Michael Peroni shares insights on his new EMEA sales role, establishing a culture of quality, and how ETQ’s integration with Hexagon creates new opportunities for manufacturers
This week, we are starting a new series of conversations, where we sit down with executives within ETQ and Hexagon, as well as with external industry leaders, to gather their insights and perspectives. For our inaugural Executive Spotlight, we spoke to ETQ’s Michael Peroni, who was recently promoted to vice president, EMEA Sales. Michael has been with ETQ for three years in the role of Director, Strategic Business Development, working with ETQ’s 600+ global customers and channel partners to develop and expand connected quality solutions and accelerate enterprise value.
In his new role, Michael will be hiring and building a sales team in the primary EMEA countries to expand the across that region. He will continue to manage partnerships with Epicor and SIG, as well as new global channel partnerships to be announced in the coming weeks and months.
Does your new role change how you work with ETQ customers?
In my previous role, my goal was to help manufacturers find synergies between ETQ and other solutions, such as shop floor technologies. In my new role, I’ll be bringing ETQ to new geographic markets and helping manufacturers understand and leverage the core capabilities of quality management systems, as well as how they fit into the broader technology ecosystem.
Roughly 18% of our business is outside North America, so we have a huge opportunity to bring the best cloud native QMS system to those countries. Another aspect of my new role is to understand how the needs of each region vary and inform product development, so we can continue to evolve our global product delivery.
How does ETQ’s integration with Hexagon benefit manufacturers in EMEA?
Hexagon presents several opportunities for us to add value to manufacturers in EMEA. Hexagon currently delivers quality control capabilities, production software, design, and engineering software – and that’s just in its Manufacturing Intelligence division. Also, Hexagon is growing its industry focus, so there is very good alignment for us with some of its industry groups, including automotive, medical device, and aerospace and defense. The opportunity for ETQ is to provide efficiency gains and cost savings to existing customers through improved and automated quality management practices, and to offer additional value through integrated solutions with all Hexagon technologies targeting the most pressing challenges of those industries. That integration also allows Hexagon to increase its value to its customers by moving up the value chain.
What are your suggestions for companies trying to create a culture of quality?
When it comes to establishing a culture of quality, manufacturers need to implement processes that help their teams do their jobs better, as well as technologies that help them do it faster and with less effort. When implementing new processes, you must do it in a way that is helpful, rather than being viewed as an added burden. This is an absolute must.
Ultimately, all organizations will need to adopt quality processes and a quality mindset to remain competitive, but it’s important not to make too much change all at one time. Instead, think about quality as a journey in which small, incremental, and measurable changes are made over time. That helps an organization improve effectiveness without a lot of disruption or resistance.
What do you see as some of the most interesting trends impacting manufacturers?
We are seeing a few significant macro conditions in manufacturing. One issue that manufacturers are facing now is risk in the global supply chain. As a result, manufacturers are outsourcing to other regions less, and, instead, trying to bring many of their operations onshore. The regions they have been outsourcing to have lower operational costs, so this is a big challenge for manufacturers trying to contain costs. This also presents an opportunity for automated quality solutions.
Current economic uncertainties represent another challenge for manufacturers. When organizations look at quality as a compliance cost center, they miss opportunity to reduce costs and be more efficient. However, when they view quality through the lens of getting a cost reduction, many find quality management provides a return the first 12 months. Quality champions can position quality management as an important part of the cost solution, rather than additional spend.
A third significant trend is digital transformation. This is a very hot topic among manufacturers. The question is no longer whether digital transformation is beneficial; manufacturers now have a clear view of the benefits, as well as how to make them actionable and deliver results today. What is becoming more obvious is that quality management is on the critical path to total digital transformation. As more and more customers connect their operational technologies to enterprise technologies, they are seeing real breakthroughs in being able to address their priority problems.
What do you see as some of ETQ’s biggest opportunities looking ahead?
Having access to a broader set of users through our integration with Hexagon allows us to get a better view of the critical priorities manufacturers face and enables us to expand the capabilities of our solutions and address adjacent business issues that we don’t address today.
Geographic expansion, not just in the US and EMEA, but also with our business partners in regions like Japan, China, Southeast Asia, and Korea presents a tremendous opportunity to tie into industry solutions for added value. We’re making very good progress on that front.
When you’re not working with ETQ customers and partners, what do you enjoy doing in your spare time?
I enjoy being active outdoors and my new role provides me a lot of opportunities to explore new regions, meet new people and have new adventures. I’m very excited, for example, about the opportunity to go hiking in new parts of the world, such as the Italian Alps.
