The Internet of Things is Enabling Growth and Strategic Differentiation

David Blum

CIO and CMO

W.W. Williams Company

Moderator

Jim Burden

Sales Manager

RoundTower Technologies

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CIO and CMO for W.W. Wiliams, David Blum, discusses using the internet of things to enable growth and strategic differentiation.

Hello, and welcome to the comSpark podcast, where you will get to meet today's technology thought leaders. To learn more, visit comspark.tech.

JB:  We're here today with David Blum, who is the CIO and marketing officer for W.W. Williams Company. I’m Jim Burden, sales manager for RoundTower Technologies, and I will be your guest moderator today. So, let's get started. David, in your opinion, what is one of the most exciting disruptive technologies that is beginning to impact our work or our lives today?

DB:  You know, as one of the nation's largest sales and service providers of industrial power products, at W.W. Williams, one of the most exciting and disruptive technologies impacting our industry is industrial IOT, or the internet of things. With the explosion of IOT technology, coupled with advances in data collection and analytics, we're seeing this kind of deep and lasting impact on operational and business performance and decision making. You know, with the increased complexity and technical advances, we're seeing an incredible amount of data being generated from the vehicles and equipment that we support as a company, and this represents a significant opportunity, a significant untapped opportunity, with this convergence of internet of things, data analytics and customer experience.

JB:  As you collect on that day to day, how do you see using that data to impact positive change in your organization?

DB: So, for us – and because we have our own fleets that we support as well as our customers’ –  any sort of downtime with the vehicles or equipment represents lost revenue. So, when we can look at this data and use it from a predictive perspective to help with performance and uptime, that' s helping to keep those businesses up and running.

JB:  Great. That's awesome. How do you feel about innovation efforts on your team – first, on your team and then across your entire organization?

DB:  So, one of the things that we need to make sure we're doing is investing in technologies that create value for our customers. That's kind of our number one area of focus, that customer experience. And so, we fuel innovation by intentionally keeping the customer at the center of those efforts by driving this kind of paradigm shift from this focus on systems and services to a focus on our customers' experiences, outcomes and needs. We're able to identify those unmet needs of our customers and then really focus and develop solutions, specifically address those. This allows us to create value and drive revenue growth while at the same time reducing risk in terms of what we're focused on from an innovation perspective.

JB: Great. So, David, how are you using technology for positive disruption in your organization?

DB: Well, one of the major things, as I said, is we're focused on IOT, and when we look at the complexity around that, determining what data is relevant, what date is meaningful, and correlating it with other data is really challenging. And it adds a huge layer of complexity to IOT in general. But IOT represents an opportunity for us to be a strategic differentiator and growth enabler for W.W. Williams. With an internal fleet of vehicles that we provide service for ourselves and our customers, unplanned downtime represents lost revenue. So, through productizing IOT, we can effectively classify and analyze this data to drive insights to cost control, reduced risk, and ultimately improve uptime and performance.

JB: Great. With the emergence of cloud and the tremendous amount of data that is going to be brought into your organization with IOT, do you see cloud being a part of that strategy?

DB: Absolutely. We're seeing this unprecedented amount of data being generated. With all of the different sensors on the various types of equipment that we deal with in generating this kind of historical volume and being able to deal with that, not only from a storage perspective but from a processing perspective, it really becomes unmanageable and not something that we can effectively do internally. So, from a cost perspective – but also from a capability perspective – partnering with some third-party vendors for us – really leveraging cloud – is important. To be able to take all of that volume of data and basically analyze it so that we can derive those correct insights, and really kind of commoditize that data in a way that's meaningful and can add value to ourselves and our customers, is absolutely critical.

JB: That's great. Well, thank you, and thank you for your time. This has been Jim Burden, and David Blum. To learn more about us, visits comspark.tech. Goodbye, until next time.

To learn more about sponsorship opportunities for 2019, contact Michelle Ziegler at michelle.ziegler@venuemag.net