Could You Make a Forever Promise?

<p>The business model in manufacturing and distribution has long been own it, sell it, get paid for it. For most of those companies, it still is.</p><p>But our world is changing. The concept of ownership has a very different place in our thinking, as does the concept of value. The potential enabled by rapidly advancing technology is integral in changing thinking about optimal business models.</p><p>When I worked for Perdue Farms in the late 1970s, my first major assignment was to build and implement a feed formulation system that would meet nutrient requirements for the chickens at the lowest cost given potential ingredient inventories and market prices. </p><p>Computers then weren't what they are now, but those calculations were easy to perform once the program was written and the inventory, nutrient, and market data for all potential ingredients were available to the model. Updating that information took time, time that is virtually zero now. Advanced technology didn't eliminate the need for the analysis, but made it much faster.</p><p>That use of data was focused internally toward cost reduction. But the thinking can easily be turned externally to identify information incredibly valuable to the market. </p><p>You've likely heard that airlines are not committed to owning jet engines; what they really want is reliable, fuel-efficient thrust on each of their planes. That means predictive maintenance, well-designed engines and valuable real-time analytics of data converted to information used in flight. And in the design of better engines in the future. </p><p>Data from a single engine on a specific plane, from a type of engine on a number of planes, from a type of engine on a variety of types of planes, and more, is changing both current and future operations of the air travel industry. Do you care who owns the engines on the plane you're flying on today?</p><p>We see personal and shared ownership of cars, no ownership of cars (Uber, taxis,), mass transportation, bicycles, walking, and more. The "best" business m