Following last week’s announcement that global growth equity firm Summit Partners has invested $67 million in Syncron, I sat down with CEO Anders Grudén to discuss what this momentous occasion means for Syncron, the after-sales service industry as a whole and for the broader manufacturing category.
What are the details of the investment?
Global growth equity firm Summit Partners invested $67 million in Syncron to support the continued development of our category-leading enterprise SaaS solutions and expansion of global operations.
Syncron is the first Sweden-based company in which Summit has invested and the investment is the second-largest investment ever in a Swedish enterprise SaaS company. We are thrilled to be in the same category as fellow leading Swedish companies like Klarna, Spotify and Skype and know this investment will further support the innovation and creation of our cutting-edge, cloud-based after-sales service solutions.
Why did Summit Partners choose to invest in Syncron?
Summit’s decision to invest in Syncron is a major ‘stamp of approval’ from a well-respected financial institution. The Summit team is constantly looking for global trends that represent big market and investment opportunities. In our case, that global trend is servitization, which requires manufacturers to seek solutions designed to maximize product uptime.
What is servitization? Why does servitization matter to manufacturers?
Servitization, where manufacturers must evolve from selling products to selling the output or value that products deliver, is driving these manufacturers to evolve their often sub-optimized after-sales service operations from reactive, break-fix models focused on repair execution, to ones focused on repair prevention and maximizing product uptime.
For decades, manufacturers have been focused on repair execution – repairing a product after it has already broken down – but today’s customers want products that work all the time. This is driving manufacturers to shift their focus from repair execution to dynamic repair prevention – or maximizing product uptime.
As more products are equipped with smart sensors, it is now more important than ever to shift from a reactive, break-fix service model to one focused on maximizing product uptime, or preemptively repairing equipment before it ever fails. The best way to achieve this is to leverage sensor-based IoT data to ensure parts are pre-emptively replaced before they fail – and this is where Syncron and our solutions come in.
The Syncron team, coupled with our award-winning solutions, enables manufacturers to reinvent their service organizations, adopting new solutions and business processes to optimize service parts inventory levels and prices while maximizing product uptime. This not only leads to improvements in revenue, gross profits and operational efficiency, but also the overall customer experience.
Why is this investment important to Syncron?
The investment supports our vision of leading the world’s transition from reactive after-sales service to intelligently maximize product uptime and customer loyalty.
Syncron is well-equipped to enable manufacturers to shift from repair execution to repair avoidance and this investment fuels our ability to do so. We are adding a well-respected brand as a minority shareholder and their experience will help support our continued growth and development of the solutions manufacturers need to survive in today’s ever-changing world.
Additionally, Summit’s extensive experience taking other enterprise SaaS companies public will add a new dimension and wealth of experience to our team. This ultimately will help support Syncron’s next chapter in our path to IPO readiness.
What does the future look like for Syncron?
Syncron has always been and will continue to be focused on growth – developing the solutions and resources necessary for manufacturers to succeed in today’s competitive landscape.
We are excited about this new partnership with Summit and we look forward to leveraging their expertise in enhancing Syncron services, solutions and customer support around the world. Syncron’s commitment to customer success remains at the forefront of our corporate culture and we are excited to continue down this path.
For more information on Summit Partners’ investment in Syncron, check out the press release and additional blog coverage.
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