The maritime sector has long been something of an underdog when it comes to digitalization. But that certainly does not apply to the company MSA-Service Control & Automation. This company is all about digitization; it is their core business. The growing team focuses on custom solutions for electrical automation projects in the offshore, wind and maritime sector.
Project manager and developer Ralf Stam explains what prompted them to bring in expertise through Datawerf: “We breathe technology and excel in it, but when marketing a new solution, more is needed. Through Datawerf, we thought extensively with expert Philip Roos about the marketing strategy to launch our newest product, Multiped ..”
Successful market launch Multiped
Stam: “It is actually the black box of a ship . On board, the Multiped collects data from a variety of sensors. Multiped is also enriched daily by crew who add data. For example, manual fuel readings. A big advantage for the crew is that they spend much less time on this than before the introduction of the Multiped. The administrative burden is reduced to a minimum. Thus, on board and ashore, Multiped forms the platform for industrial data collection and reporting. Not only for its own organization but also for the customer for whom the ship is currently operating. For example, Multiped’s reporting can be attached to invoices as proof.”
That the journey with Datawerf worked out well is evidenced by the current status quo. Multiped has now been installed aboard 30 vessels: tugs, offshore and dredgers. Customers such as DEME, Group De Cloedt and Van Oord deploy Multiped. The Multiped solution consists of an industrial computer with attached software.
Ultimate dream
Ultimate dreamStam continued: “Our dream in developing Multiped was that when troubleshooting, the engineer will first log into Multiped – and get nervous if a ship doesn’t have Multiped. We’ve come pretty close to that. Multiped is the digital toolbox for the engineer. Because daily reports are stored in one place, ambiguities never occur. And ashore, fleet-wide insights can be achieved. With Multiped, a shipping company achieves a more efficient operation on board, for example of the dredging process.”
Bringing marketing expertise in-house
Until August 2022, the month in which the journey with Philip Roos began, MSA-Service was still searching for a good interpretation of the marketing around this product. Tribe: “With many of our projects, we are used to realizing customer-specific solutions. This is what customers know how to find us for. With Multiped, it’s the other way around and we have to work actively to market the product. The Datawerf course was a low-key way for us to explore the possibilities. Philip pleasantly helped us to look at the market from a different perspective. With the resulting plan, we were able to take further steps. He is very experienced and has broad knowledge. We have followed much of his advice.”
“Really getting above water what the actual problem is. Customer-driven innovation only takes proper shape that way.”
Customer focus
What Philip Roos has also achieved above all is that there has been a greater focus on marketing within the organization. Tribe: “We pay more attention to other aspects of product development and introduction than just the purely technical facets of it. An important tip we got from Philip is also to Thinking more from a customer’s pain point. We regularly get feedback from customers and develop our own ideas. We certainly want to do something with that, but in order to respond to it properly, it’s important to really surface what the actual problem is. Customer-driven innovation gets really good shape only that way.”
Looking back on the Datawerf journey, Stam concludes that it was a start for a more balanced view of product development and launch.“I would definitely recommend other SMEs to explore the possibilities of getting started with Datawerf. To grow your organization, it’s important to have a mix of knowledge and expertise in-house. With Datawerf, you can explore what suits your company.”