Senior Vice President of Corporate Development, CNH INDUSTRIAL NV
IT Week 2022, Michele Lombardi (CNH Industrial): "Il futuro dell'agricoltura tech e sostenibile"
Michele Lombardi, Senior Vice President of Corporate Development di CNH Industrial, ha spiegato quali possono essere le ...
About Michele Lombardi
Michele Lombardi, Senior Vice President of Corporate Development at CNH Industrial, spoke at IT Week 2022 about the future of agriculture and technology. He stated that climate change is a significant challenge and that technology can help imagine a different agriculture, with investment leading to greater attention to the environment, work, and people while increasing agricultural intensity. Lombardi described zero-impact agriculture as realistic, encompassing not only pollution reduction but also alternative propulsion and enriching soil by reinserting CO2. He noted that machines are becoming "basically computers" that are almost fully autonomous. Lombardi discussed CNH Industrial's approach to innovation, including dialogue with startups to maintain agility and learn from new ideas. He mentioned that the company has acquired Raven, which he described as a large group and a hub for innovation, and also invests through a venture capital arm. Lombardi said that Italy is accelerating in this transformation and that the "genius in Italy" is finding a context for startups with potential to change the industry. He also acknowledged a significant global crisis impacting agriculture, including the war, energy crisis, and drought, and stated that the company must learn to adapt.
Transcript (14 segments)
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Host0:00
We have here then this series of meetings that we used to tell how this country is changing, how large companies interpret it. Jim, we saw artificial intelligence at the service of our physical fitness, our well-being. Let's start with Michele Lombardi. Madam, please, Michele.
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Michele Lombardi0:19
Thank you, Riccardo. We were talking about it a moment ago while we were waiting, that it defines on Wikipedia. You are obviously a multinational that was born in Turin in 2012, but you have a history of 180 years, the second industrial revolution. That is the address of INPS, 80 years of innovation. Absolutely born in America, then consolidated with a manager with Europe, and now we have a global company at the frontier of technology. It was born with tractors, but today it is much, much more. It was born with tractors, even with static combine harvesters, and since then it has grown a lot and is much more.
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Host1:12
Before talking about products, let's talk about vision. How do you see agriculture from here to 2030, a fairly near future? What needs to change?
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Michele Lombardi1:22
The challenge of climate change is significant. Technology can give us an important hand to imagine a different agriculture. The change is now very fast. Investment in technology and innovation on several fronts are extremely significant and are leading us to attention to the environment, attention to work, to people, and to an increase in the intensity of agriculture to feed a growing world. Is zero-impact agriculture realistic? I believe yes, absolutely yes. Zero impact in the broad sense, not only pollution, so alternative propulsion, but also enriching the soil by reinserting CO2 into the soil, which over the years has been somewhat depleted. We talk about greater safety, about work that allows a much higher intensity of agriculture but with great ease, with machines that are almost completely autonomous. Today, agriculture must have many technological skills to do its job.
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Host2:29
Well, I imagine that category too. Absolutely, the profile of people in agriculture has changed a lot. The machines are basically computers, almost already completely autonomous, with the ability to sense what is happening around them and adapt the work they are doing in real time. Let's talk about Italy, which on agriculture and food is one of its great strengths. How are we experiencing this transformation?
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Michele Lombardi3:01
Italy is accelerating a lot. We have heard it in several speeches. Europe in general has had an incredible acceleration. Some countries have been a little faster, like France. What we are seeing in Italy now is that the genius that exists in Italy is finally finding a context that allows the birth of startups that truly have the potential to change our industry. A group, a multinational like ours, shows how it lives the relationship with startups. Are they potential competitors that want to take away your market, or in an open innovation perspective do you try to collaborate to take the best of what exists, perhaps by investing? Certainly the second. On several dimensions, on one hand we need dialogue with startups to stay agile, to continue learning from people who have new ideas, what could be new developments, and also to understand how we can contribute not only directly but through this restructuring to the development of these innovations. On the other hand, we find startups so interesting that we end up investing in them to help them grow and start this dialogue that leads to the growth of the startup and ours.
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Host4:15
Is it a dialogue that also involves investments in startups? Do you acquire them, bring them in, do you have an accelerator? What model do you use?
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Michele Lombardi4:22
We have different dimensions. In some cases we buy them and believe there is more value in bringing the startup team inside our organization. We bought Raven, a very large group, the largest investment that has been made since its birth, which now represents a hub of innovation for us, to which we aggregate the startups we buy. In other cases, instead, we invest with a technical brief, like a benchmark. We have our corporate venture capital, we invest to intensify this.
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Host5:21
Where we go we will discover, and for that we maintain this dialogue with these companies because we have to explore with them. Anyway, you are right, we are going through a phase in which some startups have the potential to bring a complete disruption to what has been a fairly stable industry over the years. I took a note of something on your site: 'What we look for: great teams.' That is the most important thing. I was talking about it last night at the event with a venture capitalist and we completely agree.
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Michele Lombardi5:58
The most important thing we look for is that light in the eyes of the entrepreneur, of the genius who had the idea. That is the most important thing. Then we give them all the resources, the opportunity to implement and develop that idea, but the most important thing is the team, not the person. That person and the team they brought with them, the ability, the courage, and the ambition. And we are there to try to give them all the tools so that that ambition can be realized.
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Host6:25
The other day, Samantha Cristoforetti, who is our commander of the International Space Station right now, made a video on TikTok that was quite controversial because her fans supported her a lot, while others didn't talk about it at all. She ate a cricket and blueberry bar, cricket flour and blueberry, and explained something that has been talked about for years: that already two billion people on earth eat insect-based food and there is only a cultural barrier. What do you think about this?
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Michele Lombardi7:03
I think she was very brave, honestly. I would have some cultural barriers. But what she said, what we are seeing, is happening. In the sense that people's diets in the world are changing. The intensity of protein consumption is rising significantly. Protein actually requires many resources, so we have to figure out how to guarantee protein for everyone. It can be a tool, a source for example for animal feed. Can we make that insect-based food the food of human beings? That is the issue. The first, perhaps easier, they don't have the cultural barrier. I don't know. Anyway, this transformation is also changing companies like us, because if you think about it, it is changing agriculture in a musical way. The demand for agricultural commodities is changing and we have to learn to adapt. We are on the eve of a very delicate moment. We are in the middle of a very significant global crisis that has an important impact on agriculture as well. It was talked about because of the war, but not only because of the war, because the energy crisis also reflects on what happens in agriculture, not to mention the drought. We titled this event 'A Better Future'. From your point of view, does the future improve despite the worrying scenario?
Agriculture has always historically had an enormous impact on the environment and on people. The development we are having in terms of sustainability on all aspects will greatly improve not only the quality of the food we eat but also the impact that agriculture has on people.
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Host8:44
Thank you, Michele Lombardi. Thank you. Good luck. Bye.