14. May 2020

This week our first INC virtual semi-annual meeting took place. After a short update on the center activities, the virtual meeting focused on the effects of the Corona Virus. We took a close look at following specific areas:

  • Rethinking TIM – Technology and Innovation Management in and after Times of Corona Crisis
  • The implications and changes in production
  • The environment of the future of the work

In this context, the following theses were established and discussed:

  • The Corona-Crisis might be the biggest challenge and at the same time driver for innovation and creativity in our lifetime.
  • It revealed many weak spots that politics, economists as well as a society now face in coping with the crisis – a fertile ground of unfulfilled customer needs for entrepreneurs to develop new solutions and business models.
  • The company‘s response to it – teaches us a lot about who humans manage the crisis. There will be a growing demand for regionally stabilized supply chains. At the same time, adaptability and responsiveness of production processes and supply chains will be massively increased, and crisis immunity strengthened.
  • The ability to work remotely and control from anywhere (ability to operate) will be crucial in the future for the coordination of distributed sites.
  • Digitalization is not there yet. However, a mindset change has started. With the increased automation and use of robot process automation and AI for administrative and repetitive tasks, employees can focus more on innovation, creativity, and problem-solving.

The following Network Talks will give impulses to discuss the questions that arose. We would also like to thank our members who have supported this interactive exchange genuinely.
All videos of our speakers, as well as the presentations shown during the Exploration Day, can be downloaded in the Documents- section of the online community.