Entytle launched a dedicated community for Industrial OEM stakeholders called IndustryNext. The community launch happened through the first edition of the IndustryNext 2021 conference recently.
The event was held on Sep 16, 2020 & by all measures – a resounding success. It featured 6 speakers, 250 participants across 4 continents & 7 time zones representing 62 companies & 14 Industrial OEM verticals as well as 150 min of pure learning & shared experiences.
Industrial OEM leaders with varied backgrounds shared compelling ideas and experiences with the attendees. Some of the main takeaways from these presentations included the high value creation of the aftermarket in an industrial business, how using a data platform revolutionized these businesses, and best practices to get there.
A recurring theme was that the aftermarket is the most profitable form of revenue for industrial companies and “time to money” is relatively quick. Several case studies among industry leaders show that this is the quickest way to create shareholder value. A monetization model geared towards the aftermarket generally takes less than a year to see results compared to other investments that may take 3-5 years to deliver value. Not only is it a quicker way, the revenue is sticky, on average margins are 4x higher, and entitlement share increases. What helps drive this multiplier is that the gross margin is higher, and acquisition costs and churn are both lower. And capturing entitlement share on your installed base is not just a theory; OEMs are already reaping benefits from this model!
Industries across the board are starting to adopt technologies to evolve their business. Unfortunately, the past data collected from legacy systems will not be a driver to revolutionize businesses. Traditionally companies adopted technologies like an ERP, CRM or other systems to keep accurate records to help act as a log and/or “close the books.” This is considered transaction centric data that helps you only dig into information based on what your customers bought, where and when you shipped to them. Another problem with these systems is the inaccuracies and dispersed data. There are pros to this, but does not lead to the path of understanding your customers’ needs. To truly understand your clients, a move to using customer centric data will lead you. This is data that goes beyond the nuances of knowing just the transaction and takes it a step above to find demand using AI. A data platform is the solution to take the transactional information and turn it into actionable information to generate demands for your customers.
Two of our customers that spoke during our event both had similar issues with data when it came time to sell into their installed base. Both faced a long list of perennial data problems preventing action and growth with inconsistencies across their installed base. After they invested in our solution, we were able to clean, unify, and dedupe all of their information. The results gained were full installed base visibility, complete understanding of their customers and actionable insights
This should sound like a no brainer to a change manager to hop on board and use a digital solution to better understand your customers in an industrial business, right? It does sound like the obvious thing to do, but there are many misconceptions and hurdles along the way that champions shy away from. Across the board in all industries and the common themes our speakers brought up is that people believe that perfection is a must. Even with 70% accurate data the results from taking our platform has had tremendous upside to our clients businesses. The best way to move a project like this is gain executive level attention, set high ambitions, understand any org model can work and that execution is everything.
Now is the time for Industrial OEMs to take the leap into using digital solutions before they lose market share and/or get consumed by their competitors.
The next edition of IndustryNext event is tentatively scheduled for Dec 9, 2020 and will focus on industry outlook for the year 2021.