Industrial Transformation Blog

As 2022 kicks off, most significant industrial organizations are well into their Industrial Transformation (IX) journeys and have been for at least several years. Those that aren’t are scrambling to catch up if they intend to remain viable. Even as IX advances as the strategic framework for competitive differentiation, industrials must deal with two rapidly emerging secular trends: the rise of Sustainability and the challenges posed by the Future of Industrial Work.

In a sign of the times, the topic of Sustainability was front and center at the 3^rd annual LNS Research, The Industrial Transformation (IX) Event, held October 19-21, 2021. Keynote speakers on the morning of Day 1 included Michael Train, SVP and Chief Sustainability Officer of Emerson, and Ellis Jones, VP and Chief Sustainability Officer of The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company. These speakers highlighted the strategic importance of sustainability to enterprise strategy in their organizations, as well as the critical role of leadership in achieving the transformational results Sustainability initiatives often aspire to.

In the world of enterprise business software, a billion-dollar-plus investment is not unusual and perhaps even ordinary. But in the Environment, Health and Safety (EHS) and Sustainability software space, a deal of that size is a watershed event. The recently announced acquisition of Sphera by Blackstone constitutes such an event. It also speeds the transition of the EHS and Sustainability (EHSS) software category to being subsumed under the nascent Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) banner.

The way most industrial organizations manage risks in their operations is akin to driving a car forward while looking in the rearview mirror. This approach is useful for understanding what’s already happened but is of limited value in seeing what’s ahead and taking preventive action accordingly. The essential solution is to shift from a posture of risk hindsight to one of foresight and the ability to predict and prevent adverse events rather than respond after the fact.

Part of the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic has been a resurgence of the Environment, Health and Safety (EHS) business function. Anyone paying attention has seen that the management (or mismanagement) of EHS-related operational risks can directly impact business continuity, for better or worse. Now more than ever, license to operate, let alone profitable operations, depend on effective management of safety, health, and environmental risks.   

It’s been nearly three years since LNS Research initiated coverage of the digitally connected industrial worker space with the publication of our seminal research, “The Connected Worker: Mobilize and Empower People to Reduce Risk and Improve Safety”. Since then, we’ve continued to conduct research and develop our point of view on the topic while working closely with a variety of industrial organizations and technology vendors on their connected worker initiatives and solutions.

If the adage, “With Change Comes Opportunity” is at all correct, Environment, Health and Safety (EHS) business leaders have opportunity in spades. Entering the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic, change and the ability to adapt to it have become the mantra for industrial organizations to get through the crisis. Over the past year, “resilience” and “agility” were the buzz words of corporate earnings calls and communications, perhaps to the point of overuse regardless of their validity.

In the global COVID-19 crisis, an adage commonly attributed to Winston Churchill rings true more than ever: “When you’re going through hell, keep going”. The conventional wisdom is that crises bring out the both the best and the worst in people and organizations. The Coronavirus pandemic is no exception. 

The NAEM Software, Innovation & Technology conference was held March 3-5, 2020, at the Hilton Riverside in New Orleans. This was the fifth consecutive year I’ve attended this conference, this time joined by my research colleague, Chris Follis. This event gathers the Environment, Health and Safety (EHS) and Sustainability (EHSS) software and technology ecosystem for networking and best practice sharing. There was a consensus among participants that we were lucky the event could even be held, given that COVID-19 pandemic social distancing and travel restrictions were really starting to kick in.

This is the fifth consecutive year I’ve attended the NAEM Software, Innovation & Technology conference, this time joined by my research colleague Chris Follis. It was held March 3-5, 2020, at the Hilton Riverside in New Orleans. The timing of the event was fortunate; it was held right before widescale COVID-19 pandemic travel restrictions kicked in.