Business intelligence from a down economy

Every situation in life presents opportunity. Sometimes it's just hard to figure out what the opportunity is. One of the opportunities of the present downturn in the economy is for packaging machine builders and technology providers to gain some intelligence about future business opportunities and pitfalls.

There is something about extremes. Extremes highlight trends that might otherwise be obfuscated by the clutter of the ordinary.

As I've probably mentioned before, I was educated as a physicist. That education continues to have a great influence on my thinking after 35 years of not practicing physics. One of the techniques that physicists find useful is to test ideas at their boundary conditions. If equations behave in a reasonable way when you plug in the numbers zero and infinity, or some other physical boundary condition, then the ideas represented by the equations gain some credibility and the results are often instructive.

The present economic circumstances certainly qualify as approaching a boundary condition. If we look at how life and business behave at this boundary condition, we can gain some insight into trends for the future.

One trend that I've noted is that packaging machinery companies that are employing advanced technologies are doing rather well. While packagers may have been reluctant to jump into robotic or other mechatronic applications in good times, bad times have forced them to reconsider. I believe the down economy has accelerated movement toward certain technologies and that this accelerated movement is indicative of the future.

I suspect that the contrary is also true. Those products and technologies that were in decline have been accelerated toward extinction by present conditions. This too can be turned into an opportunity, even for those who were dependent upon those dying products. Rather than allowing a long slow death to gradually sap a business of cash, doing business at the boundaries has made the situation more obvious. The right decision may be to kill the losers quickly and move on.

If you are wondering where the business will be when the economy improves, look at yourself and your competitors. Strong backlogs indicate a trend. No backlogs indicate a trend. Test your business at the boundaries and gain insight to guide your future.

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Comments The focus on track, trace, surveillence, and outcome measurement in healthcare will drive change in labeling equipment. Same for food. Variable text labeling and verification will go to new levels. AIDC will change healthcare and food as much as UPC changed the grocery store. Posted by: napoleon monroe on March 31, 2009 Keith, I really enjoy reading your blogs. Keep up the good work and the fresh ideas! Posted by: David Humphrey on March 31, 2009 I agree with you. Posted by: Nusrat on March 31, 2009 Brilliant! Your training in Physics has served you very well!!! Posted by: Jorge Romero on April 1, 2009 LEARNING FROM A FAIRYTALE To help the US to stay in the competitive field, is to first help the tax payers who are being taxed to death. Only fools kills their golden geese that lays their golden eggs. 2ND. For big businesses to recruit serious people in training programs who want to get off of "welfare" to "wealth fare." In such an economical turmoil the best way is economic labor through the welfare system, ages starting form 25-65, in exchange for a better pay check, some employee perts and welfare benefits. I'm doing a social-economic research paper on how the past rescues the future. Keep up the great work, lord knows our present and future needs it, "desperately!" Whet would presidents Lincoln, Roosevelt,and Kennedy recommend to USA's present Crisis? Many thanks and fighting with faith. Johnny Posted by: Johnny on April 6, 2009 Post a comment (If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.) Name: Email Address: URL: Remember personal info? Comments: (you may use HTML tags for style) Type the word 'packaging' (required):