What's Your Edge?

Laura Patterson-VisionEdge Marketing President
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Helping you use data, analytics, process, and measurement to create an edge for you and your customers.

  1. Mar 3

    Breaking Through Stagnant Growth with a Customer-Centric, Process-Driven Approach | WYE?

    Today’s episode explores the transformation of a legacy business in the fire protection industry, a sector that is highly regulated, fiercely competitive, and faces ongoing price pressure and low barriers to entry. Perhaps some of you can relate. This is also an industry where many companies experience long periods of stagnant growth or workflow. It’s not because demand disappears, but because differentiation erodes and internal complexity quietly increases. Our conversation is with Shawn Mullen, President and Chief Energy Officer at Protex Central. The company has been serving mission-critical facilities for 60 years. When Shawn took the helm in 2017, the company’s revenue trajectory was flat. Essentially, a parked car in an industry where standing still means falling behind. What’s especially interesting is that the market itself was growing; yet Protex Central wasn’t. That gap between market opportunity and company performance became the catalyst for change. Fast forward to 2025: revenues have doubled, margins are up, and project overruns are down. Let’s find out how Shawn accomplished these results. Shawn, welcome to What’s Your Edge? Industry Challenge: Why Growth Stalls in Mature Markets  Let’s begin by framing the fire protection industry. The U.S. Fire Protection System Market is set to grow from USD 25.94 billion in 2024 to USD 32.26 billion by 2030, at a CAGR of 3.60%. Even so, it is considered an established industry marked by intense competition, thin margins, and constant regulatory scrutiny. This combination often creates a false sense of momentum, where the market grows, but individual companies struggle to translate that growth into improved performance. Shawn, when you took over Protex Central in 2017, what did you see as the biggest challenges? Was there a specific moment or insight that made you realize the company needed a fundamentally new approach? Laura, thanks for the opportunity to visit with you and your listeners today.  It truly is an honor.  When I bought the majority interest from my dad, I had been with the company for over 32 years.  We all knew our single biggest challenge was sales.  But no one on the leadership team, at that time, had a solution to move us forward.  For too long, our corporate mindset was “we wanted what we got” instead of “going and getting what we wanted.”  At that time, I didn’t know how I was going reverse that mindset, but I knew this:  I must get outside of my current echo-chamber and expose myself to other business professionals. So I joined an executive coaching and peer-to-peer advisory group.  I threw myself into all it had to offer – great business speakers, other local business owners, and a talented business coach.  The cumulative effect of being a part of that group was an understanding that it was me – the Chief Energy Officer of Protex Central – who had to change first before I could ask our team to change.  It didn’t happen overnight – in fact, it took me about four years to really get in the groove of working with my coach and asking myself the hard questions that I knew had to be asked and wrestling with the answers. The Value of Customer Segmentation: Profiling for Profitable Growth  One of your first moves was to analyze the attributes of successful versus non-successful customers. This kind of customer segmentation is essential for sustainable growth. We often work with our customers to help them profile their best customers and use those insights to shape acquisition and retention strategies. Many organizations believe growth means more customers, when in reality it often means the right customers and the discipline to say no to the wrong ones. You concluded that to grow, Protex Central needed more of the right customers and a better process to acquire them. Can you share how you approached this analysis? Other than revenue, what are some of the key attributes of a successful customer? Was there anything in the data that surprised you or challenged long-held assumptions about who your “best” customers really were? Wow, great observation, Laura.  You’re spot on.  We did have to “triage” our customer base and determine the qualities of our best customers.  What we found was that our best customers were not necessarily our largest revenue volume customers, but rather, they had attributes that were common across all verticals, systems, and services.  Things like longevity of relationship, a trusted communication style between their team and ours, a designated internal champion for fire/security related systems and services, as well as an expressed progressive corporate recognition of keeping their employees, properties, and processes safe.  Lastly, we had to determine if our value proposition fit within their budget and their expectation.  Again, this didn’t happen overnight, and it hasn’t stopped.  In fact, that discipline continues. Oh, and plus, the good customers always pay on time. Process Mapping Created the Roadmap for Strong Performance Gains  I imagine there were a lot of implications to the company once you identified the customers you wanted to serve, including how to market and sell to them. Process mapping provides clarity, uncovers inefficiencies, and enables organizations to optimize for performance and operational excellence. In our experience, unclear or inconsistent processes often show up as margin leakage, project overruns, and frustrated teams—long before leaders recognize process as the root cause. What were the most significant changes you made to your business processes? How did process mapping help you drive measurable improvements? Wow, another keen observation, Laura.  To be fair, our process mapping at the time was more like Crayola Crayons and Big Chief Tablet paper rather than ChatGPT or GROK.  It was old school for sure. The key benefit was that we were able to see gaps not only in our sales process but also in our engineering, sales ordering, and pre-engineering/installation processes.  Those gaps are now eliminated, but the mindset – and yes, I keep coming back to that – the mindset has changed for every touchpoint in our organization, and that is this: “am what I’m doing helping us want what we get or are we going out to get what we get?”  I believe my role as a leader is to reinforce, champion, and recognize that mindset at every opportunity. Download the CC Worksheet Align the Brand and Customer Value to Boost Messaging  As you transformed your customer base and operations, you also recrafted your marketing messaging. Consistency and clarity are critical. From our experience, we have found that a well-articulated positioning and messaging strategy elevates growth and competitive advantage by ensuring every touchpoint communicates value.  Messaging isn’t only about external communication. It’s a strategic alignment tool that influences sales conversations, customer expectations, and internal decision-making. Shawn, how did you approach this messaging overhaul? What changes made the biggest impact on how Protex Central is perceived today? Laura, this question keeps me up at night.  Are we as Protex Central really consistent across all of our touchpoints with a consistent message?  I fancy myself as one who has articulated at any number of inflection points within our company that I sense that we’re delivering on the consistency of execution and message, but without a sterile and objective measuring tool, I can’t be sure. Maybe it’s part faith and part hope, but given that we have such a very low attrition rate compared to our industry, my sense is we’re making it happen. The Direct Impact of Playbooks on Sales Performance  One of the things I know you invested heavily in was sales training and playbooks. We often say that a powerful sales playbook is more than a script. It’s an alignment tool that ensures everyone is clear on the process, the value proposition, and the customer journey. For many sales teams, adopting a playbook requires unlearning habits that once worked but no longer support growth. Can you briefly walk us through how you built and implemented your sales playbook? What were the most important elements, and how did it change your team’s performance? What was the most difficult shift for the sales team to make? Laura, our playbook is always in flux.  We have intentionally developed it to be a dynamic document that is responsive to changes in the marketplace, regulatory environment, and other outside dynamics. To your question about the difficult shift for our sales team, I would have to say that the emphasis on discipline of daily KPI’s was the biggest challenge.  As I often say, every crusade needs a crusader, and I saw it as my responsibility to be that crusader.   Phone calls, emails, text messages, and the like were and continue to be part of the effort to work “ON” the business rather than “IN” the business.  Standing Out: Service Quality as a Differentiator  In industries like yours, there is ever-present risk of becoming a commodity because it can be difficult for customers to distinguish your offering from others. In this situation, price often becomes the only differentiator, and the race to the bottom begins.  When that happens, growth slows, margins erode, and customer relationships become transactional rather than strategic. How did you ensure Protex Central avoided this trap? What role did customer service play in setting you apart? Once again, Laura, you’ve hit the nail on the head.  Creating the differentiation was a challenge. We had to really had unterstand our value proposition to the customer:  we’re local,  we’re thought leaders, and we are reliable.  In fact, as consolidation in our indstrutry as accellerated, we emphasized that we have local ownership that’s involved in the community.  We, as a

  2. 12/02/2025

    How a Culture of Innovation Fuels Growth | What’s Your Edge?

    In this episode of What’s Your Edge? we’re focusing on a foundational driver of sustainable growth: innovation. Research from McKinsey suggests that companies that prioritize innovation generate significantly higher growth than their peers. In one study, “innovation leaders” achieved 2.4 times higher total shareholder returns than laggards over a 10-year period, underscoring that innovation is not a “nice to have,” but a core driver of long-term value.  As everyone listening knows, true innovation isn’t a one-time event or the product of a lone genius. It’s a disciplined, iterative effort, woven into the culture and operations of high-performing organizations. You may have read our article “Massive Action Leads to Business Growth, Innovation, and Operational Excellence,” where we explored how companies that operationalize innovation, where it is everyone’s responsibility, are the ones that consistently outpace their peers.  Today, we’re talking with Ed Trevis, President and CEO of Corvalent, an industrial computing manufacturing company, whose leadership journey offers a compelling blueprint for transforming a legacy business through innovation.  Welcome Ed!  Thank you, Laura, for inviting me to this episode. You’re absolutely right that induced innovation can drive profound transformation. In my 32 years of leading the company, we’ve experienced multiple moments where we had to break from the norm and pivot, whether for technological advancement, shifting markets, or economic and financial pressures. As CEOs, we must maintain a healthy paranoia about the possibility of becoming obsolete, and it’s often in those moments that real action and breakthrough innovation occur. Innovation Cannot Be Exclusive to Products and Services   Ed, I’m so glad you mentioned that innovation starts at the top. And that Leaders must set expectations, model curiosity, and foster accountability. Ed, you’ve led Corvalent since its founding in 1993. Can you share the pivotal moment when you realized Corvalent needed to embrace a culture of innovation? What was the catalyst for this shift? Purchase Your Growth Plan There were several moments in the life of our organization where we had to be more than innovative, but there was one that I even wrote in my Portuguese book about innovation. The chapter is called “The dangerous silence and how demotivation threatened our future”. We faced a silent, but devastating problem: employee demotivation. A widespread feeling of stagnation, low engagement from employees, and a disconnect from the real impact of their work. It was like their tasks just felt like simple tasks, without a greater purpose. Over time, this created a cycle of dissatisfaction, low productivity, and no personal growth.   Worse still, when a team loses the belief that their work doesn’t matter, the team loses vitality.  Disconnection was subtle, but became very evident:  Teams were less collaborative, silos were created throughout the organization, resistance to change, and in some cases, great talents left the organization.  When we identified the silent problem, we realized something fundamental. It wasn’t enough to innovate products and services; we needed to innovate in how we managed people and culture.  I like your phrase, the silent problem. We know from our experience that no transformation is without challenges. Changing culture, especially in a long-established company, requires trust, communication, and clear incentives. How did you secure buy-in across different teams and functions?  Innovation became part of the strategic pillar within our corporate objectives. A living practice throughout the company, across every single department.  We needed to change mindsets.  Talk about Catalytic Coaching (process implemented to stimulate personal and professional growth as well as instigating innovation, pursuit of excellence, and positive change)  Critical thinking, engagement, and energy  Incentive programs, awards and etc.  As a result, we gave everyone a voice, encouraged participation, promoted exchange of ideas, made innovation part of everyone’s life at Corvalent, as well as personally.  Focus on the Entire Organization to Operationalize Innovation Making innovation a part of everyone’s life at Corvalent was quite an undertaking. At VEM, we believe innovation flourishes when it’s systematic and measurable. Encouraging innovation in every part of the organization, from HR to finance to product, and setting a target to innovate every year is a great example. How did you structure the expectation that every team would contribute to innovation annually? What systems or processes did you put in place to support this?  One of the main objectives of our yearly strategic planning is Innovation.   Every department in the organization develops what we call “Rocks” for the year based on corporate objectives. These rocks are like S.M.A.R.T. goals. They are thought of and established before the end of the prior year. Every team member, either individually or in groups, is assigned within every department to help accomplish those goals.  Innovation is always a main corporate objective; the company may have ideas of innovation to be implemented for the year, and teams set them up to support the corporate objective.   Sometimes, the best ideas come from unexpected places. Can you share an example of an innovation that surprised you—perhaps one that emerged from a department not traditionally associated with product development?  As a designer and local manufacturer of industrial computing solutions, it operates through a well-structured organization with multiple departments, including sales, engineering, production, and shipping. Recently, our marketing team developed a new website architecture and design that clearly separates our two distinct product lines, hardware and software, each serving different industry segments. The result is an intuitive, easy-to-navigate, and highly functional online experience that effectively communicates the full scope of Corvalent’s capabilities.  Exploit Listening, Adapting, and Iterating for Innovation Success  That’s a great example. Innovation must solve real problems. You created a new platform, which provides preventive and predictive maintenance data, that was developed in response to customer needs for reducing downtime and costs. What is the name of your platform, and what customer insights or market signals led to its development? How did you validate the need for this solution?  CorGrid Suite is an industrial IoT platform that integrates both software and hardware components, providing a complete solution for data collection, monitoring, and intelligent control across industrial applications.  Key industry segments we focus on today are Industrial Automation Process, Smart Machines, Smart Energy & Utilities, Oil & Gas, Petrochemical, Smart Building and Infrastructure, and Smart Cities. Over the last decade, we observed that our capital equipment customers were closely following the global adoption of Industry 4.0 among large manufacturers. Through continuous conversations and analysis of their competitive environment, we identified a key objective shared across the industry: the need to implement preventive and predictive maintenance, along with some level of operational control of their equipment.  Building on this insight, we designed a solution framework not only to meet those needs but also to empower customers to manage and resolve field issues more effectively, all through a unified, single-pane-of-glass platform that integrates monitoring, tracking, and control.  As we know from “Ensure Strong Innovation Adoption,” even the best solutions can face adoption barriers. Despite a clear value proposition, you mentioned the initial adoption rate was lower than anticipated. What did you learn from this experience, and how did it influence your approach going forward?  Our segments focus, acquisition of proof of concepts, and creation of a full turnkey solution to help customers from assessment, software, to hardware, to installation, are a key part of our approach. A large majority of prospects are not prepared to implement the entire automation on their own, so we developed a process to support customer implementation.  Addressing the Unexpected When an Innovation Enters the Market Successful innovators are relentless iterators. When adoption lagged, Corvalent didn’t just push harder on existing customers. You looked outward, identifying new verticals like smart buildings, smart energy, and smart cities, and leveraged beta sites to build credibility. How did you and your team identify and prioritize these new verticals? What role have beta sites played in gaining traction and validating use cases?  We conducted two years of consultative marketing research and a pre-sales exercise prior of having specific applications designed under our PaaS platform. This enables us to understand the pains of each segment, challenges, market potential, customer ROI, and competitive landscape.  Ed, iteration is a recurring theme in your leadership. How do you foster a culture where experimentation and learning from setbacks are valued?   Learn by doing is part of our culture, the positive state of mind of going through the experience, whether it is a success or a failure. Strategic thinking and Planning, post-mortem, lessons learned, and true positive reinforcement leadership style. Knowledge + Experience (good or bad) = Wisdom as an organization  Measuring Success and Scaling Innovation  We advise our customers to measure not just outputs but outcomes, using clear metrics and feedback loops. What metrics or k

  3. 10/21/2025

    How to Use Analytics to Drive Customer Engagement and Growth | WYE

    You’re probably experiencing what so many of our customers do.  Data pouring in from every direction. Transactions, digital behavior, product usage, customer feedback, and more. As organizations have amassed more information, the real challenge has gone from data collection to translating data into actionable insights and business intelligence. At VisionEdge Marketing, we’ve found that a data-driven culture is a foundational capability for sustained growth and customer-centricity. (See Why a Data Driven Culture Needs to Be at the Top of Your List). To explore this topic, I’m delighted to welcome Kuber Jain, Senior Data Scientist for Product Analytics at Headspace. Headspace is a leader in the mental health and wellness space. He is an expert at leveraging analytics to drive member engagement and retention. Kuber and I share a similar philosophy.  The key to gaining better insights from data is asking the right questions. Kuber works closely with the Chief Product Officer and Product Managers, leading efforts to define the key metrics that matter and to leverage insights for optimizing business outcomes and delivering more personalized member experiences. Today, he helps us unpack how to use analytics to drive engagement and growth, explore practical first steps for any organization, and discuss how AI is reshaping the analytics landscape. Most importantly, we’ll focus on how to move from simply having data to making smarter, faster business decisions. Welcome Kuber! Thank you, Laura. I’m really excited to be here. In my current role at Headspace, I focus on enhancing member engagement and outcomes by partnering closely with executive stakeholders to define key metrics, size business impact, and lead experimentation initiatives. What excites me most is the ability to translate data into decisions that not only drive growth but also make a meaningful difference in people’s mental health journeys. For me, analytics is about more than dashboards—it’s about helping people connect with the product in a way that improves their lives. Gain Actionable Insights by Asking the Right Questions  With so much data available, the most valuable skill in analytics is knowing what to ask. The right questions focus your attention, clarify your objectives, and ensure you’re measuring what truly matters for business performance. At VEM, we regularly advise clients to “count what matters”—to align metrics with business outcomes, not vanity numbers. Framing the right questions is a competitive advantage. For example, in our work with B2B organizations, we seethe difference between teams that ask, “How many users did we acquire?” versus those that ask, “Which acquisition channels yield the highest lifetime value, and why?” The latter question leads to actionable insights and better resource allocation. Kuber, as a Senior Data Scientist at Headspace, what are the most important questions you’re asked to answer by product and business leaders? How do you determine which questions will drive the most value for the business? That’s such an important point. At Headspace, the most valuable questions I’m asked are the ones that tie directly to outcomes—like, “Which experiences are most likely to help members build a lasting habit, and how do we double down on those?” I prioritize questions based on their connection to impact. If a question can help us retain members longer, drive more meaningful engagement, or identify opportunities to grow sustainably, it rises to the top. And often, my role is to reframe questions so they shift from “what happened?” to “why did it happen, and what can we do about it?” That’s when analytics becomes a real driver of business value. Download the CC Worksheet Act Now to Boost Customer Acquisition & Retention Once you’ve defined the right questions, the next step is turning insights into action. This is where many organizations struggle. They have the data and maybe even the answers, but translating those answers into growth strategies is another matter. The key: Take a customer-centric approach. Use data to understand your customers’ journey, identify and eliminate break points, and design interventions that improve both acquisition and retention. For example, map out your customer touchpoints and use analytics to pinpoint where prospects drop off or disengage. By focusing on these critical moments, you can create better experiences or adjust product features to better meet customer needs. Kuber, how does your team at Headspace translate data-driven insights into actions that drive customer acquisition and retention? Can you share a practical example where analytics led to a measurable improvement in member engagement or business results? Translating insights into action is where the rubber meets the road. A big part of my work is making sure the insights we generate are embedded in product and marketing decisions. For example, one insight we uncovered was that members who completed their very first meditation within 24 hours of signing up were far more likely to stay engaged over time. Acting on that, we partnered with product and lifecycle marketing teams to redesign onboarding nudges—making it easier and more natural for people to take that first step right away. That single experiment created a measurable lift in retention and long-term engagement. It shows how small, insight-driven changes can unlock real business impact. Practical Steps for Leveraging Analytics — At Any Level  Many organizations, especially those early in their analytics journey, feel overwhelmed. They may lack the resources of a Headspace or the infrastructure for advanced analytics. The good news is that you don’t need to be a data giant to get started. At VEM, we recommend a stepwise approach: Start by aligning your team on business outcomes. Identify a handful of key metrics that map directly to those outcomes. Establish a regular cadence for reviewing results and making adjustments. Avoid “random acts”—let data drive your priorities. In our experience, organizations that follow these steps and create a data-driven culture —no matter their size—see measurable gains in both efficiency and impact. Research has found that organizations with a strong data-driven culture are 58% more likely to exceed their revenue goals than those that are not data-driven. Kuber, what practical first steps do you recommend for teams that want to use data more effectively, whether they’re just starting out or already have a robust analytics function? How should they prioritize their analytics investments? My advice is: start small, but be intentional. First, align your team on a few core outcomes that matter most to the business. At Headspace, we rally around metrics like retention, daily active engagement, and outcomes tied to well-being. Second, build a cadence of review and action. Even if you don’t have advanced AI or a large analytics team, you can ask, “What story is this data telling us, and how do we respond?” And finally, invest in the basics: clean data pipelines, clear metric definitions, and cross-functional alignment. Once that foundation is set, you can scale into advanced analytics and experimentation with confidence. In my experience, even small teams see outsized impact when they focus on discipline and clarity over complexity. How to Make Smarter Customer-Centric Decisions with AI Well, we certainly cannot have a conversation about data, analytics and insights without touching on Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI is rapidly transforming how organizations unlock value from data. AI can automate the discovery of patterns, surface hidden insights, and enable more personalized, predictive experiences. At VisionEdge Marketing, we’ve explored how AI enhances user intent detection and customer-centricity—making it possible to anticipate needs and deliver the right message or product at the right time. The market is moving quickly: According to Gartner, 61% of global data and analytics decision-makers say their firms are implementing or expanding AI capabilities to drive business outcomes. But AI isn’t just for the data-rich or tech-savvy. Even organizations with limited data can benefit from AI tools that help identify trends, segment customers, or automate reporting. Kuber, how is AI changing the way you approach data analysis and member engagement at Headspace? If you’re a business leader with limited data, how can AI help you get started? And if you have lots of clean data, what should you be doing to maximize value and competitive advantage? AI is changing how we work every day. At Headspace, we use AI to better personalize member experiences—like tailoring recommendations based on behavior—and to automate parts of our  analytics workflows so teams can focus on strategy instead of manual reporting. If you’re just getting started, AI can help with simple but powerful tasks like segmenting customers, identifying common drop-off points, or even automating reporting. For organizations with richer datasets, the opportunity is to move toward predictive modeling—anticipating when a member might disengage, or recommending the next best action in real time. The key is to treat AI as an accelerant. It’s not replacing the human element, but it enables us to ask bigger questions and act faster on the answers. SaaS, Product-Led Growth, and Lessons for Every Company  Headspace, like many leading organizations, operates on a SaaS and product-led growth model. This approach relies on analytics to optimize every aspect of the customer experience—from onboarding to engagement, retention, and upsell. Product-led growth puts the product at the center of the customer journey, using data to inform everything from feature development to support strategies. Lessons from SaaS leaders are broadly applicable: Use an

  4. 09/30/2025

    Behind The Scenes of a Competitive Go-to-Market Strategy | What’s Your Edge?

    In this episode of What’s Your Edge? we’re joined by Doug Norton, Chief Marketing Officer of Inspire Semiconductor, a company founded in the early days of the pandemic that’s now launching its groundbreaking Thunderbird “supercomputer cluster-on-a-chip.” Doug is a veteran in the semiconductor space. With Doug’s help, we’re going behind the scenes of a Go-to-Market (GTM) strategy and talk about what it really takes to bring a new product to market, and how mapping the right ecosystem, focusing on customer needs, and measuring what matters can make or break a product launch. Please join me in welcoming Doug to What’s Your Edge? The First Critical Go-to-Market Decisions  Doug, you joined InspireSemi at a critical juncture. One of the first things you did was make a strategic decision not to chase everyone, but to focus on market segments that were underserved. We believe that segmentation and customer-centricity are critical to the success of launching a new product. Can you walk us through your process for mapping the ecosystem, selecting your initial target markets, and how you decided which segments and partners to prioritize? That’s exactly right, the very first thing was to determine the markets we would – and just as importantly, would not – go after. Believe it or not, the initial target for what ultimately became our Thunderbird was crypto mining.  Our founder saw a lucrative opportunity for some undervalued alt-coins due to the focus on Bitcoin, so he initially created an ASIC for a couple of these algorithms. It was a technical success, but for just a short time, since, unlike Bitcoin, the alt-coins constantly change their algorithms, making an ASIC (Application Specific IC) a dead end. This convinced him what was needed was a very versatile and easy-to-program chip that, of course, also needed to be very energy efficient to profitably mine crypto.  Our CEO, who was an advisor at the time, saw the potential for this to be a much broader and more significant device.  So they brought me on shortly thereafter, given my background in AI and HPC (High Performance Computing). My favorite business book is Blue Ocean Strategy. I suspected the right answer was not to chase the bright shiny object of AI like everyone else, since that is a very “red ocean.”  Just as important, I have partnered with NVIDIA in the past and knew better than to compete head-on with them.  What I could see happening was the HPC market, who invented and drove the h/w and s/w infrastructure AI now leverages, was being left with few options as all the chip companies rushed to cash in on AI. HPC encompasses important applications used every day in the real world for engineering, science, and manufacturing. Areas like computer-aided engineering, finding and producing energy (both renewable and Oil&Gas), vehicle crash simulation & analysis, genomics, financial modeling, nuclear fission and fusion simulations, climate & weather modeling, and cybersecurity. The underlying need for all of these big math problems is highly accurate math, which requires double-precision floating point (aka FP64).  Meanwhile, all the GPU players and AI chips were chasing very low-precision math that GenAI LLMs require (currently 8-bit, moving to 4-bit). It sounds like you realized you needed to pivot, and once you had clarity on the target market, you were able to lock down the feature set, design, and specs. In your industry, this is often completed years before the product launch. Drawing on your experience, what are the biggest lessons learned so far? Buy Your Best-Practices Workbook Never assume anything, especially if creating a product that will take years and millions of dollars to get to market like a high-end semiconductor. Once we knew the market we were targeting, it was important to ensure product-market fit. So, I reached out to my network and did this, with a key decision being which memory technology we should use. Fortunately, most of our choices were exactly what customers and OEMs wanted to see for the HPC market. But including them in the process was important, helping them buy in early. Most importantly, it gave our team, our investors, and our Board of Directors the confidence to move forward with product development. 3 Key Elements to Improve Your Opportunity for GTM Success  You also mapped the ecosystem.  You recognized that your core customers would be big computing centers, national labs, and OEMs in sectors like aerospace, automotive, and pharma. Knowing what the customer needs and values and how your product delivers is essential to creating the positioning, messaging, and strategy. At what point did you address the value proposition, positioning, and messaging in the Go-to-Market strategy? Yes, that was the next step, now that the target market and competitors were identified and engineering was off and running. Another nice thing about focusing on HPC was that open-source software is highly valued. I learned early in my career that hardware is just a platform for software. HPC users were the first to adopt the Linux operating system, and 76% of all HPC applications are open source. And it is often these DOE national labs, universities, and supercomputing centers, including UT TACC here in Austin, that work with these applications and can help port them to a new hardware platform like our Thunderbird. And big enterprise companies in markets like aerospace, automotive, energy, and pharma partner with these organizations and draft off their early work. But we also don’t want to ignore that 24% of software that is commercial, so we have also engaged with some key ISVs in these application areas. To jumpstart the S curve, we needed to get software development going, so we launched an early access program with select customers.  We provided them with simulators and emulators to get going prior to us having actual silicon, and they will be the first to receive the initial Thunderbirds. The ideal scenario is that these orgs will recommend Thunderbird for these apps, or even say they run best on Thunderbird. Ensure You Know the Customer Journey Long Before the Product Launch  Thank you. Having launched numerous products, I know a lot goes into successfully bringing an innovative product to market. It’s a high-stakes endeavor.  Research from MIT Professional Programs found that as many as 95% of new products miss the mark. With so much on the line, having a robust Go-to-Market strategy and the right success measures is more critical than ever. Success depends on what happens long before the product makes its way into the market. What we refer to as Upstream Marketing, that is, where customer insights, competitive intelligence, and strategy are addressed to help ensure faster product adoption. What are the most critical steps you took in the pre-launch phase to support customers rapidly adopting the product, and how did you engage channel partners and technical influencers to build early momentum? For sure, never underestimate this. From the ecosystem work, it was clear to me that the best Go-to-Market path was to leverage what works rather than try to change it. This meant the initial product should be a standard PCIe server add-in card that the computer OEMs and integrators would sell. Customers don’t typically just buy compute accelerator cards and replace the ones currently in their servers.  They buy new servers populated with the new accelerator cards. Plus, Linux has also become the de facto datacenter OS of choice, so the computer OEMs typically ship their servers with Linux. But the challenge with an indirect model vs. direct sales is that they don’t work for you. You can only influence and encourage them. The key was to engage with the OEMs early on, in parallel with doing business development with our target end-user customers and markets. This let them hear early customer feedback, so they saw firsthand customer reaction to our value propositions. It also built trust, demonstrating we are committed to an indirect channel by bringing them in early. Then there is the financial aspect; the old saying is that salespeople are coin-operated. The server OEMs often lament that a compute accelerator card can cost as much as an entire server, and each server usually has many of them installed. The icing on the cake was that they can get a much higher deal size, with much better margins, by working with us. We also continued to work with important industry analysts and various technical press, plus participated in the key trade shows both here and in the UK and Europe. The Vital Role of Alignment in Securing Customer Opportunities  Stakeholder engagement is one of the many key success factors. You’ve talked about the importance of getting both technical and business analysts on board, and now you’re focused on procurement contacts. That’s a complex and multi-layered approach. How do you ensure internal alignment across the InspireSemi team, especially between product, sales, and marketing members, and also with your external partners? Yes, though engaging deeper into our OEM partner organizations is just the next logical step on the journey. This includes continuing to work with the CTO offices and now engaging with server product teams for validation, and of course, the procurement people. Another good thing about our early access program was that it was a paid engagement, so it was a bit of a pipe cleaner to work with those procurement teams and see what they were going to require. For alignment, the key was all of us getting on board with the strategy initially as we pivoted to HPC. This, of course, meant the leadership team and employees, but that was perhaps the easiest part. And I own both sales and marketing, so that alignment is by default. What took more work was that we also had to get our early investors and Board of Directors to agree and stay co

  5. 08/26/2025

    How Leveraging Ecosystems Improve Customer Experience and Drives Growth

    Victor Gichun, Vice President of Business Development at Excess Logic, a nationwide leader in surplus equipment and electronics liquidation, offers businesses a seamless way to manage excess and obsolete inventory. What sets Excess Logic apart is its ability to create value through a robust ecosystem of providers and a laser focus on customer experience and competitive differentiation. In this episode, Victor shares how Excess Logic has engineered its customer-centric processes and ecosystem strategy to create value and growth, differentiated itself in a crowded market, and aligned its operations to deliver measurable results. Victor, I’m looking forward to your insights and hearing how Excess Logic’s ecosystem and differentiation strategies have enabled it to create value and drive growth. Your story highlights the importance of aligning resources, fostering collaboration, and standing out in a crowded market. High-Impact Ecosystem Takes Customer Experience to a New Level Victor, let’s start by discussing the challenges your customers face. Managing surplus and obsolete equipment is a complex and often overlooked part of business operations. What are the most common challenges your customers encounter, and how does Excess Logic help them overcome these hurdles? Hi Laura, thanks for having me here. One of the most common challenges our customers encounter is what to do with the excess equipment and electronics they no longer need. In the US, companies can’t just throw it into a garbage bin; they need to dispose of any electronic equipment properly to make sure it doesn’t end up in a landfill and doesn’t pollute the environment. Excess Logic solves this problem. It sounds like Excess Logic provides a lifeline for businesses struggling with these issues. Given your commitment to creating customer value, how do you ensure your solutions are tailored to meet the diverse needs of customers across industries? To ensure that our solutions are tailored to meet the diverse needs of customers across industries, Excess Logic established a surplus equipment remarketing and disposal ecosystem across the nation. This is something that differentiates us from the competition.  Competing on a Differentiated Customer Experience Facilitated Growth Excess Logic operates in a very competitive and cluttered market, making growth challenging. Yet the company is growing by focusing on customer experience. How do you differentiate your company from competitors, and how do you embed these qualities into your operations and service delivery? To differentiate Excess Logic from competitors, we provide a one-stop solution. Any company has different departments with different types of equipment and electronics. The IT department has laptops and computers, the research department has analytical and R&D instruments, the production department has manufacturing equipment, and so on and so forth. A one-stop solution covers all departments and all types of surplus equipment anywhere in the US at once. A lot of our current clients, and we have over 500 clients now, used two or more different vendors for each location before they started working with Excess Logic, because each vendor they used before helped them dispose of a particular type of excess equipment. If the company has 15 locations, it works with 30-45 different vendors. As a result of our extensive provider network and streamlined logistics. This makes for a better customer experience and major cost savings, which drastically improves our customers’ bottom line. We believe firmly in understanding and mapping the ecosystem and using the ecosystem to identify prospects and better serve customers. It’s a powerful growth strategy. Your nationwide reach and extensive network of providers are impressive.  How does this ecosystem enhance your ability to serve customers efficiently and effectively? This is a very good question. Since 2018, when we started working with Google Excess Logic has developed a true nationwide network. This ecosystem allows us to provide same-day excess equipment removal services anywhere in the US, except Alaska and Hawaii. This flexibility allows our customers to feel confident that the excess equipment sitting in the way of the new equipment will be removed on time and disposed of properly or resold for the maximum value. Get the Growth Gap Analysis Achieve Better Customer Experience with Data-Driven Insights We have found in our work that customer experience is often the linchpin of long-term success. Where does customer experience fit into your company’s strategy, and how do you ensure it remains a top priority? Over 50% of our business is repeat customers. This is because our clients, once they receive our services, prefer to use Excess Logic again and again because it’s easy, dependable, and valuable. Besides the value of removing and disposing of excess equipment, Excess Logic remarkets excess equipment to recoup the investments our clients made into equipment. Our ability to sell it via online marketplaces to end users and recover the maximum value makes our service invaluable. In our experience, customer experience plays a critical role in customer retention and lifetime value. Data is critical to making sure you deliver what customers want. Without good data products and services, especially new ones, can end up being a market flop. While data is no guarantee you’ll have a hit, it can go a long way toward improving your odds of success. What data do you use to stay ahead of trends and continuously deliver value to your customers? This is another very good question. Since we sell surplus equipment via online marketplaces, we need to make sure that the asking price is right. Excess Logic uses one of the most advanced data sources that shows how much surplus equipment has been sold for the last 90 days anywhere in the world. This data allows us to put surplus equipment on the market at the right price and therefore recover the maximum value for our clients. Data is a powerful tool for identifying opportunities and driving innovation. What are some examples of data-driven insights that have enabled you to be more customer-centric? We use a unique system that provides us with the actual prices the equipment we are selling has been sold for. This system integrates all major online marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay, Alibaba, Rakuten, and many more. Based on this information, we set the asking price, which is the highest price the market can pay. This insight allows Excess Logic to sell surplus equipment for much hire prices than traditional auctions or competitors that don’t have access to this system. Operational Excellence with Analytics Improves Customer Experience and Growth Operational excellence is at the heart of delivering consistent value. McKinsey’s article on analytics and asset management highlighted the importance of analytics and insights in the asset management space to improve distribution effectiveness, investment performance, and productivity. What steps has Excess Logic taken to leverage analytics and insights to improve the efficiency of the ecosystem and enhance the customer experience? Automation, combined with our nationwide ecosystem, enables us to scale efficiently while maintaining high service quality.  For example, this allows us to schedule 5 pickups a day from five different locations and provide unified reports within one week. It’s clear that your focus on process and operational excellence has positioned Excess Logic as a trusted partner for businesses nationwide and accelerated your growth. Boost Growth with Analytics, Operational Excellence, and a Dynamic Ecosystem As we wrap up, is there any advice you have for other companies looking to reengineer their processes for growth or create an ecosystem? My advice to the listeners. If you run a business or want to start one, here are three things to consider: Find an edge, meaning, what would make your company stand out from your competitors. This is crucial for success. Hire only top performers. The first five people you hire will define the future of your company. If you hire underperformers, they will hire underperformers too. If you hire top performers, they will hire people alike, and every new hire will make your company stronger. Implement a compensation system that depends on the results. Average, not high salary and bonuses, and commissions for meeting KPIs. Such a system is a good filter for underperformers. Victor, thank you for sharing your insights and giving us a closer look at how Excess Logic leverages analytics, automation, and a powerful nationwide ecosystem to deliver operational excellence and enhance the customer experience. Your story highlights the powerful role of aligning processes, outsourcing, and leveraging data to scale efficiently while maintaining high service quality. We welcome a conversation with you if you are looking to drive growth, focus on operational excellence, and/or create a seamless customer experience through data-driven decision-making. FAQ: (written by Penn of Sintra.ai) Q1: What customer problem does Excess Logic solve—and why is it more complex than it looks? A1: Excess Logic solves a high-friction, high-risk operational problem: how to remove, dispose of, and/or remarket surplus and obsolete equipment—especially electronics—legally, responsibly, and efficiently. For many businesses, this is not a simple “clean-out” task. Regulations and environmental constraints mean equipment cannot be casually discarded, and operational realities mean excess inventory often blocks new equipment deployment. The complexity is compounded by multi-location footprints and multiple equipment categories across departments. Q2: How does Excess Logic tailor its solution across industries and customer situations? A2: By building a nationwide remarketing and disposal ecosys

  6. 06/10/2025

    It’s All About the Value Proposition to Successfully Compete | What’s Your Edge?

    Most of us operate within a hyper-competitive marketplace.  A compelling value proposition is a critical business asset and one of the most effective competitive differentiators. Companies that succeed in attracting and retaining customers are those that focus on delivering exceptional customer experiences and creating measurable customer value. In this episode of What’s Your Edge?, we explore how Rebecca Woan, founder of Chartwell Insurance Services, a boutique property and casualty insurance provider, built a thriving business by staying true to a customer-centric strategy, using her firm’s value proposition to stand out in a crowded field, and foster long-term loyalty and growth. Rebecca and her team recognize the importance of making customers feel valued and finding value. Rebecca, congratulations on building a customer-centric organization.  I know our community is eager to hear what you and your team do better and differently to deliver value to your customers. What we do is anything but radical.  We take care of people.  We had a retail brokerage that specialized in a very different end of the business, and I had a number of prospects in the high net worth or what is also referred to as the “successful individual” space.  I found markets and serviced them to effusive praise. I thought to myself, I’m just taking care of them.  Then I asked myself why their brokers weren’t taking care of the, and then I had the lightbulb moment that there was perhaps a business opportunity in being responsive and educating clients. This was the recipe for our growth, along with a team of people who care as much about clients as I do.  There is no substitute for hiring good people. Attract Customers Who Want Value and a Good Reputation Let’s jump right in.  I love this topic because we truly believe that a compelling, meaningful, and relevant value proposition is at the heart of finding, keeping, and growing the value of customers. It’s what enables companies to gain market share and charge a premium price.  You operate in an extremely competitive industry. I did a little research and learned that there are over 4,000 property and casualty insurance companies in the US and that the top 25 have nearly 79% of the market share.  And that the average churn rate for the industry is 16 out of every 100 policyholders. Rebecca, what is your value proposition, and how has it enabled you to retain and create loyal customers? Insurance is often sold on price, especially in the consumer sector.  We’ve all seen the name your price commercials and the you’ve been paying too much commercials.  We work with clients who recognize value over price and not as an unavoidable and unwanted expense, but as an important means to protect their real and personal possessions and help guard against assaults on their assets through liability lawsuits from aggressive third parties.  They also want to be placed with insurers who have a reputation for fair and generous claim settlement.  Not everyone is fortunate enough to make that choice, and that’s the market we operate in.  Buy Your Best-Practices Workbook Empower Your Employees to Deliver the Promise of Your Value Proposition I’ve heard you say that “the most recent interaction is the interaction the customer remembers.” We love Jan Carlzon of Scandinavian Airlines book, Moments of Truth.  He defined a “moment of truth“ as any interaction with a customer or any event in which a customer uses or experiences a company’s product.” A moment of truth has a huge impact on customer satisfaction, retention, and advocacy. Employees are the keepers of moments of truth.  What have you done differently to empower your employees to deliver exceptional interactions? That’s so true, however, you can only empower employees once you know they are well-trained. It’s important to have mentorship and make employees part of the conversation so they learn by hearing and observing.  We also share experiences and how we solve problems, so we can be collaborative and offer a team approach to service.  It doesn’t serve a customer well if the one person who knows about their program is out sick or isn’t available.  Having well-documented files makes it easy for someone else to pick up. This requires constant reinforcement, and more than once, I have one of my team members reminding me when I need to do a better job.  No one is perfect, and the converse is also true, so we all have to own our mistakes.  I firmly believe customers cannot be fooled, and they appreciate an apology and a fix more than a cover-up, which only gets worse over time.  The idea that customer experience is essential for long-term growth is not new. For a decade, Gartner has been saying, “companies will compete primarily on the customer experiences they deliver.” Even so, many companies still struggle to map the customer journey and eliminate the breakpoints. Earlier, you said that the challenge is to consistently make customers feel valued and find value in the product.  Process is an integral part of creating customer value.  What kind of processes have you implemented to engage customers and deliver a superior customer experience? I remind my team that we cannot assume our customers understand all the nuances and the insurance lingo, so we need to clarify in our communications.  We start with a welcome call to let clients know what to do in case of an emergency, to call us first, and that we have an emergency 24-hour emergency service.  We are very proud of our collateral materials, which are clean and easy to read for proposals and reviews.  We also follow up conversations with emails to memorialize, because you can never over-communicate, in my opinion. Meet Customers at Their Comfort Level for Better Customer-Centricity  People might not connect innovation with insurance.  Yet you talk about the need to think outside the box and to innovate as a critical factor for competing.  What kind of innovations have you developed, and how have they enabled you to outmaneuver the competition? I’m not sure we have outmaneuvered the competition, but we have looked at how AI can improve our communication and education, and I believe this will be a critical differentiator going forward. I’m delighted to now be part of a larger organization. We sold to EPIC, which has a large national footprint, and they have the resources for the budget that this really needs.  I do feel that in the short term, there will be an advantage for the larger brokerages that have the resources to implement these AI strategies. Two of the many things we have in common are our passion for customer-centricity and strategy. We believe that a good strategy that is customer-centric and well-executed has the ability to positively impact a market and a company’s competitive position. What kind of customer-centric strategies have you employed, which ones have been the most successful, and why? We are in the service business, so I don’t think we could be anything but customer-centric.  We have people who communicate.  We make phone calls to deliver difficult news, and in this very hard insurance market, we have a lot of that.  We like to meet customers at their comfort level. Some want a lot of automation, and others want more interaction.  We’ll make file notes about issues that are specific to them, or how to best approach them, or if one spouse prefers to delegate to another, or if it’s important to include both spouses in interactions.  Crafting a customer-centric strategy takes solid data about who your customers are and which ones are a good fit. I imagine in your industry, it is essential to be able to hone in on the right segments and personas. Rebecca, what data does your firm use, and how do you use it to find, keep, and grow the value of customers? And how do you use the data to distinguish an ideal customer from one that isn’t? We have not been that granular with data.  We do track retention and success with prospects, and also data about how pricing has changed quarter to quarter. There is probably a metric out there, but instead we look at patterns and conversational responses in a prospect call to determine whether there is a good fit before we complete the labor-intensive proposal process.  The goal is to have a very high win percentage for proposals delivered. To Successfully Compete and Grow, Focus on What You Do Best  Win-rate. That’s a terrific metric. As we wrap up, I’d like to return to the start of our conversation about creating a customer-centric value proposition. Customer-centric companies build value props that offer a unique promise of value to their customers and articulate the benefits and solutions customers can expect. One of the key things we help our customers do is shift from value proposition construction to value proposition measurement. Measurement helps ensure a value prop remains strong, relevant, and capable of sustaining the vital connection between your business and its customers. We recommend selecting measures that measure the connection between your business and your customers, such as customer lifetime value, customer effort, customer retention rate, and others.  I’m curious to know what customer-centric measures you track and report, and why? We look at the size of the account we need to be compensated for the cost of servicing. If the account is too small, we have made the difficult decision to politely decline the business. Also, once in a while, we have to tell a client that we cannot make them happy, which is our equivalent of the Dear John conversation.  Sometimes we recognize that our approach is not a good fit for someone who might not understand and appreciate our expertise and has an unrealistic expectation of what we should deliver.  Rebecca, you’ve been at the helm of Chartwell for more than two d

  7. 05/20/2025

    Engineer Customer-Centric Processes for Better Service Quality and Growth | What’s Your Edge?

    Christina Porter, the President of Stallergenes Greer Canada and Vice President of Strategy for Stallergenes Greer North America. The company provides therapies to help improve life for people who suffer from allergies. In 2017, Stallergenes Greer acquired a successful family-owned Canadian company to create a fully integrated Canadian operation. The company encountered several challenges during the transition that required them to take some steps back and re-engineer customer-centric processes, in order to grow and improve service quality and customer experience. And that’s the focus of this episode of What’s Your Edge? Christina, we are grateful that you are willing to share the challenges you faced as a result of the acquisition. Every company we’ve ever worked with that has gone through a merger or acquisition has told us that the integration process was anything but a cakewalk. Some of the issues we’ve heard companies have faced post-merger include cultural clashes, talent loss, customer retention issues, integration cost overruns, and integration fatigue. All of these can impact the customer experience and impede growth. What can you share about the situation you were facing during the transition? It’s all the things you mentioned and in a predictable pattern (although in our naïve optimism, we didn’t predict it, unfortunately!): First: culture clashes: we are a global company purchasing a 2nd generation family business- our expectations regarding policies, procedures, documentation, decision making, almost everything were different, and it was a very uncomfortable, tense time for everyone Second: talent loss: The natural progression of culture clash is talent loss, and when most of the company’s intellectual capital is institutional knowledge, that’s a huge problem.   We lost the 2 owners very quickly, despite our expectation of a 2-year transition.  And many of the key people followed right behind, taking their institutional knowledge with them. Third: production/delivery disruption.  Without the key players in the company, we rapidly became unable to fulfill orders.  Fourth: customer dissatisfaction – you can imagine how our customers reacted. Fifth: more disruption and delay caused by managing angry customers, and trying band-aid, reactionary solutions- training new employees, adding shifts, hiring consultants. Delve Into the Right Data to Pinpoint Service Quality Issues In my career and as part of our work, we’re big proponents of service quality. In the book, “Delivering Quality Service, “ first published in 1990, based on the authors’ research found that reliability and responsiveness account for over 50% of how customers evaluate service quality. What kind of data was your team seeing that indicated you had a service quality process issue that needed to be addressed? Well, the first and most obvious source of “data” was the phone lines and voice mailboxes.  The phones never stopped ringing with complaints, and as fast as we were answering calls in person, more calls were filling the voice mailbox- to the point there was no physical way to answer everything- and anyway, we couldn’t answer the main question we were being asked – we called it WISMO- where’s my order??? The next was the very visual signal of orders piling up. Our orders mainly came in via fax at that time, and they were literally spilling and piling up on the floor, surrounding desks, and any other flat surface. In fact, our first initiative was to create a filing system just to hold backlogged orders- there were hundreds of them. We called it Bertha! As we tried to solve problems, it quickly became obvious that we actually didn’t have the data we needed to pinpoint exactly where things were going wrong and therefore where we should prioritize our efforts.  It was a sobering time when we came to the realization that we couldn’t just work harder to get out of the situation we were in.  Instead, we needed to take a step back and become very analytical to make a sustainable solution. You’re singing our song about taking a step back and being analytical.  As you analyzed the data, what decisions did you make? We knew we had to carve out time to dissect every part of the business if we were going to improve- to get that time, we had to make the very painful decision to reduce the number of customers we could serve.  This led to some difficult, but honest discussions with valued partners to tell them they should go elsewhere because we could not serve them the way they deserved.  We counted on the fact that this transparency would serve us well when we were back on our feet and could reach back out for their support.    We also had to purposely part ways with some long-standing but draining customer accounts where we couldn’t negotiate for a solution that worked in the new reality. Engage Customers in the Process to Regain Forward Momentum  I know you had relationships with many of the clinicians and medical groups you serve. Being a customer-oriented person, I imagine “firing” customers was a very difficult decision for you. We believe that credibility and transparency are critical to maintaining market and customer trust during tough decisions. Beyond lost revenue, what was the impact of the decision on the organization, and what did you do to maintain customer trust? Yes, this was such a difficult period of time for me and all our employees, especially because the business was built on customer service, and this is a core value for our leaders and all the people we hire. The truth is, there was a significant loss of trust as we found our footing, and it was frankly embarrassing. But once the decision was made, we focused on being open and transparent about our situation, communicated regularly about the work we were doing to improve things, brought customers along with our vision as we innovated and finally, provided objective metrics to prove that when we asked them to come back, they could be confident in what to expect. Take Me to Advisory Services There’s a process for analyzing the process and getting to the root cause.  What did you and your team do to analyze the entire process to understand what was creating the service quality problem and close the critical gaps? We started with pure data collection at each point in the production process so that we could start to get a handle on what was going on and create a baseline.  Things like how many calls we are getting, how many orders, how many corrections, what kind of mistakes, how much time every step takes, etc. Next, we attempted to simply see where the easiest and most obvious places to make improvements would be, we picked the “low-hanging fruit.” But then we moved on to the detailed work of process mapping using six sigma tools such as value stream mapping, 7 wastes, 5S, etc. Question Everything to Engineer Customer-Centric Processes and Improve Service Quality It sounds like you employed the power of process mapping. All businesses run on processes. Process mapping provides a clear roadmap for improvement and optimization. What steps did you take to reengineer the process, and how did you envision the revised process would improve the customer experience? We reengineered the org chart for role clarity, we re-designed the physical space for efficiency, we instituted a data management system so documents could be found easily and electronically, we standardized the ordering process, we introduced a prioritization protocol for order processing, we questioned the rationale for everything, we deleted and deleted and deleted any redundant steps or touchpoints we documented everything and created training metrics so skills became transferable and are reproducible, we added clear metrics at each stage of the process and instituted a bonus program that paid for performance, we created transparent dashboards and shared access to information with all employees so they could see the progress and we opened a formal process for feedback for continuous improvement. Today, we are industry leaders in quality, consistency, and speed of delivery. When customers came back, they got what they were promised plus more. In addition to clarifying gaps, process mapping creates opportunities for operational excellence. Did you find that this exercise helped align your team and streamline decision-making? This is very true.  When we began this transformation, we thought we were just trying to get back to the way things were before the disruptions created by the integration, but what we discovered was that there were multiple ways to surpass good to become excellent by making the right decisions on where to focus our energy. From a practical standpoint, once our teams could see the quantitative data, we could set ambitious goals to improve. We found that people became very engaged in making suggestions for incremental improvements in their day-to-day work- it’s now a very motivating part of our culture.  Teams are encouraged, empowered, and rewarded for implementing process improvements that streamline our offering. And because of the dashboards and other reporting tools we created, they can really see when their projects lead to real benefits for customers. Tell us a little more about the steps you took to reengineer the process and how you imagined the revised process would improve the customer experience. In our business, there are two things our customers care about: Quality and speed.  They need to be confident that what they order will be made correctly, using the highest standards, and that they will consistently receive their orders in the expected timeframe.  We worked to improve both of these areas.  In an interesting dichotomy, these two things often run at cross purposes.  High quality takes time, and you can gain speed by compromising on quality. When deciding where to fo

  8. 03/18/2025

    Reimagine How Customer Value is Delivered for Faster Organic Growth | What’s Your Edge?

    Aligning your business strategies with customer expectations is essential for fostering loyalty, differentiation, and long-term success. In this episode of What’s Your Edge?, Karen Norheim, President and CEO of American Crane, discusses how data-driven insights, innovation, and a customer-centric mindset can overcome challenges and deliver exceptional business and customer value. From navigating leadership transitions to leveraging smart technologies, recount the actionable strategies used to reimagine how customer value is delivered to drive sustainable organic growth. At VisionEdge Marketing, we believe that anticipating and understanding customer needs is fundamental to enduring growth. This requires leveraging customer insights, market intelligence, and competitive analysis. Aligning business strategies with customer expectations creates a compelling value proposition—one that fosters loyalty, differentiation, and long-term success. In industries like Karen’s, where competition is fierce, a customer-centric approach is a necessity. Karen, I’m delighted to have you with us today. Thank you for joining us. Let’s dive right in. Failure is an Essential Part of Growth American Crane, a company renowned for building high-quality specialty lifting equipment, has faced its share of challenges over the years. What are two or three of the biggest hurdles you’ve encountered, how did you tackle them, and what lessons did you learn? One of the biggest challenges we faced was navigating the transition to new leadership after my father’s passing in 2021. While we had succession plans in place, there were still unforeseen emotional and operational hurdles that required quick adaptation. I had to establish my leadership style while ensuring continuity and honoring the foundation my father built. To tackle this, I leaned on my team, prioritized clear communication, and remained committed to our core values to provide stability during the transition. This experience reinforced the importance of preparation, teamwork, and adaptability during periods of change. Another major challenge was balancing innovation with execution. Early in my leadership, I had ambitious plans for modernization, technology integration, and process improvements. However, I quickly realized that pushing too much change too quickly could lead to resistance. For example, when we introduced new technology to improve efficiency, some employees struggled with the transition, leading to frustration instead of immediate buy-in. This taught me the importance of meeting people where they are, providing support, and implementing change at a pace that allows employees to adapt. Change is most successful when people feel involved and supported throughout the process. Finally, workforce development has been an ongoing challenge, especially during times of high demand. Instead of rushing to hire at any cost, we took a strategic approach by analyzing recruiting data, refining our hiring strategies, and focusing on cultural fit. This ensured that we brought in the right talent without compromising the integrity of our company. Additionally, I’ve learned that some challenges, like process inefficiencies, can build up over time if not addressed early. In the past, we assumed minor delays would resolve themselves, but over time, these inefficiencies compounded into larger operational bottlenecks. Now, we focus on early intervention to prevent small issues from becoming major obstacles. Through these challenges, I’ve come to embrace the idea that failure is an essential part of growth. It’s not about avoiding mistakes, but about how quickly and effectively we learn from them. By staying open to feedback, being adaptable, and maintaining a long-term perspective, we continue to grow stronger as a company and as leaders. What a great point about failure being an essential part of growth.  Most of our customers grapple with similar obstacles, and we’ve found that agility, adaptability, and resilience are key to overcoming these. A growth mindset is equally essential. Companies that embrace a growth mindset leverage data in five critical ways: Making Informed Decisions – By analyzing customer behavior, market trends, and operational efficiencies, businesses can refine strategies to stay ahead of the competition. Deepening Customer Understanding – Data serves as the backbone of customer-centricity, helping companies identify what customers truly value, anticipate needs, and seize new opportunities. Enhancing Operational Efficiency – Pinpointing inefficiencies and optimizing processes leads to cost savings, improved productivity, and a stronger foundation for growth. Fueling Innovation and Adaptability – A data-driven approach enables companies to experiment, iterate, and strategically pivot in response to evolving market conditions. Measuring and Strengthening Business Performance – Establishing and tracking meaningful performance metrics ensures that business efforts align with growth objectives. How Data-Driven Insights Empower Customer Success and Forward-Thinking In short, data empowers organizations to make smarter decisions, elevate customer experiences, and future-proof the organization. Karen, how does American Crane leverage data to fuel its growth initiatives and create customer value? At American Crane, data plays a critical role in driving our growth initiatives and enhancing customer value. By leveraging advanced technologies such as NorLink Smart Crane Systems and NorLink MHIot, we collect and analyze real-time operational data to improve equipment performance, enhance predictive maintenance, and reduce downtime. These data-driven insights enable our customers to optimize their operations, proactively address potential issues, and increase overall efficiency. These innovations have also expanded American Crane into a whole new industry—data-driven industrial solutions. By integrating smart technology into overhead crane systems, we are not only providing lifting solutions but also equipping industries with intelligent, automated tools that transform the way they manage maintenance and productivity. This expansion allows us to serve a broader range of industries, positioning American Crane as both a leader in material handling and a forward-thinking provider of cutting-edge industrial technology. Beyond technology, we leverage data to refine our internal processes and continuously improve our products and services. By analyzing customer feedback, equipment performance metrics, and industry trends, we ensure that our innovations are directly aligned with real-world needs. This data-driven approach allows us to enhance the durability, functionality, and usability of our equipment, ultimately delivering greater value to our customers. Looking ahead, we remain committed to leveraging data and smart technology to help our customers stay ahead. Whether through automation, predictive maintenance, or process optimization, we are dedicated to creating solutions that not only improve equipment performance but also drive long-term success. Embrace Innovation to Create Long-Term Customer Value It’s clear that American Crane fosters a growth culture—one that embraces change and prioritizes data-driven insights. One of the things I most admire about you and your team is your relentless focus on delivering customer value. Exceptional customer value is the cornerstone of a successful business strategy. It’s about solving customer problems, exceeding expectations and creating lasting impact. The ability to deliver value consistently is what separates industry leaders from the rest. Karen, what does creating and delivering customer value mean at American Crane? With a legacy dating back to 1972, American Crane is a well-established leader in its field. Many long-standing companies struggle to break away from traditional ways of doing things. Yet, innovation—whether through new products, services, or operational improvements—is essential to staying relevant and competitive. What an amazing legacy. We too have found that innovation is essential to staying relevant and competitive. Karen, what are your customers’ expectations when it comes to innovation at American Crane? Innovation often requires reimagining how value is delivered. Our customers expect innovation at American Crane to go beyond just new technology—they look for solutions that enhance efficiency, reliability, and safety in their operations. They want smart, data-driven systems that make it easy to predict maintenance, reduce downtime, and improve overall performance. With advancements like the NorLink Smart Crane System and MHIot Devices, we’re not just meeting these expectations; we’re exceeding them by leveraging real-world data to refine our technology continuously. Our focus is on delivering practical, customer-centric innovations that drive measurable improvements, ensuring that our solutions provide long-term value and adapt to evolving industry needs. Innovation is More Than Technology; It’s About Delivering the Best Solutions  I imagine you need to rely on technologies and processes to facilitate innovation. What new technologies and processes have helped you enhance customer value, and how have they impacted your business? At American Crane, we are continuously leveraging new technologies and processes to enhance customer value by improving efficiency, safety, and reliability. In 2019, we made a deliberate move toward integrating modern technologies into our equipment, recognizing that staying at the forefront of innovation is critical for long-term competitiveness. This commitment led to the creation of our Innovation Lab, where cross-functional teams explore and develop advanced solutions such as NorLink Smart Crane and NorLink MHIot. These technologies allow for enhanced automation, remote monitoring, and predictive mai

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Helping you use data, analytics, process, and measurement to create an edge for you and your customers.

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  • Creator
    Laura Patterson-VisionEdge Marketing President
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    59
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    ©VisionEdge Marketing
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    What's Your Edge?