In the United States, manufacturing is a huge sector. Its importance to our national and global economy is evident in how many white- and blue-collar jobs are integral in each process. From plastic injection molding to hydraulic valve assembly, manufacturing is likely found in nearly every industry.

With such an all-encompassing sector, it’s no surprise that disruptions run rampant, though even during COVID-19, many manufacturing businesses were deemed essential, keeping their doors open and employees on-site. However, just as many sent their white-collar office workers home to shelter in place and do their job remotely.

This is something the manufacturing industry likely never considered prior to the boom of the Internet and, now, the increase in connectivity with 5G. Yet what these companies must realize is, even now after COVID-19, digital disruption is going to get even more prevalent in manufacturing.

Agility Alone Is Antiquated

We’re all aware that there are timeless leadership principles that have been true since the dawn of time and that will continue to be valid in tomorrow’s business environment. Yet in today’s world of technology-driven transformation, leaders must embrace a new leadership principle if they want their organization to be relevant today and in the future—a focus on anticipation over agility.

Even in the wake of COVID-19, manufacturing leaders have focused on agility—being able to adapt quickly after change has occurred from the outside in. Many of these types of changes are driven by technology, but during 2020, change has been physical and largely unpredictable. COVID-19 influenced many in the manufacturing industry as priorities shifted. Companies like Ford Motor Company shifted to building ventilators and 3M adjusted to produce PPE.

And among these massive changes, many office employees worked from home until further notice. There were astounding, never-before-seen statistics showing evidence that working from home actually increased productivity, as many were able to eliminate distractions and likewise felt more at ease doing their work flexibly.

Though as we moved into the new normal, many manufacturing firms quickly shifted those remote workers back to in-person work, almost running from change with frightening fervor. An outsider can tell that this knee-jerk reaction to thinking they can “end” the need for remote work is a direct reflection of a company’s focus remaining on agility.

Learn to Anticipate Instead of Avoid

Manufacturing companies’ race to bring their entire staff to in-person work seems as though they thought embracing a remote workforce was a temporary solution; a band-aid they had to rip off to get back to the status quo. If they resisted a simple, commonplace change like that, imagine how they will fight back against machine learning or augmented reality (A.R.), a way in which blue-collar workers could operate remotely.

COVID-19 and the global pandemic will end, but many of the transformations that occurred during this largely physical disruption will remain and are indisputably going to continue to evolve as digital disruptions in the industry. With the emergence of 5G connectivity, the low latency of such a digital connection will pave the way for integrating artificial intelligence (A.I.) and the aforementioned augmented reality (A.R.).

There are certain companies already embracing these technologies around the world, allowing for employees ordinarily put out of a job due to these advancements to work alongside them, on-site and remotely, and keep their jobs.

Many firms try their best to avoid digital disruption; however, that agility can only last so long. Leaders and organizations in the manufacturing industry have the chance to learn how to be anticipatory immediately, paying attention to the Hard Trends that are shaping their industry both inside and out, and learning to leverage technological change before it disrupts them.

Be the Positive Disruptor

When you’re anticipatory, you’re creating changes and driving disruption from the inside out rather than being disrupted from the outside in.

Disruption is the disruptive technology that changes our world and keeps many leaders up at night. But it is important to realize that disruptive technology is only disruptive if you didn’t know about it ahead of time. When you’re anticipatory, as many manufacturing firms should transition to, you can not only see and accurately anticipate those disruptive technologies, but you can use them to be the positive disruptor, transforming the industry in productive ways.

Manufacturing firms implementing something like A.R. to allow an employee to operate remotely like never before may increase their morale and, in turn, streamline their job better than ever before. From there, your firm may be able to increase productivity while saving money on physical space.

As the industry evolves, perhaps you will only need one or two individuals on-site to ensure these machines run efficiently, while everyone else works remotely, translating into a smaller space to do more with.

How Do I Become More Anticipatory?

First, you have to make the future more visible by focusing on certainties. If you look closely, you’ll see there are two types of change you routinely deal with: cyclical change that reoccurs time and again, and linear change that happens once and transforms an industry permanently.

Next, identify the Hard Trends—the trends that will happen—and ask yourself, “What are the disruptions on the horizon?” How we do our supply chain, purchasing, logistics, and many more functions in manufacturing is being transformed by technologies like the cloud and virtualization.

Finally, look outside your industry for the solutions you need. Manufacturing firms have a tendency of focusing solely on their isolated worlds. However, by being so immersed in your industry, you may be missing what’s going on outside your industry. Look outside your industry and see where others have been innovating, what changes they’ve made, technologies they’ve developed or adapted, and then modify those to your situation.

There’s no competitive advantage in being just like everyone else. That’s why being anticipatory is so important. What do you see that’s about to happen, and how can you use anticipation to leverage disruption and change to your advantage?

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January arrives every year and brings with it some credit challenges for those who may have over indulged on their purchasing in December. Record online sales and spending on holiday gifts are nice, but may bring about a few “Sudden Credit Surprises” for your clients. Here are a few examples:

A client with a marginal credit score or already high DTI goes crazy with credit card purchases in December. The possible surprises are:

• Now total DTI exceeds program limits
• Lowers amount they can borrow
• May eliminate them from a loan completely
• Possible MI challenges
• New accounts
• New inquiries
• New credit lines that all require explanation/documentation

People with higher credit scores and no DTI issues are also at risk for being a victim of holiday season for the same reasons, and while not in jeopardy of losing their ability to borrow, the costs maybe higher than once before.

• Those in top tier pricing programs may fall out to a lower tier raising the cost.
• Those who fall out may experience severe price shock if they were locked in at a low rate before Christmas and now have to lock a lower tier credit score loan with today’s higher rates.

What if any or all of these things happen and you don’t find out about it until right before closing on the final credit check? Do you really want to run around trying to get a rescore or documentation cleared a few days before closing?

It’s time for every originator to review every file that is closing from now until the middle of February and have a quick conversation with each borrower to be sure we don’t have any last minute surprises! You may have to make a few calls, you may not have any issues, but what if you find just ONE HIDDEN CREDIT CHALLENGE and are able to correct it in time to avoid a delay or the termination of one of your deals?

Things are challenging enough without any more surprises! Spending a little time with borrowers and even those you have out looking with preapprovals may be in a position to fix some potential challenges because you called!

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The advantage of Zero-Based thinking is that you are starting with a clean slate! There should be few pre-conceived notions with your primary focus on how to best go to market and take great care of your customers based on what’s going on today (and the days, weeks and months forthcoming). 

Three opening action items to participate in are recommended:

1. A new SWOT Analysis – SWOT Analyses (An assessment of current Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) can be very revealing. It is suggested that you have several of your smartest people participating in this exercise. Incidentally, if you do one every year, it should look different every year. This speaks well of the concept of constant fine-tuning of your business strategies and actions rather than doing what you have always done!

2. Have in-depth discussions with your top 5 customers. Identify the agendas of the top 2-3 people running those companies if you can get to them. If you can’t, talk to the most senior officers you can. Find out what is critically important to each of them and how you/your company might be able to positively impact them. Get passionate about providing the best and most targeted products the marketplace wants.

3. Put together “Deliverables Meetings” with 4-5 key people in your company to ascertain what you should add to or delete from your current product line or service offerings. Make sure you do Item #1 and Item #2 before you do Item #3 for best results. These can be some of your most important decisions going forward. When you vary your offerings from your competition, you have purposefully differentiated yourself in what is probably a crowded marketplace.

 With a Zero-based thinking approach you can also consider such important areas  as: employee compensation, capital expenditures, advanced marketing plans, and various areas of expansion and contractions.

It is also a good time to do a “Deep-dive” on research. The knowledge mass of the human race is now said to be doubling approximately every 3 ½ years! What’s changing in your industry? To assume not much is changing is usually a serious miscalculation of your current reality. What are some things that might well be changing?

1. Customer Needs

2. Employee’s priorities

3. Latest technologies in your business

4. Latest technology changes in general

5. Special or new applications of products

6. Financial applications

7. Expanded service requirements

8. New windows of opportunities

9. Closing windows of opportunity

10. Compensation in your industry

These are just some of the elements of change in a typical business. Give in-depth thought to others that would apply to your business and stay on top of current issues. It is better to figure out how to capitalize on changes rather than becoming a victim of them!

I suggest that you make a list of actions to cease and actions to take – with timelines. And ask yourself who should be “in the loop” on the various activities mentioned for best results. Be as creative as you can in tapping the collective intellect of your team members for best results.