In the manufacturing sector, competition is played less and less on the product and more and more on the ability to create value through data and services. This is the assumption from which the reflection of Alessandra benedetti stems, illustrating the renewal path undertaken by SCM Group, a Rimini company with over 70 years of history that builds machinery for processing wood, plastic, glass, stone, metal and composite materials.
The manager used the buffalo metaphor to explain the philosophy behind the “buffalo Project”, the group’s digital transformation program: «the buffalo is the only animal that, when the storm arrives, runs towards it. He knows he will suffer more at the beginning, but he will get out of it sooner.” Likewise, SCM Group has chosen to face the “storm” of a complex competitive context, characterized by increasingly advanced products and low-cost markets that push towards commoditization of the product.
The risk, Benedetti underlines, is that of being disintermediated by the software houses, which over time have proposed themselves as orchestrators of the entire factory data flow. For this reason, “knowing how to make machines well is no longer enough”: we need to rethink the value of the manufacturer as an integrated solution provider, not just products.
servitization and digitalization as strategic levers
SCM Group’s response is along two lines. The first is servitization, that is, the transition from product supplier to supplier of solutions and services capable of generating value along the entire customer chain. The second is digitalization, which takes the form of the systematic use of machine-generated data to build value-added services and new business models.
The path, started in 2012 with the creation of a first transactional portal for the sale of spare parts, continued with the development of an IoT platform in 2016, initially born as a technological experiment. Benedetti recognizes that that project “remained a technological virtuosity in the drawer”,because the market perspective was missing. The turning point came in 2018 with the adoption of a CRM system to map the customer experience and in 2019 with the transformation of the portal into a relational ecosystem, which allows every interaction with the company to be managed digitally.
Since 2022,five digital products have permanently entered the company price list,alongside conventional mechanical solutions. The most recent objective, says Benedetti, is to consolidate a real Data Democracy where data becomes shared heritage and leverage to scale artificial intelligence projects.
Collective intelligence as a driver of innovation
One of the key concepts of the SCM model is that of collective intelligence, understood as the integration of human skills and technological capabilities. «We teamed up data and people to design a new experience of using the machinery», explains Benedetti. The goal is to build a relationship with the customer that is more aware, autonomous and productive.
This approach has led to the creation of concrete projects, such as the control Room, which collects the operating data of the machines within a data platform and analyzes them using machine learning algorithms.