THE WAREHOUSE ROBOTICS MARKET IS WORTH AN ESTIMATED US $ 6.1bn AND IS PROJECTED TO REACH
$ 10.5bn by 2028
and medium-sized retail enterprises throughout the US and Canada .
Prior to this , she was VP Sales North America for IBM , a role that saw her lead sales for its Smarter Commerce and Watson Customer Engagement Business Unit .
The experience is standing her in good stead for her role at GreyOrange , whose customers , she says , are asking for one thing above all else : education .
“ A huge part of the job that our go-tomarket teams and industry experts have is to educate clients on how they can solve their problems ,” she says . “ About 60 % of our time is spent on education about opportunities and alternatives .
And there is a lot of educating to do in a market that is growing at a rapid pace . Education is one thing that can make it easier for clients to move forward . Seeing how other customers have done it can help here .”
As COO , growth is something Surrette thinks about “ on a 24 / 7 basis ”. She says : “ The way we ’ ll grow is by continuing to innovate and by understanding how to help clients do things in a repeatable , scalable fashion so that they can recreate initial successes throughout their enterprises .”
GreyOrange is also helping drive growth through innovation .
“ We launched our Certified Ranger Network platform this year ,” she says .
“ This allows various vendors ’ robots to join our platform and be used by our clients .”
Surrette says , too , that because automation requires a lot of capital , the company offers robot-as-a-service models that commit customers for only a year , instead of committing to capital outlays that cover ten years .
“ Sometimes , we might encourage a client to bite small and chew fast : take a project that ’ s smaller , get through it quickly , and then take it from there . You don ’ t necessarily have to boil the entire ocean to get good value out of starting an automation journey .
The challenges that Surrette and her team help customers meet come from all angles , including the labour market .
“ Today ’ s talent market in logistics is very tight ,” she says . “ A retailer might want to put in place same-day shipping but because they don ’ t have labour available to them that turns into threeday shipping .”
This , she says , is a challenge GreyOrange can handle .
“ We can do that in a multitude of ways that fit into the client ’ s existing footprint , meaning they don ’ t necessarily have to go out and buy a new greenfield space to build another warehouse .”
Serving customer needs is what drives Surrette . She says : “ I always want our teams to think about everything from
14 December 2023