Beef Tips

May 2018 Management Minute

“How Do You Evaluate New Technology?”

By Justin Waggoner, Ph.D., Beef Systems Specialist

Technology is everywhere, even in agriculture.

I am continually surprised by the number of operations that don’t use established technologies with well-documented, positive economic returns. These are successful operations, and thus I often leave the conversation thinking, “This is a good operation, how good could they be if?” On the other end of the spectrum are operations that have implemented multiple new technologies. Some technologies resulted in positive managerial and economic outcomes and some did not.

As a manager, what is your attitude toward technology? Do you critically evaluate new technology or do you dismiss new technologies with excuses like “that’s probably too expensive” or “that won’t work here” without any further evaluation?

Evaluating new technology is difficult, but technology isn’t going away. Thus, the ability to critically evaluate, implement and assess new technologies will become an increasingly important skill of a successful manager.

For more information, contact Justin Waggoner at jwaggon@ksu.edu.

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