Hexagon PPM’s 9th customer event in Las Vegas (June 10- 14th) signals a compelling, differentiated vision of where it is headed to its 3,000 user audience
by Keith Henry, Client Advocate, June 2019
Important Details
Hexagon’s thought-provoking leader, Ola Rollén, chose to resist the traditional CEO card listing company achievements, sales growth and acquisitions albeit the firm’s performance is solid – focusing on a different theme that “data can save the planet”.
The essential hypothesis is that the firm needs to stand and be counted in the critical mission to avoid the planet ‘s continuous slide to what is termed “the – 2050 DoomWatch point of no return”.
This represents a bleak assessment supported by Hexagon’s own set of fact-based data intelligence that planet earth is on the dangerous course for oblivion caused by mankind’s short-sighted actions in terms of wastage, CO2 pollution, poor efficiencies and short-termism.
Significantly, Ola and his leadership team see no conflict of interest in pursuing this noble strategy versus focusing on the business imperative of driving shareholder value. On the contrary, Ola sees them as mutually reinforcing –i.e. “data – as the new oil” – represents the crucial enabler for underpinning the environmental corrective action programs, eliminating waste and improving performance.
This requires a conscious “wake-up” and education at all levels as the scale of the problems are immense. The facts show data creation is dangerously ramping much faster than data consumption or usage – this is a wasted opportunity, the value in this data is being ignored. Therefore, Ola concludes that making data more accessible, autonomous and optimal is the best business opportunity for the industry in general – and Hexagon global in particular.
In the context of Hexagon PPM division (Process, Power and Marine) the leadership teams are embedding a business culture where they stop telling customers about products – that used to be very much the legacy. The message needs to be of course about “solutions” – and ideally more about (measurable) business outcomes.
This flavor of external messaging is endorsed at the CMO level. David Cryer; head of global marketing for PPM, favors “Insight –Led Marketing”. The starting point is to understand customer “job roles” which leads to an exploration of what specific
business and technical problems clients struggle with specific to a job function – that can be solved by data. The premise is that customers are more receptive to messaging from Hexagon that has relevancy and speaks to solving well-defined day-to-day problems. So this can be the entry point for the use of data as a strategic asset.
As Chuck Gill, Head of Go-to-Market & Field Development for PPM puts it – “we have had to change the way we think about ourselves.”
Why this matters
- Hexagon PPM is making a deliberate and significant shift in its Go-to-Market messaging. Hexagon PPM is showing the way to differentiate itself in an increasingly complex engineering software landscape with overlapping ecosystems.
- Notwithstanding its vast portfolio, it has found a way to keep solutions simple and effective. Its business imperative is to focus on measuring business outcomes. Its Insight- led market messaging is around “bite-sized solutions” in relation to customer job role relevancy.
- The pursuit of environmental improvement programs along side business objectives is seen as synergistic – not a conflict of interest. This is because the management believes “data” represents the enabler for environmental improvement actions – and is therefore as David Cryer maintains, – “a super business opportunity”.
- Hexagon PPM continues to thrive in its traditional market segments and industry verticals. The untapped Building and Construction segment represents the next growth and penetration challenge. It will be interesting to observe how impactful its differentiated Go-to-Market strategies will be in a segment where its brand recognition is much lower and adoption of new technologies is less evident.
