By concurrently keeping focus on what’s really important to its business, Hexagon will continue to make strides toward its vision of an autonomous future that enables a sustainable world for humanity.
As I reflect on the theme of this year’s upcoming Earth Day – “Restore our Earth” – I’m reminded of just how fragile life is.
Surviving the unprecedented challenges facing billions of people in millions of different ways over the past year has been a feat in and of itself. While much that will be remembered a decade from now will be stories of courage, sacrifice, and heroism, the biggest takeaway I have as President and CEO of Hexagon is that, in the end, the thing that matters most is speed.
Fortunately, data-driven technologies and intelligent software platforms changed the rules, enabling the roll-out of vaccines in a matter of months instead of years – proving survival of the fittest has become survival of the swiftest.
So why did it take a pandemic to achieve these outcomes?
It’s simple. We fell victim to “the tyranny of the urgent,” the problem that occurs when the “urgent” replaces the “important.” No doubt, in the decades leading up to the pandemic, there were more urgent matters to attend to, and thus a matter of critical importance was ignored.
With speed as our backdrop, we must continue to focus on what is truly important amidst the urgent. For Hexagon, that means continued development of autonomous technologies that put data to work in ways that go far beyond what was ever possible — making certain that every process, workflow, business, and industry has the ability to achieve productivity, efficiency and quality improvements at scale. The result – fewer inputs and less waste.
As I’ve said many times before, while it’s become cliché for leaders to say do well by doing good, we think the opposite is true — that we will do good for the Earth by doing well in our businesses.
Today, there’s nothing more important than sustainability. ESG is no longer a vague and distant goal. Rather, it’s something all businesses must learn to embrace at an accelerated pace. In the same way that data-driven technologies led to life-saving vaccines against COVID, I believe these technologies are the critical enabler for humanity’s long-term survival. No matter the ingenuity or adaptation, understanding what to do and executing well – swiftly – is necessary.
Imagine how it would feel to read news about progress instead of constant reports about the planet’s deterioration. I have no doubt we can get it right!
In 2021 and beyond, we can save the world with data-driven processes that enable us to better predict and navigate the urgent while maintaining focus on what’s really important — the health and well-being of each other and this planet we all share.
