Tag: tilburg

Vice-Chairman of the Board: My experiences

Vice-Chairman of the Board: My experiences

Over the past 10 months, I have been the Vice-Chairman of Asset | IB&M. In this article, you can read about my experiences over the past months and get more insight into what a board year and being vice entails. My name is Mylene van…

External Affairs Officer of the Board: My experiences

External Affairs Officer of the Board: My experiences

Over the course of the past 9 months, I have had the opportunity to be the External Affairs Officer of the Board of Asset | International Business & Management. In this blogpost, I will tell you more about what has made this such a great…

Secretary of the Board: My experiences

Secretary of the Board: My experiences

Over the course of the past 9 months, I have had the amazing opportunity to be the Secretary of the Board of Asset | International Business & Management. In this blogpost, I will tell you more about why I decided to do a board year and what my experiences were.

About me

Before getting into more detail about why I did a board year, the tasks of a secretary and my experiences in general, I will give a short introduction about myself. My name is Cliff de Peijper, 21 years old and grew up in a small village called Oud Gastel. In my second year of IBA, I moved to Tilburg and became active at Asset | IB&M in the IBA Committee. After this first year at IB&M, I went on a great exchange to Hong Kong. In the last semester of my Bachelor, I wanted to develop other skills than in the IBA Committee and joined the Business Club Committee. By being in one of the most time intensive committees, I realized that I really enjoyed my time at IB&M, both because of the fellow members but also the committee work, and was not ready to leave the association yet.  

Why a board year?

As mentioned above, I really liked the two years of being active at IB&M. After finishing my Bachelor, I was not sure yet which Master to do and. Apart from that, I did not feel like being graduated and starting to look for a job in a year from then.  Furthermore, being able to run your own little ‘company’ including several teams, seemed to be an opportunity that cannot be done in any other situation at this age. Apart from that, there are certain skills which you cannot obtain by just studying, that I thought I could learn by doing a board year. These skills include a professional way of communicating, team management, crisis management, and time management. Hence, during my last semester of IBA, I decided that I wanted to apply.

Tasks of a Secretary

As a secretary, there are several core tasks which you will take on. These include: making minutes during board meetings, responding to incoming email and coordinating committees. Apart from that, a secretary has to attend two Faculty Wide Organs every week: the Webmasters Meeting and Secretary Meeting. In these two, you will meet with all fellow Webmasters and Secretaries of other departments to discuss issues that concern all departments or Asset | Tilburg. 

Next to that, there are several portfolios that will be divided among boardies. I was responsible for study support, internationalization, the lecture talk schedule, formal social media and the coordination of 5 committees. This might sound like quite a lot of side-tasks. The reason for this is that a secretary usually has more time available to work on projects because the core tasks tend to take less time than in other functions. Other interesting projects I took on were: having a supportive role in organizing events for the IBA Business Class, representing IB&M in meetings for the upcoming ‘Board Connection Day’ and setting up the new ‘Manager for a Day’ event together with the committee.

In short, a secretary has a wide variety of responsibilities. In this way, you will be involved in a lot of operations going on within the association and you will be in touch with several organs. Apart from that, there is a lot of time to take on projects of your own interest. 

Key skills that I have developed

In the paragraphs above, I have been talking quite a lot about developing myself during the past year. I can imagine that this seems quite abstract, so I would like to point out some of the skills I have developed in the past year.

– Planning
– Leading
– Argumentative skills
– Crisis Management
– Organizing events

All in all, my board year has been a unique opportunity to develop myself, meet a lot of wonderful people, expand my professional network, and above all, have lots of fun. The formal events we organized were a great experience, but of course all our informal events with members were unforgettable and gave my motivation a boost. 

Now it is time for me to continue with a Master and pass my function on to someone else.

Are you possibly interested in becoming my successor? Subscribe for our virtual board information session on Monday March 30 at 13:00 ‘o clock via: https://www.asset-ibm.nl/event/board_info_session/. Moreover, you can always shoot me a message or an email to secretary@asset-ibm.nl to plan a (virtual) coffee to discuss my experiences in more detail and/or answer all questions you might have!

Treasurer of the Board: My Experiences

Treasurer of the Board: My Experiences

For the past 9 months, I have had the pleasure of being the treasurer of the board of Asset | International Business & Management.  Let me start by introducing myself. My name is Myrthe Heuer, I am 22 years old and am originally from Kaatsheuvel,…

Chairman of the Board: My Experiences

Chairman of the Board: My Experiences

Over the course of the past 9 months, I have had the amazing opportunity to be the Chairman of the Board of Asset | International Business & Management. In this blogpost, I will tell you more about what has made this such a great experience…

The Disruptive Potential of Drones

The Disruptive Potential of Drones

What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the word “drone”? I am sure, for many of you, it still has a negative connotation. You might think of warfare, espionage and surveillance. Indeed, drones were invented and first used for military and governmental purposes and looked something like that:

Military Drone
Figure 1 – Source: http://www.valuewalk.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/drone.jpg

 

drone2
Figure 2: Three types of drones on the market

However, in the last ten years, the user base has vastly expanded from the military, hobbyists and academics to general consumers and companies. If you follow the biggest Youtube filmmakers and bloggers, for example, you might have noticed that some of them incorporate aerial drone footage. For the sake of focus, I will restrict my observations to the highest and largest tier of the civil drone market, the professional and commercial areas of application. In the following paragraphs, I will make the case that this tier has the highest disruptive potential. Compared to their military precursors, these drones differ in their appearance and functionality (see Figure 2).

When Amazon first announced their concept for a package delivery drone several years ago, many people believed it to be a marketing stunt rather than a feasible and realistic solution. Little did we know that only a couple of years later they are already doing field tests. Steady progress has been made to lay the grounds for commercial drone applications. Governments – the US and France are more progressive than the Netherlands – are in the progress of setting up regulatory frameworks (compulsory safety certificates, drone pilot license), the public perception towards drones has mellowed, and the technology has become safer and cheaper. The average costs dropped from $ 100.000 in 2007 to $700 in 2013. A whole market worth over $ 500 million (2014) has emerged, and forecasts depict a growth to over $ 6 billion worldwide in 2020, a substantial amount of that will be captured by the commercial sub-market. Looking at these numbers, we can see parallels to many disruptive innovations in the past that have also displayed exponential growth within a short period of time (see Figure 3).

linear-vs-exponential
Figure 3: Linear vs. Exponential Growth – Source: http://www.franciscopalao.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/linear-vs-exponential.jpg

 

Clayton Christensen (1955) defines a disruptive innovation as an innovation that creates a new market and reshapes existing ones, displacing established market leaders. To freshen up your memory on disruptive innovations, watch this video. Since drones stand at the beginning of their market life cycle, their disruptive potential has yet to manifest itself in the coming years.

The advancements of the drone industry are tied to the advancements of their underlying technologies. Chip and sensor technologies, smartphone technologies and cloud computing, also disruptive innovations, exerted the highest impact on the consumer and enterprise world in the last decade. This has allowed drones to become safer, cheaper, and easier to operate. Emerging areas of application for commercial purposes include monitoring of infrastructure, construction, or wildlife; oil and gas exploration; precision agriculture; and mail and small package delivery. What do they all have in common? They replace people! General Electric, for example, utilizes drones to collect aerial images and data on their oil pipelines, power lines and wind turbines. This visual inspection can be done much cheaper, more efficiently, and more effectively with drones, who are equipped with cutting-edge sensors, high-resolution cameras and image processing software, as well as precise GPS. They facilitate better data acquisition, analysis, and subsequent decision making for the end-users. This has huge implications on the whole industrial inspection industry, whose services companies seek to inspect their industrial complexes and infrastructure. They either have to make their services more affordable and convenient to compete with drones, or build up their capabilities to include drones in their services. Using drones to inspect oil and gas platforms and pipelines might also be safer, due to the explosive and dangerous environment. The Dutch government, for example, already imposes safety certifications on drone manufacturers and a pilot license for operators to guarantee safety. The competitive forces in the market confirm how attractive it is. Figure 4 shows the M&A activities since 2011.

MA-activity-in-the-drone-industry
Figure 4: M&A Activities in the Drone Market

There is a trend of consolidation. Electronic component suppliers like Intel or Qualcomm are vertically integrating into the market. By acquiring high-tech drone manufacturers, they tailor and develop their processors to advance drone capabilities (e.g. avoiding obstacles in real time, real time mapping, AI object recognition). This is their strategy to capture a large share of the emerging market. Unlike the consumer market, with established market leaders, the commercial market has yet to be captured. As the consumer drone market is nearing its maturity, incumbents like DJI and Parrot are looking for new growth opportunities by going pro.

The biggest obstacle inhibiting commercial applications to really take off are the potential end-customers. Although some big players like General Electric are willing to adapt, the majority still needs to be convinced, since pilots have to make an initial investment of $25.000 to $50.000 per drone. As with the adaption of any emerging technology, companies display inertia to change, they are cautious and tend to stick to the methods that work for them. Once the first-movers gain a competitive advantage due to the cost and time-saving effects, the majority will follow.

Public safety is of utmost importance, therefore the regulatory framework is constantly adapting to the capabilities of drones and arising issues. The misuse of drones to endanger public safety is always a risk, and incidents could increase the strictness of laws, thus narrowing the user base as well as the areas of application. This is also the reason why the mail and small package delivery service has not taken off  yet. It remains interesting to see where this is all headed and how the market landscape and our skies will look like in the next 5 to 10 years.

As drones for consumer uses are becoming more affordable and smartphone enabled, do you think it will eventually become a commodity? Are you thinking about acquiring a drone yourself or do you already own one? What would you use it for?

I am looking forward to your answers!

________________________

Sources

http://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/global-commercial-drones-market

https://opco2.bluematrix.com/docs/pdf/f575f437-34af-450a-82a3-41d922fae1be.pdf

http://www.forbes.com/sites/markpmills/2016/03/23/drone-disruption-the-stakes-the-players-and-the-opportunities/#506b10d07bc5

http://www.oliverwyman.com/content/dam/oliver-wyman/global/en/2015/apr/Commercial_Drones.pdf

http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/PressReleases/commercial-drones.asp