Industrial And Safety Software Vendors Should Take A Fresh Look At The Connected Worker Opportunity

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Industrial And Safety Software Vendors Should Take A Fresh Look At The Connected Worker Opportunity

Since the end of COVID-19 lockdowns, the majority of new ventures in the connected worker market have not performed well. In 2020 and 2021, connected worker tech providers were on a roll as industrial firms switched to tablets for remote audits and inspections or invested in personal proximity warning devices to comply with workplace COVID regulations. Demand surged and VC funding followed. But it turned out that rather than achieving product/market fit, these tech providers had achieved product/COVID fit. A similar story to the Peloton bike business, whose share price has tumbled from a December 2020 peak of $162 to today’s humble $3. Post-COVID, the likes of Librestream and Guardhat (now rebranded as Aatmunn) had to retrench. Ambitious plays in the connected worker safety market like StrongArm (now owned by RS1Worklete) followed a similar path of fundraising, headcount growth and then cutbacks. None of the new ventures have scaled beyond 100 employees.

But is this the end of the story for connected worker safety solutions? Definitely not. As cloud providers like AWS greatly reduce the cost of industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) data management and tech vendors implement lessons learnt from the failures of the past, real-time connected worker safety monitoring is more achievable. One missing ingredient for start-ups has been a lack of distribution channels to existing customers. That is not a problem for Honeywell’s Safety Suite Real Time, nor will it be a problem for the rollout of connected worker devices that Ideagen acquired when it bought Damstra, hot on the heels of buying EHS software vendors Devonway and ProcessMAP. Intelex also has a platform for a connected worker play, as parent firm Fortive owns a wide range of industrial technology assets such as Fluke and Industrial Scientific. The starting gun has been fired on the convergence of software for safe operations with digital equipment that enhances this business outcome.

Industrial software vendors – and their smaller cousins focused on EHS – should review their partnership and acquisition plans for digital equipment that enhances their industrial worker productivity and safety value propositions. A pure safety play may not be the answer. Look at the success of permit or control of work process digitization from the likes of ProcessMAP (now Ideagen) and VelocityEHS, which has blended efficiency and safety by utilizing digital devices and workflows. Larger vendors should be pushing in new directions, using computer vision for safety and efficiency analytics – as well as enhancing propositions for topics like occupational health, for example, with monitoring devices for hand and arm vibration syndrome (HAVS). GenAI is starting to play a critical role in better pattern recognition from these large real-time data sets.

David Metcalfe

CEO

David is the CEO of Verdantix and co-founded the firm in 2008. Based on his 20 years of experience in technology strategy and research roles he provides guidance on digital strategies to C-level executives at technology providers, partners at private equity firms and function heads at large corporations. His current focus is on helping clients understand their market opportunity tied to ESG investment trends and their impact on corporate sustainability strategies. During his 12 years running Verdantix – including 4 leading the New York office – he has helped dozens of clients grow their businesses through fund raising, acquisitions and international growth. David was previously SVP Research at Forrester and Head of Analysis & Forecasting at BT. He holds a PhD from Cambridge University and also worked as a Research Associate at the Harvard Business School.