Life sciences giant Bayer is using the latest technology to drive change in three very distinct areas of its business: agriculture, pharma, and personal healthcare. Training and developing a new breed of leader is paramount to success, Sarena Lin, the company’s Chief Transformation and Talent Officer, tells Misiek Piskorski
Digital transformation has been a company-wide exercise for many large companies for years. But Bayer, the German life sciences company, is taking a unique approach to each of the company’s three main divisions of pharma, crop science, and consumer health.
That’s because the needs of the end customers in each of the three divisions is different.
Crop science
Farmers who were previously sold seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides now need data-driven insights to help them cultivate crops more efficiently. This means moving into software and data.
“Ultimately, if you think about what science tries to do, it’s really driving much better efficiency, much better precision, and also convenience for our farmers – and eventually for consumers,” said Sarena Lin, Bayer’s Chief Transformation and Talent Officer, in a podcast with I by IMD.
This starts with data science, which can provide digital tools which give predictive and prescriptive capabilities to farmers in terms of when to plant, how to plan, and how to carry out crop protection to get the best yield through the most efficient use of products.
“That’s a critical ecosystem in terms of the number of variables that need to come together, powered by truly analytical skills behind the scenes to empower the farmers to do what they need to do in terms of making better decisions,” said Lin.