Episode 4: Enabling change: Exploring the human side of digital transformations

Come join Share PLM for another podcast episode with Antonio Casaschi as he shares his thoughts on the human side of digital transformation. 

Join us every month to listen to fascinating interviews, where we cover a wide array of topics, from actionable tips, to personal experiences, to strategies that you can implement into your PLM strategy.

If you have an interesting story to share and want to join the conversation, contact us and let's chat. We can't wait to hear from you!

Transcript

[00:00:00.970] - Claire
Welcome to the Share PLM podcast, the show that explores the vast universe of product lifecycle management. In today's episode, PLM Professional, Antonio Casaschi from Assa Abloy shares his experience with PLM, digitization and change management. Thank you so much for joining us today, Antonio, and we are thrilled to have you on the podcast.

[00:00:21.740] - Antonio
Hi Claire. Hi Helena. Hi Jos. Nice to meet to you here virtually today.

[00:00:27.150] - Jos
Antonio, it's a pleasure to have you here. And let's start with an introduction of yourself.

[00:00:33.450] - Antonio
Yes, I'm Italian and currently working for a Swedish company called Assa Abloy. It's a company specialized or it's actually the worldwide leader in access solutions. I moved two years ago from energy industry to Assa Abloy, from UK to Sweden. So now it's two years that I'm the person responsible for a global PLM initiative. For the Global PLM Initiative in Assa Abloy.

[00:01:02.210] - Helena
Very interesting. Can you please, Antonio, tell us a bit about your journey and how you got started with PLM?

[00:01:09.510] - Antonio
My journey started with PLM, to be honest. So after university I just had a small experience with Motorola, the mobile phones, but we're still flip phones. So now I sound a little bit old because it's a long time ago. And then I practically joined PLM as a consultant. I started to work in Italy. After a while that I was working in Italy, I moved to Germany. There I worked a little bit before as consultant and then I moved as intern. I have experience in the energy industry, in the semiconductor industry, automotive industry, and now the access solution industry. And after Germany, I've been in UK, Sweden, and now Italy. So I changed a few countries.

[00:01:58.390] - Jos
Interesting that you mentioned your PLM journey, Antonio. Recently we have some discussions about is there something like the PLM Professional? How do you become a PLM professional and where did you in your life make the switch to become PLM Professional?

[00:02:14.330] - Antonio
I became a PLM professional first of all, making a lot of mistakes because when I started to work, there was not much material to learn from about making errors and learning from your errors as many others, Jos, I learned a lot to your blog and sometimes other posts, a couple of books, experience from others, listening to others, trying to understand others people's point of view, but every time making a lot of mistakes because it's a little bit- it's hard to find certain information in the PLM world.

[00:02:52.570] - Jos
Can you more or less say that it's very difficult to become a PLM expert? There is information, but still you have to by experience find the optimum mode.

[00:03:03.310] - Antonio
I would say it's extremely fragmented. It's not that there is a book, a series of book or training material you can follow. It takes time, as many other things, but also it requires a lot of searching, papers, article, people...

[00:03:19.710] - Helena
I'm curious, Antonio, you've been in so many industries. What do those industries have in common?

[00:03:26.770] - Antonio
Customers. So all the industries, of course, they need to serve customers the best way possible. Each customer has, of course, different needs and of course different industry, different customer, different needs is given. Of course the energy industry has a different life cycle compared to now, the access industry, compared to the semiconductor industry. Different challenges. But I would say everybody has in common delivering good products to their customers.

[00:04:03.790] - Helena
Very good. And my second question is that you mentioned you've learned a lot from mistakes. What common roadblocks have you seen in organizations carrying PLM transformations?

[00:04:14.540] - Antonio
This is a tricky question because I saw roadblocks with people sometimes not willing to change, sometimes being very convinced that they are special and they can't change, or they need to be special to survive. Sometimes they are also scared of changes. This is human. Sometimes people, they don't want to change because they are closer to retirement. So they are happy the way things are going. In any case, in two years I'm off. I had challenges with technology. Sometimes you try to integrate new technology with old technologies. Sometimes the technology vendor is promising a lot and delivering not what has been promised. I had a lot, a lot, a lot of challenges with data. I always had problems, especially with old data, the quality of the old data. Having a file on a hard drive doesn't mean that you have digital data. So moving information from one format to another is always a challenge. Also with processes, because many times I had to work with processes that maybe were designed 15-20 years ago when the world was a paper based world with faxes, paper moving by truck from one location to another, all the different domains, I would say. 

[00:05:34.110] - Antonio
And there is not one that is bigger than the other. It's always a mix of these issues.

[00:05:40.990] - Jos
What is interesting, Antonio, you mentioned in the beginning, what is the commonality of all PLMS is the focus on customers, which I would say is a modern way of PLM. Because historically, as you said later, everyone is working in the process and they work in their silo and they deliver information and in the end it ends up at the customer. But maybe people in the middle don't know who is the customer. Do you see those two different trends also in your PLM implementations?

[00:06:11.830] - Antonio
When I say customer, I was referring more to the business. Sorry. Not to the PLM. PLM is many, many times seen just as a technology for engineers. I don't agree with it. Of course we should be having customer in mind when we do any implementation in a company. It's ERP, CRM, it's PLM, it's MES. You need to look at your customer, what you deliver to your customer. Otherwise the activity doesn't make much sense. But I never saw starting a PLM project having the customer, the customer of the company in mind was more, I would say, an engineering activity or an engineering driven initiative that then slowly pulled in manufacturing sourcing and other functions of the enterprise. And yes, we definitely can talk about silos with my experiences because what you.

[00:07:08.590] - Jos
Describe is the classical PLM approach. It starts in engineering and then we try to push it to manufacturing, to service and maybe marketing. In your current PLM global role, how do you connect both to the management vision and to the end users? Is that a challenge for you or is that an action?

[00:07:28.750] - Antonio
I think there is always a challenge when you have to look at low end user and leadership needs. The first thing I did when I came in, in my new role was to start to engage with the leadership of my company, understand our strategy, understand our needs, our needs as a company, and the needs of our customer, the needs we need to satisfy. I had to understand the history of my company, how my company became a Assa Abloy today or two years ago. I also had to speak and understand what were the needs and the pains of the users. Of course, the leadership has a set of goals, of objectives that are different from the people on the ground that are executing the job. So I always have to take into consideration these two views, these two needs, and try to bring them together to discussion, sharing, confrontation.

[00:08:31.330] - Jos
Is it a lonely job or are you supported by a team on your PLM?

[00:08:36.190] - Antonio
No, thanks God, no. Alone the job would be impossible. Don't see me as an ambo that goes around the company spreading the PLM. No, I have a team. I have a team of people working with me. There are people from the business side helping me. I have my boss, my colleagues. It's a teamwork expecting to do something like PLM in a big organization. So one person or two people do a PLM implementation like it's the same of expecting that one, two people can do a full ERP implementation or a full CRM implementation. It's impossible. There are too many elements to be taken into consideration. We are present in all the continents of the world. We are covering all the time zone possibles. It's impossible to do everything with one, two people. So it is a team effort, 100%.

[00:09:29.190] - Helena
You mentioned leadership. You mentioned when you started at Assa Abloy, you engaged with leadership to understand the history, understand the drivers. In your opinion, what role does leadership play in the success of a digital transformation?

[00:09:44.250] - Antonio
This is an interesting question. So when we talk about leadership, let me distinguish between two type of leaders. The top leadership of a company that can be the CTO, the CFO, the CEO. You need sponsorship, you need support. You need this leadership to put the face in the initiative, to support. It not, please don't mistake it with a top down approach. Support is completely different from a top down approach. Of course. And then I see always what I call mid level managers. The manager of a plant, the manager of a specific engineering location or the person that is driving the change, people that are working every day with the people impacted by the change. People that will hear complaints every day about the change. People that will be impacted by the change. Because when you introduce a new system you will have a loss of productivity for a certain period of time. So two type of leadership, this second type of leadership I see it's usually more scared about the change and needs to be, from my point of view, focus on the future gains, the future benefits of the PLM transformation. And if you are driving the change like sometimes I did in the past and today, to me it's very important communication and listening. 

[00:11:09.830] - Antonio
I saw sometimes also people maybe isolating a little bit from the user base that is not particularly happy about how things are going. And I strongly believe that you need to be facing the customer even when the customer is not particularly happy. Sit down with the customer, talk with the customer, explain the customer why you're doing something. And I'm using the word customer and not the word colleague because I consider people in my organization that are impacted by my project as my customer. I need to deliver them something they can benefit from. Maybe at the beginning they will not understand it. So I think it's my role and the role of my team to explain people why we are doing things in a certain way and why maybe today they are not happy, why maybe probably tomorrow they will not be happy too, but at the end they will have benefits.

[00:12:07.050] - Jos
It's interesting that you keep mentioning the customer as somebody inside the company where when I do PLM implementations, I always try to use the we. It's our mission to work together. So I'm part of the customer, I always play the role of part of the customer.

[00:12:24.270] - Antonio
Yeah, I totally agree with you. I'm also the customer and it's not you and I, it's a collaboration. But I like to say that the people inside my organization are my customers because I need to help them. But of course it's not customer vendor relation, it's a we.

[00:12:43.410] - Jos
I agree with exactly, partner in PLM, that's the marketing slogan.

[00:12:49.590] - Helena
And you mentioned resistant to change as one of the most difficult topics to lead with in transformations. What do you do when one of your customers is not happy when they are resisting the change?

[00:13:05.130] - Antonio
It depends from the type of customer. First of all, I need to understand why the customer, this person or the group of people are resisting the change. There might be different reason because a person or a group of people are resisting the change. Most of the time, personal experience is not always, but what I realize is many times they don't have a full understanding of what is going on. So of course they are scared so first of all, face to face, sit down with the people and try to understand what happens. So this particular scenario is many times the most common. And also I as a user impacted by some transformation in my current or old organization. Of course, when something new comes in and I don't have 100% of the visibility of what is going on, I am a little bit skeptic. Then of course I met in my life people that were simply not willing to change. I always like to tell a story about when I was driving a Big Implementation. I went to a site to speak about the PLM project and there was a very pissed off all gentlemen sitting in the first row.

[00:14:18.470] - Antonio
I started to speak and these guys stopped me and say sorry, can I say one thing before you start? And I was like, of course sir, please go ahead and say I just want to tell you in front of everybody that you are going to fail like the one before you have failed before you because you don't understand that we are special. And just be mindful. I'm not saying for myself because in one year I'll be retired. I'm saying for the young one because I don't want you to in their lives. And I was like, okay, thank you sir, for your contribution. I was with a colleague of mine. We were looking to each other and say, okay, this one has started good. Thanks God not every time I go to a site I find people like these old gentlemen that I met years ago. But sometime it has happened in my life that I met people that they were simply not willing to change. And this one, it's hard. And in this case, I would say focus on identifying the earlier doctors in the same group of people. Start to speak with them and don't let this kind of personality to impact you in a negative way.

[00:15:24.520] - Antonio
So engage with the early adopters, show them what you are doing, explain them the benefits of what you are doing and then these people will speak behind the scenes and help you a little bit. If your product, if your initiative is valued of course.

[00:15:39.150] - Jos
You were speaking about a global team, global company. How important is the different cultures in this approach? Because I assume it might be different if you talk in Sweden or in other countries.

[00:15:52.150] - Antonio
Culture is important in any initiative. It's important because different culture react in different way to a change. Different culture wants their culture. They want you to do a lot of planning. Culture where they are more reactive. They want to see things happening. So definitely when you start a digital transformation initiative, generic, not only PLM, I strongly recommend people to take into consideration the culture involved in the initiative and how they react to change, how they look at leadership. Otherwise, if you think that one approach will fit all. I see a very, very hard journey, to be honest.

[00:16:36.030] - Jos
Exactly. I think one of the things I observed in some countries, the management says just do it. And there is this statement and everyone has to follow. And I think especially the Scandinavian countries are famous for that democracy where everyone has an opinion, everyone needs to be on board to get the things moving.

[00:16:54.480] - Antonio
It's also a little bit about company culture because of course there are companies that as a culture, they are more open to changes. So this definitely the company culture is helping, but the country culture plays a big role. So people need to study about them. If they are not aware, there is nothing wrong of not knowing another culture. You can know all the cultures of the world. It's normal. So just be open minded, seek help. If you don't know about a culture, ask, but take it into consideration. It's very important. I have a lot of story about culture clashes. We need to do a separate podcast, otherwise it's becoming a three hour journey.

[00:17:39.250] - Jos
Yeah, I have similar experiences as the Flying Dutchman. And there I always discover that the offsite meetings, after the meeting, when you are at the coffee machine, when you have the lunch, that is so important to grab the culture and to connect.

[00:17:54.230] - Antonio
Team events, coffee. There are many things of how people connect also changes by culture. As Italian, for example. For us, food is very important compared maybe to other cultures. So many things it's hard to summarize in a couple of minutes. But maybe to close the topic. It's very complicated.

[00:18:15.710] - Jos
And we can't avoid it.

[00:18:17.650] - Helena
I have a question for you, Antonio, because you mentioned some difficult situations you faced in the past. How have you personally evolved as a leader since driving big change initiatives?

[00:18:29.890] - Antonio
I became a better listener. I still have a lot to do to be even better listener. But definitely I started to listen more. So that was very, very important. Again, I did a lot of mistake in this journey. So it's not that from one day to another I became a great listener. But listening was very, very important. Self criticizing was very, very important. Candid feedbacks from some of my colleagues really helped me to become a better leader. In the beginning was very, very hard to hear the feedback of other people that were not matching my expectation. And after a couple of times, it became very natural. And I benefit a lot from feedbacks from a mentor, a colleague, your boss. It depends. Many, many feedbacks. And then as my leadership, of course, when I started my journey, I was very technology centric. Big mistake. Over time, I realized that the hardest part of any digital transformation, any PLM project, is people. So I also started to look at people, how you can engage with people, how you communicate to people, how you receive negative feedback from people. And so on so forth. 

[00:19:47.210] - Helena
I have one more question, Antonio, because I have worked with you in the past and you are a very direct guy. Was it something that is part of your personality or has it been something that you have taken from some of the countries you've lived in?

[00:20:01.780] - Antonio
I would say it's a mix. I can definitely see the influence of having lived almost six year in Germany, almost six year in UK, Sweden and Italy. In any case, for example, being direct probably no, probably comes more from having worked in Germany where you are more direct than maybe UK or Sweden. As a character, I'm not scared to voice my mind. Definitely my working experience, my living experience have changed me a lot over time. And I can't deny that my life experience has impacted what I'm today. Good and bad as always. 

[00:20:42.750] - Helena
Yes. No, I find it really interesting because you are also a Latin person coming from Italy and I think we Latins tend not to be so direct as you are. So that's the background for my question.

[00:20:58.390] - Antonio
When I moved from Italy and the first year in Germany was a little bit traumatic because I was shocked about seeing the dynamics. Then I started to understand how they were working. Also appreciate sometimes the effect of being very direct.

[00:21:17.590] - Jos
I want to come back on the fact that you said okay, technology. I started with technology, big mistake. But I think also technology is important in digital transformation. What do you see as a major trends in technology that a PLM expert needs to understand?

[00:21:33.390] - Antonio
Communications is not what you say, but what other people understand. So when I was talking about technologies, I was as a person technology centric, technology focused. That was a mistake. Of course, technology plays a big role. Technology at the end is what people use. So I need, of course, technology that is flexible, technology that is scalable, technology that is fast, especially on today's people. I mean, I pick up the phone, I turn on my application, 2 seconds, the thing have to work. Ten years ago was not like this. The expectation of the people today is that I press a button and the thing works. And login authentication, step approval, acknowledge are seen now as a waste of time many, many times. So of course, technology needs to support the transformation, needs to be designed in a way that is flexible, that can support the processes of the company, that is scalable, that is fast and so on. So of course technology is important, don't underestimate it. But technology is not all in a PLM project. It's just one bit.

[00:22:44.550] - Jos
I'm from the generation of 28K modems. That was the connection time and that was different technology. Now, of course, we live in a connected world and this also allows you to have different type of architectures. Are you looking also in PLM or let's say enterprise architectures in your role now?

[00:23:03.840] - Antonio
Of course, in my team I have enterprise architects and I'm responsible for the enterprise architecture of PLM. So I don't work only with people, but of course, also with technology. So yes, we are looking at it. We are looking at how technology is evolving. We are looking at the future needs of our customers, of our internal people. We are looking at how our products are evolving, what are the needs to support our product in the future. For example, in Assa Abloy, we are looking a lot at smart products. Traditionally we have produced mechanical or electromechanical products. Now we are transitioning to smart products. And it comes with a lot of more challenges. I know you know, because on LinkedIn you had a lot of discussion about software, how the software is seen, what are the needs of software, software, how you manage all these dimensions. So of course, we are looking at technology today and for the future to better support our organization.

[00:24:10.450] - Jos
Yeah, I understand you're looking into it. Are you doing this by small experiments or proof of concepts?

[00:24:18.050] - Antonio
Yes, I'm a big fan of proof of concept and MVPs. I saw it in the past working well. They help engaging very well with the user. Of course, you need also your user, your customer from the other side to be acquired of this way of working. But I'm a big supporter of this methodology.

[00:24:38.890] - Jos
Maybe interesting, in one of the conferences where I gave a speech, I said stop doing proof of concepts. Do MVPs. Because if you do proof of concepts, often people say, okay, it's not serious, let's just test if it works and then what's next?

[00:24:53.330] - AntonioYes, there is, there is. I agree with you, but I think it's a question of communication. When I approach my user, I explain them that we do small steps, we try to engage them as soon as possible. It takes various, various proof of concept tries there. I agree with you. And it's, let me say my responsibility, the responsibility of the team to move from a proof of concept to the MVP.

[00:25:19.670] - Jos
Because with the MVP you are really pushed to make it work.

[00:25:24.710] - Antonio
Yeah, I agree. But still I see some value, especially if you engage with a user, you can collect feedback as soon as possible and you adapt it. What is very valuable for me independently from the term you use, is that you get the user engaged as soon as possible and you collect the feedback very frequently and as soon as possible.

[00:25:48.910] - Jos
And not only feedback, but also suggestions to improve.

[00:25:52.570] - Antonio
Of course, when you show them an MVP the first time, it's not going to work. No, but it depends again from the person. If you set the ground immediately and you explain that this is just a demo, that you will evolve. I saw many people very getting engaged. They help you, they test, they come with ideas, you iterate. So it's a very valuable process.

[00:26:16.790] - Helena
Antonio, I have one question because you mentioned user expectations and the expectations for technology and for the user experience when working with technology. How do you cope with those user expectations when working with PLM systems?

[00:26:32.030] - Antonio
This is a good question. It's very complicated. Many years ago I did an implementation. We were supposed to deploy a touch screen on a manufacturing plant. And I had an executive, we did the first demo, and this guy started to play around with this big monitor with a touch screen and was like but, you know, I was expecting something a little bit different. Like with my iPad, with the fingers, I zoom in, zoom out, I rotate, and I was like, yeah, I'm sorry, sir, but it's a big task, not an iPad. Yeah, but I don't know this way I don't like it going back. I think it connects really well with Jos. Engage with the user as soon as possible because when the user they hear about something they have expectation. Of course they have high expectation, maybe they have seen some video, et cetera. I don't know. It's very hard to materialize. So if you wait too much then maybe user will not be particularly happy about what they see. If you start to engage with them very soon, if they start to understand how things are going metabolize a little bit, I believe it's better.

[00:27:41.520] - Antonio
It doesn't solve all the problems, it doesn't fix 100% the expectations but it's a question of engaging with users and sometimes it's also a question of explaining them that it's a question of money. When I was a consultant, I always used to say with a lot of time and money I can do whatever you want. So it goes back also to that point. Sometimes it's a question of budget, of course.

[00:28:04.890] - Jos
Exactly. You touched the point that we always say people engagement, it's all important but the people have also a day to day job to perform, to get time to work on the future initiatives is always a battle in the company.

[00:28:18.220] - Antonio
Absolutely. This is very spot on. They have expectation but they have a daily job, they have they have project to deliver, they have customer to satisfy, they have a deadline to meet and of course being involved in a big transformation project is a plus. Sometimes people, they do it because they have enthusiasm, sometimes people, they do it because they are forced to do it but every time they have expectations. So it's very hard always to meet them all and to keep the enthusiasm very very high.

[00:28:48.410] - Jos
Were you able to enable those people to really reserve time for the PLM initiative or was it always on a voluntary base on top of their work?

[00:28:57.320] - Antonio
Depends on which project we are talking about is a mix. There have been situation where because there was a strong leadership support you had dedicated time of people or sometime I had project with 100% people dedicated and other time with people part time. So it really depends from case to case. Of course, the 100%, it's always better. But you can't expect that a company will put their best men or women 100% on your project.

[00:29:29.830] - Jos
Although here I would say maybe 100% is also too much because you want to keep them in the field. Also to be in touch. To avoid that, you create an ivory tower of PLM gurus.

[00:29:42.490] - Antonio
Yes, this is a very good point. When I say 100%, it doesn't mean 100% for ten years. It can be 100% for six months, one year. I totally agree with you. Create a kind of bubble or ivory tower where you have your PLM guards. I don't think it's the right way of yes, definitely.

[00:30:02.550] - Helena
Antonio, you have given us so much advice through the podcast. But I have a kind of final question for you. For companies that are just starting, that are just embarking on a big transformation such as PLM, what advice do you have for these companies?

[00:30:19.990] - Antonio
I would say for companies that are embarking in any digital transformation, not only PLM, but of course also PLM. I strongly recommend the leadership of a company to get trained on organizational change management. The aspect of organizational change management, you don't need to be a super expert, but understand the dynamics, understand how people react to changes. Wise is good to have small changes instead of big changes, because people usually react better. There is a lot of science behind this reaction that is very, very interesting. Another suggestion I know the software vendor will come to you, Pledging, that their tool can fix all your process, people, data issues magically. I never saw it happen. I will celebrate the day I see it happening. But be mindful that the technology cant fix, at least based on my experience, technology cant fix all your issues. And communicate. Be ready to communicate a lot, be ready to engage with people, talk with people, listen to people at any level.

[00:31:27.770] - Jos
So maybe a final question from my side. Helena, you talked about what companies should do, but also I have in my network a lot of people that say I want to become a PLM expert. What should I do? How do you become a PLM expert? Maybe coming back to the beginning of.

[00:31:44.870] - Antonio
Our discussion, also, to be honest, this is a tricky question. I don't know what is a PLM expert, because there is no such definition in the industry. It's not that you can say I go, I take this certificate and I'm a certified level one PLM expert. Also, the term PLM is used and abused by many people in different way. So even when you talk about, philosophically speaking, maybe about what is a PLM expert, because a PLM expert can be seen by many as the expert of a tool. That I totally disagree. But I think then maybe product manager, they can see PLM. In a specific way. I personally see a PLM expert as someone with a lot of experience in organizational change management. Of course, maybe people with a different background can see a PLM expert with someone with a lot of knowledge in how you develop products, all the best practices around products, et cetera. So I think first we need to agree what is a PLM expert and then we can agree about how you become an expert on such domain. 

[00:32:51.530] - Jos
Especially in the past I've seen many initial PLM experts. They were actually project managers.

[00:32:56.880] - Antonio
Yeah, I can see why, because they have done PLM project. Also, of course, there being an expert in PLM, do you need to have knowledge of project management? From my point of view, why not? But I have done also studies in project manager, so maybe I have a bias in this case. Maybe you speak again more with people with a mechanical engineering background. They will tell you that an expert is something else. So maybe an expert in configuration management, that is also another big topic and so on so forth. I know I have not replied to your question and I came back with another question. But this is the problem today with the term PLM, I'm free aligned with you. 

[00:33:41.930] - Jos
I mean, it's a discussion that there is in the field that we want to be recognized as PLM experts. But then if you start to define what is PLM and what is an expert.

[00:33:50.270] - Antonio
Experts start to disagree. 

[00:33:54.410] - Helena
Thank you very much, Antonio. I think this was excellent. What do you hope listeners take from their podcast?

[00:34:01.550] - Antonio
What I hope it comes out from this podcast is that PLM is not just about technology. It's a long journey and it's a lot about people. So get ready to interact and manage people. Still, technology is important, Joss. Totally, totally agree. It's not only about technology, like many time I heard in the past and sometimes also today.

[00:34:25.970] - Helena
Grazie mille, Antonio,

[00:34:27.770] - Antonio
Prego.

[00:34:28.210] - Claire
Thank you so much.

[00:34:29.186] - Jos
Thank you very much

[00:34:29.240] - Antonio
Thanks guys.

[00:34:31.890] - Claire
Thanks for listening to today's episode of the Share PLM podcast, where we bring PLM professionals together. Do you have any questions, topic suggestions or know a PLM person who would be a great fit for the podcast? Let us know by visiting shareplm.com podcast.