Essential Workers, Essential Tech: Bridging the Access Gap

When Henry Ford founded his company in 1903, his innovations in manufacturing and workforce management became key drivers of economic and societal change, greatly influencing the rest of the 20^th century.

Today, America's industries are again facing fundamental transformation. With technologies such as machine learning and edge AI streamlining many complex tasks, there's a critical need to equip the Essential Economy - those industries and workers that keep the nation running, including construction, manufacturing, logistics, service, and energy - with new and innovative solutions to support the rapid growth and development of these sectors and beyond.

According to new research by Aspen Institute economist Luke Pardue, the link between new ideas and economic growth has weakened in manufacturing, construction, transportation, and related industries in recent decades.

For example, the number of patents issued can be a key indicator of new ideas and innovation. Issued patents in the manufacturing industry dropped from 78% in the 1970s to 42% by 2000 and 30% in 2010. Meanwhile, innovation has grown in white-collar industries such as information technology, where the share of patents has quadrupled from 3% to 12% over this period.

Striving for Simplicity

Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) have long been a key engine of the U.S. economy that drives innovation, contributes to the country's GDP, and fuels employment. As of 2025, the U.S. Small Business Administration reports there are approximately 36.2 million small businesses in the United States. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, they employ nearly half (43.5%) of the American workforce.

It's in our collective best interest to ensure these businesses have the technology and resources they need to thrive. A key theme I hear when I talk to our small-business customers is the need for simple, powerful tools that can eliminate complexity and scale with them over time. However, this sector remains underserved.

Pardue believes that innovations from America's SMBs can play a significant role in driving long-term growth. The challenge: Many SMBs simply don't have enough people or the right resources - especially in terms of tools and technologies - needed to improve efficiency, productivity, and innovation.

The solution: innovative ecosystems that can reach more businesses and help them improve performance, productivity, and generate new ideas as they scale up.

Improving efficiency and productivity through technology to help business customers is nothing new for Ford Pro. Beginning in 2019, every Ford commercial vehicle has included an embedded modem, saving businesses valuable time, money, and effort by removing the need for aftermarket hardware on these vehicles.

Combined with Ford Pro's Data Services and Telematics solutions, the modems provide business owners and fleet managers with real-time operational data on vehicle health, tire pressure, GPS location, driver performance, and other information crucial for keeping vehicles on the road and business moving forward. Today, there are nearly 12 million Ford commercial vehicles in service, and nearly 30% are connected via embedded modems. We expect that percentage to double by 2026.

Embedded modems are just the beginning. They open the door to a much broader range of Ford Pro capabilities designed to maximize uptime and reduce operating costs. Because we're the automaker, data scientist, and software developer all rolled into one, our specialized ecosystem delivers robust, valuable benefits to businesses.

That ecosystem is fueled by data. Our Ford Pro Intelligence platform monitors and analyzes more than 1 billion data points per day from Ford commercial vehicles for business customers. It is the connective thread that links vehicles, hardware, parts, services, and software to more than 640 certified vehicle centers around the world. And it includes the world's largest network of mobile service vans to simplify the repair process by servicing customers where they are.

The outcome is a cohesive experience that proactively helps our customers anticipate problems, make swift data-driven decisions, and boost efficiency. This complex behind-the-scenes work is made simple for customers to integrate into their tools and business processes, ensuring that they experience the greatest possible uptime and have vehicles that are always ready for the day's jobs.

This commitment to maximizing uptime and operational readiness extends to addressing the specific needs of SMBs and tradespeople, often through strategic collaborations. Recognizing that getting powerful tools into their hands is paramount, a recent example is our collaboration with ServiceTitan, the leading software company developing tools to help vocational trades such as HVAC, plumbing, carpentry, construction, and agriculture manage job scheduling, dispatching, invoicing, payment processing, repair parts ordering, and much more.

We're bringing our industry-leading solutions and deep vehicle data together with ServiceTitan's industry-leading platform for a crucial Essential Economy segment: the field service industry, which, of course, includes many SMBs. This new offering will empower this workforce with real-time insights by combining data captured from Ford commercial vehicles via our embedded modems and Data Services solution with ServiceTitan's Fleet Pro Software, providing the trades industry with a comprehensive, real-time view of fleet vehicle data and operations.

Additionally, these customers will be able to more easily leverage the Ford Pro ecosystem to achieve greater efficiency and improved productivity, thanks to proactive vehicle maintenance, access to mobile service and genuine Ford parts, and simplified repairs.

Our overarching goal is to help these customers improve productivity. By avoiding costly downtime, reducing repair costs, and lowering the total cost of ownership (TCO), we are enabling them to put time and money back into other key areas of their businesses.

Looking Down the Road

Innovation has always been part of Ford's heritage, from Henry Ford's invention of the quadricycle in 1896 to BlueCruise hands-free highway driving technology available for customers today. For many tradespeople and SMBs, a work vehicle is their most essential tool. Understanding this, our vehicles, software, and services are designed to help them make the most of it.

In the bigger picture, the Aspen Institute's Pardue recommends that businesses, universities, and leaders join forces to improve America's innovation ecosystem by diversifying models and sources of R&D funding, streamlining the process of commercializing new ideas, and creating more geographical innovation clusters like those in the Bay Area, Boston, and New York City.

We believe in specializing products and services for a diverse range of businesses and making these solutions more accessible. Our approach to innovation fulfills another of our goals: always providing our customers with technology that helps them grow and stay competitive with the pace of business.

Tune in later this month for the Ford Pro Accelerate Summit, where I will join a panel of community and business leaders to discuss the productivity challenges SMBs face and lessons learned on the ground from experts who work hard to get new technology in the hands of the people who can most benefit from efficiency gains.

Kevin Dunbar is General Manager of Ford Pro Intelligence.