Moving Forward: As a Company, an Industry – and a Person

Manufacturing is undergoing a major transformation. In this traditional business that’s experiencing rapid, technology-driven changes, talking with our customers and listening to their experiences and needs is paramount to helping them succeed. Customer conversations are what drive smart innovation, help us uncover industry challenges – and ensure that we are developing the right solutions.

The opportunity to learn from customers, to let them share what a day in the life of their business looks like, is one of my favorite parts of the Emerson Global Users Exchange, which kicked off today in San Antonio.

Exchange is always a fantastic event, but this year holds a special significance for me: It will be my first as executive president of Emerson Automation Solutions. I’m grateful for an opportunity to join my predecessor, Mike Train, on the stage to introduce myself – but I’m even more excited to meet the thousands of customers who join us every year to talk through their successes and their opportunities to improve.

These customer pain points are what helped inspire a new Digital Transformation Roadmap that we introduced today. In a survey of industry leaders responsible for digital transformation initiatives in their company, only 2 out of 10 respondents said they had a vision and a clear roadmap for what they want to achieve. That’s a major problem: 90 percent of those surveyed defined this clear roadmap as critical to their Digital Transformation success. In fact, a lack of roadmap was cited as the top barrier for successful digital transformation.

Survey stats paint a clear picture. The manufacturing industry is focused on using new technologies to boost operational performance, but we don’t yet have standards for what success looks like – or clear steps to get there. In fact, 78 percent were actively conducting pilots but unable to migrate them into operating standards just yet. This represents a major gap: How can we know we’ve reached our destination if we don’t know where we’re going?

Whether it’s a Digital Transformation Roadmap or the latest software to help the industry perform better, safer and more efficiently, the key to success is listening – and taking time to understand. As I come into my new role, I’m excited to meet as many customers as I can, and to discuss their challenges and their successes.

When we take time to learn from one another – like with a few thousand of our closest friends at Emerson Exchange – incredible things can happen.