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Here are Top 6 Tips to Grow Your ROBOTICS Business:
1. Know your customer
The importance of understanding the potential business impact of technology for each possible customer is an essential starting point. Understanding your customers’ objectives, their expectations, and how a robot may provide a competitive edge is key to creating a compelling value proposition. Find out what they think of robotics now from market research data from GBI Research or Tractica. These will help you prioritize the most important types of work to focus on first. Then identify which product offerings are most likely to meet those needs – do not assume that robots by themselves are enough – find out what is needed before going into development cycles with little chance of success. Make sure you can model prospective customers’ responses as well as have the engineering ability to meet the requirements.
2. Know your industry and customers’ environment
It is not enough to know what they think; you also need to find out how and in what context they make their decisions. Look for data on how long it takes them to decide and what makes for a good purchase experience – understanding these factors will help you tailor your sales approach and marketing messages. You should always be aware of benchmarking information such as analyst predictions at Gartner or Forrester along with ways that might reduce costs like Industry 4.0/Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). At the same time, using website analytics tools like Google Analytics will provide valuable internet-based insights into customer behavior and product performance.
3. Remember that the customer ‘buys’ ‘solutions’ not products
Just as your customers are buying solutions, potential partners are looking for a full value-added proposition – check out what they need to make it work. Industry 4.0 is all about collaboration and linking smart machines together to perform complex tasks with minimal human input – think beyond the obvious. Understand how much data you potentially have access to or could create before committing resources away from developing core competencies in areas outside of your area(s) of expertise – consider under-the-hood information around privacy protection and service level agreements too, which will ultimately determine their commitment to providing long term support if things go wrong. Make sure you also know what price margins are achievable in your marketplace, the better you understand these the more compelling you can make you’re offering.
4. Develop a powerful ROI story
There are many ways to convince potential customers that your robot(s) will achieve their desired outcome, whatever it may be – check out what is already available with services like Amazon Mechanical Turk or Task Rabbit, which allow humans to complete tasks for just cents per hour. If they know someone who has achieved success with robots then so much the better when it comes to earning their trust and for long-term support when things go wrong. Your solution also needs to be delivered when and where required so planning integration is key – talk about how easy it is to deploy with features like cloud computing, mobile connectivity, and social media. Remember your machine will not tell a customer how to make a cup of tea or buy milk in their local store – it can only communicate with other machines operating under the same protocols, so pick carefully when it comes to industry-specific protocols.
5. Know when NOT to use robotics
It may be that there are cases where you should not bother at all – consider what perceptions exist that could undermine your sales message or worse still cause customers to turn into competitors if they have a better offering in this area. What happens if you launch a robot and about six months later one of these disruptors comes along and does it cheaper and/or better? Your company’s imagination is your best friend here – think outside the box – what could help to create a competitive advantage?
6. Sell robots for what they can do, not just how they work
The internet has changed the way we buy and your customers want to know the benefits of your robotic machines before parting with their cash – if you can convince them that major pain points will be reduced or eliminated then so much the better. Think about the return on investment (ROI), not just in terms of money but time and resources too, and how the introduction of robotics could improve productivity and reduce costs. For example, say an automated guided vehicle saves two hours per day in transportation time that is used instead to enhance customer service or develop new products – this should have a positive impact on turnover along with increasing revenue streams making the ROI story even more compelling.
Conclusion:
Successful companies have always been those that can evolve, innovate, and stay ahead of the competition- look at Ryanair as a prime example of a company that has continually changed over the past 30 years to remain relevant despite competitors coming along. In this respect technology is your friend, not your enemy – utilize it fully to understand how you can better serve your customer’s needs before others do – robots are no exception here, don’t worry about them stealing jobs from hard-working employees because they will be too busy focusing on tasks that require a human touch.
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