Buenos Aires | The XV National Agribusiness Forum of LIDE Argentina will debate how to convert innovation into competitiveness

For Laura Loizeau, president of LIDE Agronegocios, data alone does not generate value: the challenge is to have reliable and integrated information and convert it into decisions that improve productivity, reduce costs, manage risks or open new business opportunities. In this sense, he stressed that the question must begin with the problem, not with the technology. The discussion takes on special relevance in a sector in which competitiveness increasingly depends on multiple variables: productivity, access to markets, risk management, financing and the ability to quickly adapt to new scenarios. In this context, technology can be an enabler, but it is not an objective in itself: it can contribute to producing better and using resources efficiently, anticipating risks, improving traceability and responding to more demanding markets. But for this potential to translate into competitiveness, it must be connected to a specific business need. We are seeing a transition from isolated and pilot solutions to a much greater need to integrate data, processes and decisions, said Loizeau. Companies are beginning to demand economic return, interoperability and solutions that can be truly incorporated into the operation, he added. The change, furthermore, exceeds the production stage, since data begins to influence more and more decisions. Much more than the way of production is changing: data is beginning to influence how it is managed, how it is financed, how it is marketed and how the different actors in the chain relate, he commented. And he added: There appears an enormous opportunity to generate and capture new value. These topics will be debated at the XV National Agribusiness Forum of LIDE Argentina, to be held on Thursday, September 24 in the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, under the motto The New Power of Argentine Agriculture. The meeting will address different perspectives of business leadership, the challenges of productivity, innovation and competitiveness that the agro-industrial sector faces. From incorporating technology to transforming the business For Loizeau, one of the keys is to modify the starting point of the conversation. Instead of starting with the available tools, the focus should be on the problems to be solved and the value that is intended to be generated. I am interested in discussing what real problems we want to solve, what economic value we are generating and who captures that value, and also what conditions we need—data, integration, collaboration and scale—to go from interesting pilots to concrete impact, he stated. From this perspective, innovating does not necessarily mean incorporating a new technology either. It may involve developing a different business model, modifying an operating process, accessing new markets or finding new ways to generate value. Innovation is not just technology: innovation is doing something new or doing things better, said the president of LIDE Agronegocios.