How to Convert a Drones (UAV) Business Strategy into Tangible Outcomes
1 February 2022

The use of drone UAV is predicted to grow significantly during the 2020s split between defence and commercial consumer customers. The commercial sector already has many use cases where UAV’s are critical technology platforms undertaking numerous tasks. The demand for UAVs is being led by the increase use of artificial intelligence resulting in businesses embracing UAVs at a faster pace with more efficient and cheaper means of operating than what was experienced with previous drone technology.

EarlyBirds, an Australian company that manages a business to business (B2B) open innovation ecosystem that offers a way for early adopters, innovators, and subject matter experts (SMEs) to get together and form partnerships to hasten technology advancement, wants to show how to convert a drones or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) strategy into tangible business results. Businesses have been using drones or UAVs for a broad range of activities, such as disease control, logistics, security tasks, data collection, defence operations, including a broad variety of other uses, such as the nascent use for personal transportation. Platforms and control systems for drones have been emerging at a very fast pace due to the convergence of different kinds of technologies and materials, such as artificial intelligence, computer vision, object avoidance, and more.

With drones increasing in capability and accessibility, they are having significant impact on businesses, such as the taking over of many high-paying but very dangerous jobs. Reasons include better safety and health, and cost reduction opportunities across a wide range of tasks that have been heavily dependent on human labour.

One example of the potential use of drones is Amazon, which wants to challenge the traditional shipping and postage system that has remained as the primary way of shipping and handling for online retailers. Amazon has been planning Amazon Prime Air, which is a drone delivery system that is capable of anticipating package deliveries in 30 minutes or even less. However, this particular program is still in development. While the economic and financial impact of the use of drones are definitely advantageous, the regulations of the Federal Aviation Administration in regards to privacy and safety issues have delayed the launch of the Amazon commercial drone service. At present, drones in the US are only allowed for military use. In response, Amazon has resorted to testing this new concept in the UK with tests in Cambridge proving to be successful. They have also launched and undertaken testing in Canada and Australia.

The use of drone UAV is predicted to grow significantly during the 2020s split between defence and commercial consumer customers. The commercial sector already has many use cases where UAV’s are critical technology platforms undertaking numerous tasks. The demand for UAVs is being led by the increase use of artificial intelligence resulting in businesses embracing UAVs at a faster pace with more efficient and cheaper means of operating than what was experienced with previous drone technology.

Whether drones or UAVs are already being used by a business or the company is still planning to apply them, it is vital for companies to gain a better understanding of the emerging technologies and how they can provide the business with a better competitive edge. EarlyBirds can play a role in helping a business determine their drone technology needs and operationalise what is required to be able to attain their business objectives through the use of drone technology.

EarlyBirds can help businesses identify their specific strategy for the use of drone and UAV technology. This help can be provided through the EarlyBirds global open innovation ecosystem that includes their platform presently hosting well over four million innovators, including SMEs who can provide technical and business guidance to Early Adopters.

EarlyBirds Edzlity strategic framework is purpose designed to create self-learning organisations to achieve continuous improvement by solving challenges quicky using innovative solutions. It can achieve this with the assistance of the EarlyBirds open innovation ecosystem and their assisted programs Explorer and Challenger. The Explorer program’s purpose is to speeding up technological innovation for the entire organisation that is delivered as a service. It has a number of primary features, including: weekly webinars to help stimulate innovation knowledge in the organisation; a nominated SME for the business; a platform enterprise license; quarterly and monthly innovation days; and a focus on certain innovations. The Challenger program is designed for those who want to focus on particular problems of the business one at a time.  The EarlyBirds B2B open innovation platform holds a dynamic data set of in excess of 4 Million startup, scaleup and mature innovators with highly advanced search, discovery abilities plus capabilities for managing Innovation Projects and Innovation Pipelines.

Those who would like to learn more as to how the EarlyBirds can assist organisations in successfully applying technological innovations can check out the EarlyBirds website at  earlybirds.io.