MANN + HUMMEL
Within a couple of months Vaillant will find himself in Silicon Valley , Shenzhen , Singapore and Germany , with brief stops at his North Carolina base catching up with reports from his team around the world . He is in Silicon Valley a lot as leader of startups and the venture arm of the company . “ We are a traditional manufacturer and you could think that Silicon Valley is only about Tesla and Apple , but we need new materials and smart sensors and you find this in Silicon Valley as well . The world is changing at a very rapid pace . Large marketleading corporations like us have been doing the same thing for a very long time and really need to reinvent themselves . We need the courage to experiment with a completely different way of working , and I think IoT is a really great vehicle to show what can be done . Digital companies are able to bring out new products in a very short time compared to , say , automobile manufacturers . Cellphone companies show that it ’ s possible to roll out a new product every six or 12 months , not
90 June 2018