
