Gridlock, Gartner and Damn Good Connectivity

It was the email that every software development company wants to get. An opportunity to showcase your product to Gartner! This trusted leading global research and advisory firm provides insights to business leaders all over the world and has the power to catapult your product into success with one white paper mention.

“A few days earlier, Susan Prakasam, Microsoft’s Senior Analyst Relations Manager in Asia, had reached out to say that Gartner would be keen to hear about customers that have successfully adopted an Anywhere Enterprise operating model, to drive digital transformation in the post COVID-19 world. And the next thing you know, we were talking about asBuilt– a 3D Spatial technologies provider that helps organizations build a digital twin of their physical assets, enabling employees and customers to work from anywhere, anytime.

Just a little bit of irony came into play the day of our demonstration! The gods of gridlock and mayhem unleashed some bizarre gusting wind, which overturned two trucks on the harbour bridge, and brought Auckland to a grinding halt, just as our CEO Dave was on his way back to the office to set up the demo!

Now we knew that a Gartner feature would be the perfect way to introduce the concept of how 3D Spatial Intelligence can solve problems in the built world and provide an innovative platform for connecting up other disparate data sources to a spatial model.

A Vault demonstration is always compelling to clients. There is nothing quite like it to bring the built world-to-life and showcase the way people can interact with their built assets in the world of the Everywhere Enterprise. However, the digital models are BIG; so we had preferred to demo in the office and the comfort of a grunty connection.

So here we were, me (Warwick) in my remote office on Waiheke, all fizzy about chatting to THE global insight leaders in Singapore. Slides were all prepared, I had my favourite Teams Background all ready to go (a beach scene of course) and I was just running through my last checks when Dave called to say that there seemed to be a holdup on the Harbour Bridge and he might be late to the start… “No Dave No!. You don’t keep Gartner waiting, you have to get back to the office for this, so just for goodness sake keep moving!!!!”

At 4.00pm I joined the call and began taking Manjunath through our slides, telling the story of what we have been doing to change industry' ideas about how Enterprises could save time and money by building a digital model (aka Digital Twin) of all their built assets. All the while I am hoping like anything Dave would only be a few moments late to the office. Alas, Dave pinged my phone to say he was NO nearer the office!

It was about then that I started freaking out as I knew that I was not able to do the detailed demonstration of the software myself, yet alone online over an average Waiheke internet connection and even I was rapidly running out of things to say.

Thankfully though, in that Kiwiest of approaches (aka Number 8 Fencing wire), Dave pulls his car over underneath the Victoria Flyover downtown, hooks up his laptop to the internet connection from his phone, kept the dialogue with the Singapore-based analyst going in our Teams meeting, logged into Vault, connected his device to our meeting in real-time and was soon showing some of our amazing modelling, with IoT and AI working live on screen.

If you know anything about large, complex digital 3D models of places like Auckland Airport, The Melbourne Cricket Ground and Auckland Hospital, they not something that you would commonly demonstrate over an internet connection, as the visual lag would once have been unbearable for someone in Singapore.

However, thanks to our well-designed Vault software, features of our new Microsoft Surface books, Microsoft Teams collaboration software and decent mobile internet speeds, I found everything worked perfectly, with no lag at all with the demo great to watch and incredibly well received by Gartner. So well that our allotted 30 mins was extended with client questions for another 30 minutes.

What Manju said afterwards, when we fessed up about ‘our behind the scene challenges’ was that we were the living embodiment of ‘Everywhere Enterprise’ and while he sat comfortably in his Singapore office, (and I quietly freaked out that we may have been about to blow our chance), our CEO was able to remotely connect from the front seat of his vehicle, roadside, and seamlessy give an impressive demo without a hitch!

What better way can you embody the theme of an article other than by living it and overcoming challenges of an incident that no one could prepare for yet had brought Auckland to its knees, all in the space of one 60 minute interview.

Good on you Dave, keep having the confidence to overcome unexpected challenges with aplomb like that and soon it won’t be just Gartner calling…..

If you want to read more of our adventures as we attempt to create A Smarter World, Digitally then follow us on Linkedin.