In his first weeks as Augury COO, Roy Eitan set out to the front-line: to connect with Augury customers and the Augurians who serve them. Roy learned a lot – even before he got there. At one crossroads it hit him: “Geo-expansion – and scaling in general – begins at home. Sure, let’s go to Australia, but let’s also make sure we’ve already fully covered the regions we’re already in.”
As I covered in previous posts, part of my job as Chief Operating Officer is to empower those on the front-lines so they, in turn, can empower the manufacturing clients we serve. Obviously, I needed to witness first-hand the actual environment of our customers so I would be better equipped to help build the products and processes to help expand and accelerate this empowerment. So, I hit the road. On the way, I was struck by the caliber of people Augury attracts. It made me realize that we have no time to get lazy.
Stop. Look. Listen.
But first I was distracted by a stop sign. Turning left would take us directly to the client we were set to visit – one of the largest manufacturers in the country. Straight ahead, a sign pointed to a large paper mill – an industry Augury already knows intimately.
There it hit me: when it comes to geo-expansion we always tend to think in regions: that we have to break into LATAM or APAC. And yes, we are definitely on top of that. But we also have to make sure we get all the low-hanging fruit closer to home.
And indeed, when I returned home a couple of days later, I googled the region we were in and saw a whole rainbow of manufacturers that exactly fit our “ideal customer profile”. It’s obvious it’s much more efficient to have clients clustered together from a sales and servicing perspective. In terms of travel days alone, there would be a massive cumulative benefit.
But there could also be a massive social benefit – for the machine health ecosystem we are building, and also the surrounding community.
Why empower one factory when you can empower a whole town of factories?
Closing The Empowerment Circle
Augury is out to make our customers heroes: to give them the digital tools they need to keep production running smoothly – to save the day. We have an opportunity to empower the people on the factory floor to become heroes by saving the machines from shutting down without being called in the middle of the night. Everyone wins. And so why empower one factory when you can empower a whole town of factories?
Why not bring all these heroes together for shared training? Maybe they’ll even be inspired to exchange best practices when bumping into each other at their children’s Little League game. Again: everyone wins.
Already, Augury is all about connecting those in manufacturing to share best practices and help one another be successful.
In other words, my job is to empower my team to empower our clients. So how do we help our clients to empower each other? In my previous roles I was fortunate to sit on the board of Dscoop. This organization consisted of HP Indigo users, who were all committed to helping each other to digitally transform the printing industry. While most were actually competitors, they were all donating their time to help each other. How empowering – and generous – is that?
Upon joining Augury, I learned they have a customer advisory board, which includes executive customers from our customer organizations, as well as an industry advisory board that guides and consults with us. The community team at Augury is also planning to launch a steering committee for corporate maintenance and reliability managers in the coming quarter. Already, Augury is all about connecting those in manufacturing to share best practices and help one another be successful.
In the end, we all want to contribute to the greater good. And now Augury and our customers can do this at scale!
Read the previous: ‘The Road To Customer-Centricity (1): What I Learned On The Way’.
Read the conclusion: ‘The Road To Customer-Centricity (3): What I Learned When I Got There’.
Or to learn more about Augury’s full-stack people-first approach that’s transforming manufacturing, get in touch today.
