2024 Thought Leaders: Cuong Vo

What growth opportunities do you predict for your industry in 2025?

As industries evolve, there will be a growing demand for effective and highly customisable automation solutions. Manufacturers will seek solutions tailored to their unique operational needs, allowing them to quickly adapt to changing consumer demands. This trend will drive modular automation solutions, where systems can easily be reconfigured or expanded.

We are also seeing the rise of sustainable automation solutions gaining traction as industries strive to reduce their environmental impact. These products and systems focus on optimising energy use and minimising waste. Manufacturers that adopt green automation will reduce their carbon footprint and meet growing consumer demand for environmentally responsible products.

As a global leader in fluid control technologies, Bürkert designs products on an open control platform that can easily integrate into existing systems or operate as a turnkey solution. Our flexible system capabilities will be at the forefront of this shift, offering customised solutions that cater to our focused core industries: food and beverage, pharmaceutical, lab and medtech, and energy. This customisation will extend beyond our products and into sustainability development goal standards.

What are the three biggest challenges or threats facing your industry in 2025?

With the recent US election, the anticipation of a broader war in the Middle East, and continued Ukraine and Russia unrest, it is no surprise that political disruption is high on the list.

Due to these macro influences, worries concerning inflation and technological advancements remain major concerns for manufacturers here. The right time for investments is uncertain, as many are waiting for stabilisation within the economy. Together with labour shortages and climate change, these are the major challenges for the years ahead.

To address these concerns, Bürkert promises to continue to meet the demands of our customers’ operational needs faster than ever before. We know the best approach is our ‘smart’ consultation process. We do this by taking the time to understand their challenges, navigating their business processes and adjusting how our solutions can meet their needs.

Bürkert’s recent investments in building our new manufacturing centre in India and modernising our global factories have shown that we recognise the need to bring our production closer to our customers and prepare for the economic upturn.

How is your company reskilling its workforce in new technologies in 2025?

The conversation around workforce talent has shifted towards how to ‘future-proof’ workforces. While past concerns centred on labour shortages, recent rises in unemployment have revealed a different challenge: aligning workers’ skills with the demands of new and advancing technologies.

In some instances, the real obstacle for companies isn’t the number of available workers but instead equipping them with the right expertise to thrive in new roles shaped by advanced manufacturing and automation. The focus now is on upskilling and reskilling, adaptability, and creating an agile, future-proof workforce.

At Bürkert, one of our key breakthrough goals is cultural evolution. The aim is to improve the diversity of our team’s composition and provide a change of perspective. We see the need to shift our mindset as part of reskilling and adapting to our future growth. We value individuality as a strategic advantage and support those competent enough to take on more responsibilities.

How do you see artificial intelligence (AI) influencing your industry in 2025 and beyond?

It’s hard not to talk about the impacts of AI and how it’s shaping our industries for the next decade, both in a positive and potentially negative sense. Most companies are only using AI to enable modest improvements in their back-end operation, but the real value is to improve the customer experience. Manufacturers will harness AI to anticipate needs, personalise interactions and provide proactive support. From chatbots offering real-time assistance to advanced analytics understanding customer behaviour, AI will transform how companies engage with customers. Predictive models will enhance product recommendations, while AI-driven sentiment analysis will ensure tailored responses to feedback. Voice and natural language processing will refine communication, making customer interactions seamless and intuitive.

At Bürkert, we’ve recognised the importance of leveraging AI to drive customer-centricity. We’re already undertaking a number of projects to implement AI tools to execute tasks such as onboarding a client, customer service projects, and chatbots that can answer FAQs, track orders and provide personalised product recommendations. Also, cyber protection with fraud detection tools to uncover suspicious activity in real-time and protect our customers’ data is an essential step towards AI improving our user experiences.

Cuong Vo, General Manager at Bürkert Australia, boasts over 20 years in process control and automation. Specialising in guiding medium-sized organisations through transformative changes, he prioritises customer-centric approaches for sustainable growth.