Rockwell Automation's Extended Story
Rockwell Automation's customer-centric strategy wins in any environment
Rockwell Automation is the largest company in the world devoted to industrial automation and information, and it is a global leader in more ways than one.
Overview
THE CHALLENGE
A recent series of seismic macroeconomic factors has created an unforgiving environment for any business. The crux of Rockwell’s business is manufacturing, which has particularly been hit the hardest by the global supply chain crisis and geopolitical tensions.
THE SOLUTION
Rockwell is dedicated to enabling manufacturing efficiency and cost savings to its customers. Rockwell empowers its customers to be competitive in the market through technology and modernization by delivering cutting-edge automation and processes.
THE OUTCOME
Rockwell consistently delivers advanced products and services, supporting customers to remain competitive in challenging markets.
Digitally transforms customers through hardship
From its inception, Rockwell has provided the means for its customers to realize greater productivity and efficiency. The organization continuously seeks to modernize itself from within to enable digital transformation for its customers. The customer-centric Rockwell approach can be described as intelligent and diligent, proven to be a resilient strategy in the face of challenging times.
40% of industry professionals identified optimizing production to stay competitive.
“Where are they going? What do they need to drive? We are really forward-thinking, looking at our customers’ objectives and aligning ourselves with them.”
Christina Moss, Director of Cloud Services at Rockwell Automation
The Situation
The cards are stacked against manufacturing
A recent series of seismic macroeconomic factors has created an unforgiving environment for any business. Rockwell, however, is a company that has endured two World Wars, recessions, depressions, and more. If any business knows how to deftly navigate unchartered territory, it is Rockwell.
The crux of Rockwell’s business is manufacturing, which has particularly been hit the hardest by the global supply chain crisis and geopolitical tensions. It is during these challenging times that Rockwell has to partner with customers more than ever, balancing fiscal responsibility with digital transformation and innovation. Finding the balance between being cost-conscious and staying ahead of the technological curve so customers can thrive, not just survive.
“Are we leveraging all potential parts of the cloud that help us drive innovation and reduce costs? We’re keeping our operating costs low, so we can keep it cost-effective for our customers,” Christina Moss, Director of Cloud Services at Rockwell Automation
The Solution
Strike a balance between cutting costs and being cutting-edge
Rockwell is dedicated to enabling manufacturing efficiency and cost savings to its customers; hence, fiscal responsibility is a core tenant of its business model. The strategic company creatively seeks ways to manage costs. Teams are closely managing contracts and thoughtfully funding initiatives to align with greater business goals.
For Rockwell, making prudent financial decisions doesn’t mean being strategically undaring. Propelling customers forward with automation and technology is the primary pillar of Rockwell’s business mission. Christina Moss, Director of Cloud Services at Rockwell, explains how Rockwell approaches digital transformation for its customers, “Where are they going? What do they need to drive? We are really forward-thinking looking at our customers’ objectives and aligning ourselves with them.”
Innovative expansion
Rockwell empowers its customers to be competitive in the market through technology and modernization. To deliver cutting-edge automation and processes to its customers, Rockwell is:
- Expanding product offerings, including developing and deploying more SaaS applications
- Investing in emerging technologies, like artificial intelligence and machine learning.
- Acquiring companies with mature development processes.
- Fostering a cross-collaborative company culture.
- Building upon current success.
“We have a strong technical team that spends a lot of time creating efficiencies to drive modernization and automation for our customer base.” Christina Moss, Director of Cloud Services at Rockwell Automation
The Results
Defying odds and achieving growth
Rockwell is committed to building resiliency for its customers. The company makes good on its promise by delivering advanced products and services, supporting customers to remain competitive in challenging markets.
Developing a Cloud Strategy to Support Digital Transformation
Managing and modernizing internal systems is a key focus of the evolution of Rockwell’s platform. Christina leads with a “cloud-smart” approach to smartly determine what to modernize and migrate to the cloud. “Are we leveraging all potential parts of the cloud that help us drive innovation and reduce costs, like autoscaling? We’re keeping our operating costs low, so we can keep it cost-effective for our customers,” Christina says. Ultimately, Rockwell and Christina’s team views the cloud as a strategic benefit for its clients: “We have a strong technical team that spends a lot of time creating efficiencies to drive modernization and automation for our customer base.”
Offering advanced SaaS products
Rockwell is building out more SaaS offerings to accelerate its customers’ success. The company is achieving this through both acquisitions and transforming its products into SaaS offerings. There have been several acquisitions to increase Rockwell’s SaaS applications, such as Plex and Kalypso, that have already driven profit and knowledge growth. “[Rockwell’s portfolio companies] understand development at a very high level, and they have processes that are extremely mature. We are looking at their expertise and leveraging that for everybody.”
By the end of 2022, 75% of manufacturers will have adopted some components of smart manufacturing.
ROCKWELL AUTOMATION
What is next
Creating a culture of cross-collaboration will be paramount to Rockwell’s upcoming initiatives. Specifically, Christina and her team are creating transparency and visibility across the organization. The Cloud Services team is building consumer-facing dashboards for all teams to see their spend with real-time updates.
Christina prioritizes cross-functional roles and ownership at Rockwell based on her belief that cloud governance is a collaborative model, and everyone is a partner in the initiative. For Christina, cross-collaboration is not just the driver for Rockwell’s cloud strategy, but it is also a personal value of hers. “One of the most important things to me is that we are building out business relationships,” she says.
FinOps excellence
Promoting visibility and collaboration throughout the organization supports a modern data strategy and optimized processes. Christina is using this foundation to level up Rockwell by building a permanent FinOps team to get cross-functional teams to work harmoniously to better manage and operate cloud costs.
“Building our FinOps practice is important, and Ollion has really helped us make the case for that,” Christina says.
The FinOps team will optimize cloud spending to align with customer-centric business objectives, enabling Rockwell to grow and scale with its customers. The organization’s cloud strategy will drive better forecasting and help teams identify technical gaps, so it can continue to deliver cutting-edge products without cutting costs. Resilience defines Rockwell, and, through digital transformation, Rockwell ensures that it defines its customers as well.