BALANCING LONG- AND SHORT-TERM GOALS
setting. That’s typically a pitfall for our industry because if tempted and primarily focused on the quarterly gains at the expense of longer- term investments, we might miss the train. By the time we wake up, the long lead time to market for everything we do could inhibit our competitiveness and the overall business prospect. “The underlying premise for an effective AI supported outcome are data. No data, no AI.” HARNESSING THE AI: THE NATURE OF DATA One way or another, we are all facing exponential expansion of AI-driven digital trends. The underlying premise for an effective AI supported outcome is data. No data, no AI. There are a few basic kinds of data categories out there that are the most relevant for the conventional business setting. We’re all familiar, for example, with ChatGPT and its version relying on open-source abundant data
No matter what organization we are in, there are always industry specific circumstances, trends or “curve balls” that would require us to adapt or pivot. Many hardware product developers today experienced significant challenges in the past four years associated with the headwinds coming from the COVID and post-COVID supply chain market dynamics. We are also witnessing the impact of new digital trends and tools—AI, for example. They’re all having an impact in different ways. For medical devices, because we live in a heavily regulated industry, it takes anywhere from three to five+ years to develop and deliver a Class-II medical device such as an electro- mechanical surgical instrument. Class-III, including implantables such as pacemakers and similar, go even longer due to clinical trial requirements. Such long development lead times put us at the risk that by the time we are out on the market we could already be outdated or outsmarted by the competition. It takes a meaningful strategy, strong differentiators, and diligent planning to devise and then deliver a winning game plan. Our longer-term investments and innovations will continuously compete with the shorter- term gains in an established corporate
FEI 2024 & Key Innovation Perspectives
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