During the recent Kansas State Ranching Summit on the future of the cattle industry hosted by Kansas State University, Dr. Tom Field, head of the Engler Agribusiness Entrepreneurship Program at the University of Nebraska, talked about the concept of disruptive technologies and how they have and continue to influence the beef industry.
“The classic definition of disruptive technology is a concept, idea or leverage, pulled off by a small, young or early entrant to an existing industry that literally rewrites the business model,” Field explained. “The classic example is Uber - the world’s largest taxi company that owns no cars.”
According to Dr. Field, one of the keys of a disruptive technology is that it looks at an industry with fresh eyes sees ways to fix problems within the industry. Field explains that oftentimes, people engrained in a certain area, business or industry will get into a rhythm of doing things and overtime become stuck in that same rhythm. When a disruptor arrives, they change that rhythm through innovative thinking, finding different, more efficient ways of doing certain tasks. One example of a disruptive technology within the beef industry is artificial insemination, A.I.
“It’s a very disruptive technology in its own right that has been adopted by some really forward-thinking producers, and yet we’re a little slow to the game as a total industry. So, A.I. is still a disruptive technology that hasn’t been leveraged to its full point. I think the next big one is real-time animal well-being monitoring (the ability to collect real-time data out of sick animals so a producer can anticipate their needs before it starts to show symptoms),” he said, explaining the benefit of that technology. “We’ll be able to actually find them quicker and lover our total use of antibiotics, antimicrobials. So, I think there are real opportunities in that space.”
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