Q: As you look again on UR’s 15-year historical past, what stands out probably the most for you?
A: For me, it’s the power to look again to the start and see that the founders had been—and we nonetheless are—heading in the right direction. I all the time begin shows by speaking about our imaginative and prescient of empowering individuals. Which will appear to be an odd imaginative and prescient for a corporation that makes robots. However 15 years in the past, we noticed an untapped alternative to empower individuals to perform nice issues with a brand new form of automation that’s straightforward to make use of and collaborates with them. That imaginative and prescient hasn’t modified.
Q: How have you ever been in a position to keep that imaginative and prescient as each UR and the market have advanced and prospects’ expectations have modified?
A: I consider that we now have been in a position to keep our imaginative and prescient and our focus, regardless of the fast evolution of the collaborative robotic market over the past years. Many consider that if you’re a disrupter and first mover that success is simple as you haven’t any competitors. However it’s fairly the alternative…. It has meant that we now have labored arduous to create a completely new market section, a brand new international distribution community, a brand new ecosystem of builders, and finally a totally new enterprise mannequin. There’s a variety of work in creating consciousness, influencing requirements, and altering buyer perceptions and expectations, which have been influenced by their expertise of conventional robots.
As new gamers enter the market, I see that as a constructive for us. Firstly, it’s a validation that we’re heading in the right direction, and it additional helps the notice throughout the market and thereby expands our potential buyer base. Prospects sometimes don’t need to have a single-sourcing scenario of their provide chain and manufacturing to be able to keep away from threat. We had been constructing a completely new class, and lots of the bigger prospects primarily kicked the tires for a few years, validating our know-how, however hesitated to undertake our merchandise absolutely. Nonetheless, as the entire market grew, our development scaled quick as a result of prospects had alternate options and it additional legitimized the know-how.
However prospects’ expectations regarding high quality have additionally elevated over time, as they deploy extra superior purposes of their manufacturing processes. This can be a pure maturing of the market and requires us to repeatedly finetune our know-how but additionally our enterprise mannequin as an entire. And that journey doesn’t cease, as purposes, settings and circumstances proceed to evolve. We should work nearer with our channel and ecosystem companions to get even nearer to finish customers over the following years.
