On September 10, 2001, I became a founder of my third software company. The next day, as I came to learn that the world had changed forever, I experienced one of the key lessons that many founders learn on their journey to build a new venture—despite what you think you know, there always comes a moment when you realize you know very little.

At Webalo we’ve been 100% focused on the digital transformation of industrial companies since 2016, and we’ve been very fortunate to spend time with some of the world’s greatest industrial companies, in all kinds of industries – energy, oil & gas, manufacturing, mining, transportation and others.

Visit an industrial plant - a mine, power generation plant or manufacturing facility for example - and automation, mechanical and digital, is everywhere. Millions of dollars are invested in machinery, robotics, enterprise and industrial software systems that run and operate a plant. However, chat with the workforce, the frontline workers themselves, and you’ll find that they’re largely disconnected from all of this automation – when they do their job, it's paper, voice or experience-based and rarely digitized.