Each month, Tony Uphoff, visionary CEO of Thomasnet.com, joins Cloud Wars Live for a recurring segment. “Uphoff on Industry” will explore the innovations, upheavals, and breakthroughs reshaping the the world of manufacturing and industrial markets. Join Tony and me as we discuss disruptive new trends in the digital-industrial world. These include how we design, source and manufacture products. And also the new ways in which industrial companies are getting up to speed on marketing, sales and customer experience.
Episode 9
In this episode: Tony and I begin by discussing our recent experience at Carnegie Mellon University. Fellow Cloud Wars Live Digital All-Star Sean Ammirati, who founded the Corporate Startup Lab, invited us to participate in a day-long event that touched on Disney+, the industrial IoT, data silos, and a host of other topics.
As just one fun example of innovation we talked about, Tony describes a company called Rodon and its new product called “SillDry.” These are rubber units for commercial buildings that keep windows dry during installation. (To learn how and why, tune into the episode.)
Later, Tony shares that he has implemented the Harvard strategy of “Jobs to be Done” as a research methodology and formalized process. He says it was exhaustive; his teams did 500 90-minute interviews. But, he says, the qualitative analysis is helping ThomasNet put data into perspective, so they can see patterns a little better.
Later, Tony talks about how workers on the factory floor are looking at real-time data and are better able to make decisions. They’re looking at customer orders, customer needs, and how many orders are shipping and where they’re being shipped. Everyone knows what’s going on.
As a result of this trend, Tony says, we need managers less and less. Instead, we need leaders.
Find the Thomas Industry Update podcast on every major platform – and on Thomasnet.com.
You can also stream the audio-only version of this episode:
Highlights
'I think sometimes people are really using data appropriately; other times I think we're using it to rationalize what we do.' #CloudWars Click To Tweet 'As enterprise technology has become more personal and we all use it in so many different ways… understanding the personal experience that these business users are having has to be a part of the equation.' #CloudWars Click To Tweet 'If indeed we have data and systems that help quote unquote 'manage or guide,' then what is it that we want leaders to do?' #CloudWars Click To Tweet
Cloud Wars Live Digital All-Stars
Tony Uphoff is one of our regular Digital All-Stars. The All-Stars are experts who will appear in regular video podcasts focused on the critical themes shaping (and re-shaping!) the business world in the digital age of 2020. Our intention is to provide regular chunks of timely ideas, insights and conversations on high-priority subjects from industry veterans with diverse backgrounds.
