I’ve had the opportunity to work in some incredible businesses and on some of the world’s most challenging problems. My teams and I have acquired and integrated nearly a dozen companies. We have built (and then unbuilt) capacity for pandemic response personal protective equipment in record time. We have rapidly scaled to meet market expansion in e-commerce warehouse fulfillment. Now, as Honeywell’s Chief Commercial Officer – going back to my roots of functional leadership – I’m building processes and systems for our 10,000 commercial team members around the world.
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The world is changing more rapidly than ever. Industrial manufacturing leaders (including Honeywell) are undergoing rapid and – in some cases – extreme digital transformations. Value is clearly tied to the data in our systems. We’re being pushed to be more agile to meet ever-changing market needs while also building processes that are less dependent upon years of experience to operate.
Being agile while being strong is what makes Honeywell special. We've been investing in and building our Enterprise Data Warehouse over the last decade. Three years ago, we evolved our operating system to launch Honeywell Accelerator, which creates more consistent business and operating models to better serve our customers, while producing terabytes of data about our people, processes and technologies that we use to drive continuous improvement. The recent advancements in AI adoption and availability of generative AI have added rocket fuel to our Accelerator models, enabling them to advance our learning and improvement cycle.
Today, we are focused on three large megatrends commercially – aviation, automation and energy transition – and are defining the future of these industries as our customers find their paths to autonomy. Honeywell makes some of the world’s most sophisticated, advanced solutions for air and space travel. We make buildings smarter, more sustainable and more efficient. Much of the world’s energy industry uses Honeywell technology to optimize their operations. Our customers call upon us to help them invent new ways of working and to deliver their expected future, today.
It is important to adjust our commercial thinking to adapt to the changing world, so we can deliver value today and tomorrow, while addressing our customers’ unanswered strategic questions about their futures and potential disruptions. Here are three things teams should be doing to navigate today’s landscape and deliver value to customers.
1. Harnessing AI and Advanced Analytics
At Honeywell, we’re harnessing AI to power how we work with our customers. Our data warehouse and infrastructure enable us to quickly deploy decision-engines into our IT systems, creating a coherent, at-scale, available environment that powers the entire enterprise. We have built machine-learning models to guide our sellers in their daily work, such as suggesting which opportunities to focus on, what actions to take and when to take them. Generative AI tools help our customer and technical support teams address customers’ questions in one-twentieth the time with improved accuracy. Our field service teams are routed with an AI engine that matches technicians’ skills and certifications with the customer’s installed equipment, resulting in boosting productivity, reducing “no-trouble-found” calls and increasing job satisfaction for our technicians by improving their ability to deliver high quality outcomes.
While we’ve only just begun, I’m proud of the progress we’re making. We have a robust roadmap to improve our business, including analyzing customer purchase patterns, enhancing our e-commerce experiences, creating dynamic demand generation campaigns and uncovering new growth opportunities.
Now, we are embedding AI into our solutions, helping our customers achieve higher output, yield and quality. For example, we are addressing the skilled labor shortage through more automated systems that operate with fewer or no people. We’ve built a strong foundation of connected offerings, such as technologies enabling remote industrial operations, worker productivity in warehouses, quality assurance in the life sciences industry and emissions management for buildings and industrial plants, all powered by Honeywell Forge software. By tying AI into Honeywell Forge, we will deliver solutions for our customers that improve over time, increase operational efficiency, minimize downtime and save energy.
2. Accelerating an Innovation Culture
Our innovation culture has been thriving for more than 100 years. We spend billions each year on continuous innovation and new products, mostly on ideas that will create new revenue streams for Honeywell and our customers. Delivering safe, reliable connected systems to industrial customers to solve their autonomy challenges requires a close partnership with them to get it right. We call this co-innovation.
Innovation doesn’t start and end with us – it’s the complete opposite. Our offering teams are expected to spend much of their time living with our customers, collecting and observing the Voice of the Customer (VOC). Our VOC efforts help us create the greatest outcomes possible by providing insights into our customers' challenges, their priorities and the levers in their operations.
This deep understanding from co-habitation leads to natural co-innovation. We can quickly go from idea to concept to prototype with seamless feedback from the customer. In some cases, our development teams co-habitate for months or years during intense design cycles. For example, in our Advanced Air Mobility business, which develops major subsystems for the next generation of aviation (think flying taxis), we have teams designing power management propulsion systems directly with the customer who ultimately will deliver the vehicle. We are also working closely with real estate companies with hundreds of properties to deliver a distinctive experience to their tenants while minimizing energy usage across their network. Collaboration here includes co-defining new features for Forge, extending integrations to their existing building subsystems and partnering to engage their local energy utilities for demand-response optimization solutions.
3. Investing in People
AI techniques are exciting to work on and to talk about, and they will transform our industries for the future. To capture these techniques and harness their power, we’re investing in our 100,000 employees – who we call Futureshapers – to ensure they have the time, mindset and skills required. We encourage them to generate ideas for automation and deploying AI tools, and we’re pulling these ideas up through the organization to select the best ones for mass deployment. We’re constantly updating Honeywell Accelerator with evolving AI methods to improve how our employees work.
One of the most compelling parts about my role is working with our teams who bring big ideas to life, presenting them to partners and customers and developing impactful campaigns to take them to the market. As a leader, it’s important to me that my teams have what they need to play their part in the company’s strategy and vision to make the world safer, smarter and more sustainable for future generations.
How (and Where) to put yourself on the Path to Autonomy
Whether you’re just starting out or mature in your adoption of AI technologies, there are many advancements still ahead. For industrial operators – whether focused on a single market or multiple megatrends like Honeywell – there is no “giant leap.” The requirements for safety, security and integrity in the industrial world demand a thoughtful, iterative approach. Solutions must meet regulatory standards and be thoroughly tested before deployment. You must calibrate your efforts in your markets, pace progress and push your teams to collaborate closely with customers on their path.
