Joep van den Bosch, CIO at Ridder Group
Transforming from a component manufacturer to a leading technology supplier for autonomous greenhouses
Joep van den Bosch explains why Ridder is investing in business innovation: “We strongly believe that innovation is a pre-requisite to creating long term value, if you don’t, you risk becoming a commodity. We identified a future opportunity that fits our purpose.”
What does your new direction look like? “We believe that the future health and happiness for everyone on our planet depends on a safe, sustainable and sufficient supply of food and flowers. Together with our partners, we invest in the evolution of controlled environment agriculture to achieve better growing results by sharing knowledge and providing adaptive technology to growers and farmers.”
How is this different from today? “This direction requires changes on many different levels, to name a few: better insights in growers' needs, embracing new technologies such as artificial intelligence and building an innovation culture.” Finally, any advice to other innovation leaders? “We often focus on technological innovation, but this can’t be realized without leadership innovation".
Did you take the human angle into account when planning your business transformation?