By Shane McArdle, Chief Sales Officer
Just recently I visited China to represent Camo at a manufacturing and analytics conference. 5000 attendees in three days made it worth our while to have a booth. The conference was about sensors, measurement, discrete manufacturing, process units and all the analytics you can put on top of that.
Cultural partnership
When it comes to Industry 4.0 and industrial analytics in manufacturing, the west is ahead of China. At least for the time being. It will change. We were there with a good Chinese partner Diantek, and in many ways you need a cultural partnership in order to understand Chinese companies and decision processes.
Camo and Chinese partner Diantek attended the 5th international online analytical instrument conference with a focus on helping Chinese businesses transform data into process and product quality improvements towards “Made in China 2025”.
They listen, they act
We were extremely well received by knowledge thirsty Chinese professionals, and we had a lot of great conversations. Chinese companies have carried out their production miracles through a people-intensive style of production. Traditionally they have had access to cheap labor, and therefore the incentive to automate has been lackluster. In the older production facilities the equipment is not in place and the digitization is just starting to hit the factory floor as in our corner of the world. But they listen, when we sing our song about Process Analytical Technology, process monitoring and analytics. And they act. Soon the conductor of the orchestra could be Chinese. We hear stories and see evidence of this more and more often where a Chinese company has emulated and improved on a technology and have the market to roll it out to.
I am a true believer
The current plan ‘Made in China 2025’ is for China to become a global leader in IoT, Big Data and advanced analytics. And I am a true believer. China will be able to mirror the current stronghold in B2C (Alibaba, Baidu, Tencent) in an equally strong position in industrial analytics. They move fast, when the political leadership has set the course. It is quite amazing. It took 30 minutes from a first face-to-face contact with a Chinese employee at booth located nearby ours to the CEO of the company calling me on my phone.
Karate Kid in Industrial Analytics
The obvious risk for a company like Camo is while the Chinese really acknowledge and respect our track record of experience with industrial analytics, we may very well be obsolete in a few years, as the Chinese businesses will move so fast. You cannot be lured by these 15 minutes of fame in China. While enjoying the spotlight you need to build sustainable alliances and close partnerships in order to be a longlasting and integrated provider for the analytical boom taking place on Chinese factory floors right now.
China is like Karate Kid learning from the master. But in a very few years the imitation, the training and the scale will make China a champion in industrial analytics!
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