Breaking the Hardware Mindset: Overcoming Barriers to System-Level Innovation

In today’s world, products are no longer standalone artifacts; they are systems… complex ones. A loud speaker, for example, is no longer just a piece of hardware but an ecosystem of hardware, software, machine learning and services designed to work together seamlessly. If this system thinking isn’t embedded at the very beginning of the idea and discovery stage, the result is fragmentation, frustration, and failure of good customer experience and customer satisfaction. On the one hand, we talk about AI, on the other hand we fail to deliver a device with an app that simply just works perfectly.

This speech will explore how companies born in the pre-digital era can adopt a systems mindset to stay competitive with their software and integrated solutions on the top of their hardware offering. Through case studies and actionable insights, I’ll uncover why leaders with connected and intelligent products excel and how others can achieve the same results.