Our guest David Westrom is responsible for global business development at MachineMetrics and has led business development organizations and driven strategy at three IIoT start-ups that experienced successful exits, including most recently ThingWorx, that was acquired by PTC. In this episode, Dave and Bruce discuss:  Digitally transforming discreet manufacturing operations to start a continuous improvement program. Digital improvements for high volume/low mix versus low volume/high mix manufacturing. Expanding data collection from machines to machines, people and business systems. How the scope of data collection is related to the overall value generated.  Related links you may find useful:  Season 2: Episodes and show notes Season 2 book:  The Private Equity Digital Operating Partner Season 1: Episodes and show notes Season 1 book:  IoT Inc Training: Smart digital transformation certification 

Adopting Continuous Improvement Through Digital Transformation

This talk show is about the next big thing in value creation.  It is for fund managers and corporate leadership investigating smart digital transformation for their companies, and for service providers, subject matter experts and vendors wanting to broaden their digital skills.  Although the show’s focused on value creation in the context of private equity, it’s sector agnostic and can get pretty geeky, digging into IoT, data science (analytics & ML) and other high technology. At a high level, the show is about how to frame the digital investment thesis and how to execute it.  Your host, Bruce Sinclair, is an ex-PE operating partner who has written the best-selling books, The Private Equity Digital Operating Partner and IoT Inc, and has certified thousands of professionals with his ICIP program and LinkedIn Learning courses.  Season 1 of this show was called, The IoT Inc Business Show.

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Solo episode with Bruce Sinclair, the host of the show, discussing how smart digital can enable predictive maintenance for margin improvement and data-driven business models to increase the exit multiple. In businesses where maintenance has a meaningful impact on margins, we can use artificial intelligence to predict when assets will fail in advance of any noticeable signs of a problem.  By using smart digital to prevent unplanned downtimes, we increase the company’s operational efficiency to improves its margins, for a relatively low investment in tech. Collecting proprietary monetization data enables the development of novel business models that until recently, were impossible to deploy.  Moving from one-and-done product sales to sales that recur to continuously generating revenue are rewarded by the next buyer paying a higher EBITDA multiple. In this episode, Bruce discusses:  How margins are improved indirectly and directly. Using smart-tech-driven operational efficiency to improve margins. How to deploy predictive maintenance to minimize unplanned down times. The three different ways smart digital can increase the EBITDA multiple. The concept of data-driven business models and how they are created. The example of the power-by-the-hour business model developed by jet engine maker Bristol Siddeley and deployed by GE and others.  Related links you may find useful:  Article 1: Margin Improvement with Predictive Maintenance  Article 2: Deploying Data-Driven Business Models for Multiple Expansion LinkedIn newsletter containing these and other articles Season 1:Related episodes  Season 2: Episodes and show notes Season 2 book: The Private Equity Digital Operating Partner Season 1 book: IoT Inc Training: Smart  digital transformation certification 

Improving Margins and the Exit Multiple with Smart Tech In PE

Solo episode with Bruce Sinclair, the host of the show, discussing how smart digital can algorithmically cross sell products for customer expansion and use AI to identify new markets to enter for market expansion. Smart digital improves existing customer expansion strategies and enables new ones for physical products, services and environments, that until now were only available to software companies.  Automatic consumable cross selling can be emulated in the industrial sector and any other sector where one product depends on another product to operate. Using AI and data mining to discover market adjacency insights can augment or replace the traditional market expansion playbooks used today.  The candidate list of market adjacencies is derived from primary data and only gets deeper and wider with time.  Deciding on which market to expand into becomes a repeatable analytical exercise based on real customer data. And unlike traditional techniques, smart digital market expansion also determines the best product configuration and target persona for each potential new market. In this episode, Bruce discusses: Customer expansion by upselling like a software company for non-software products. Other types of customer expansion strategies supported by smart digital. Case study of HP’s smart printers. Using proprietary data from a smart product to identify market adjacencies with artificial intelligence. How smart digital can help us identify the proper product configuration to enter a new market. In this episode, Bruce discusses:  Customer expansion by upselling like a software company for non-software products. Other types of customer expansion strategies supported by smart digital. Case study of HP’s smart printers. Using proprietary data from a smart product to identify market adjacencies with artificial intelligence. How smart digital can help us identify the proper product configuration to enter a new market.  Related links you may find useful:  Article 1: Smart Tech Customer Expansion Enabling Automatic Cross Selling Article 2: Data-Driven Market Expansion Identified by Artificial Intelligence LinkedIn newsletter containing these and other articles Season 1:Related episodes  Season 2: Episodes and show notes Season 2 book: The Private Equity Digital Operating Partner Season 1 book: IoT Inc Training: Smart  digital transformation certification 

Smart Tech Customer Expansion and Market Expansion with AI in PE

Solo episode with Bruce Sinclair, the host of the show, discussing data-driven value creation for tech & software companies and data-driven product expansion with fintech for traditional companies. Product expansion driven by proprietary primary customer data excerpt: When architected correctly, smart products yield proprietary primary customer data that can be used to drive low-risk product expansion.  Like Tesla, your company can also offer insurance and other high-margin, competitively priced products that precisely fit each customer’s needs. Smart digital value creation for tech and software companies excerpt: Smart digital transformation can be applied to any company, but the type of company determines the specific tools needed for implementation. In this episode, Bruce discusses:  Using smart digital to understand who your customers are and what they need. How to use proprietary primary customer data to underwrite fintech products like insurance. Case study of Tesla Insurance. How smart digital transformation is applied differently to traditional companies, tech companies and software companies. The importance of value sims and how they are used.  Related links you may find useful:  Article 1: Smart Digital Value Creation for Tech and Software Companies Article 2: Product Expansion Driven by Proprietary Primary Customer Data LinkedIn newsletter containing these and future articles Season 1:Related episodes  Season 2: Episodes and show notes Season 2 book: The Private Equity Digital Operating Partner Season 1 book: IoT Inc Training: Smart  digital transformation certification 

Data-Driven Product Expansion and Value Creation for Tech and Software Companies

Solo episode with Bruce Sinclair, the host of the show, discussing how to smart digital value creation can augment and improve these traditional value drivers. On boosting buy & build performance excerpt: Smart digital is a new lens from which to spot add-on companies and a new way to integrate their products with the platform.  Unlike consolidating IT systems, orchestrating multiple products to work together produces not only a more innovative solution, but a less expensive one too.  On market share expansion excerpt: This pricing optimization approach is based on pure customer data – clean and unbiased.  By using APIs or sensors to understand how customers make money with their software or physical products, pricing becomes an analytical exercise that can stand up to the scrutiny of any skeptical CFO.  This is true value pricing. In this episode, Bruce discusses:  How to make your buy-and-build strategy more profitable than your competitors’. Using outcomes to source add-ons and integrate their products with the platform’s. Case study of outcome thinking. The two roles smart tech can play in market share expansion. Example of using AI to increase the competitiveness of a medical device.  Related links you may find useful:  Article 1: Boosting Buy & Build Performance with Smart Digital Outcomes Article 2: Market Share Expansion Through Product Innovation with AI LinkedIn newsletter containing these and future articles   Season 1:Related episodes  Season 2: Episodes and show notes Season 2 book: The Private Equity Digital Operating Partner Season 1 book: IoT Inc Training: Smart  digital transformation certification 

Boosting Buy & Build Performance and Market Share Expansion Using AI

Our guest Prabhu Soundarrajan is President Elect of the International Society of Automation where he is responsible for strategy to create a better world through automation. He has over 20 years experience as tech executive in Fortune 100 and VC/PE-backed companies with various roles including business transformation. In this episode Prabhu and Bruce discuss:  The concept of the digital dress up. The different value drivers used. Profile of digital dress up candidate companies. Case study where multiple was expanded from 10x to 15x.  Related links you may find useful:  Prabhu's personal page Safety and profitability article Season 1:Related episodes  Season 2: Episodes and show notes Season 2 book: The Private Equity Digital Operating Partner Season 1 book: IoT Inc Training: Smart  digital transformation certification 

Adopting Continuous Improvement Through Digital Transformation

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