How Hexagon disrupted itself to create a consumer products division

Swedish conglomerate Hexagon has broken into new markets with a sleek consumer product line.

Hexagon’s Geosystems division built a business providing professional survey and construction equipment. Their products were “big, chunky,” and “rugged,” and made with civil engineers in mind. They still make rugged products for surveying in traditional construction settings, but now they also make sleek handheld laser scanners used by art preservationists, digital engineers and special effects directors for Hollywood films. These “consumer-style” products look like they could fit in with Apple’s product line, and the newest iterations can attach to robots and drones for autonomous scanning. They’re also responsible for more than 50% of Hexagon’s new customers, and created 16% sales growth in just nine months.

If 16% organic sales growth sounds good to you, creating a new product line might be your answer. So how does a company go about disrupting itself? ...