How Hexagon disrupted itself to create a consumer products division
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How Hexagon disrupted itself to create a consumer products division

Hexagon built a consumer-focused team while still running its specialist divisions – and succeeded by focusing on the “wow” factor.

Maija Palmer
Sifted, 2022
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Elton John’s latest tour used Hexagon’s products to digitize stage art. Marvel, Star Wars and award-winning VR films used the products, and they were also used to preserve the decorative walls in Nefertiti’s tomb. Perhaps more importantly, the new products have attracted more than 50% of the company’s new customers, and allowed the company to expand into new markets. In this article from Sifted, Maija Palmer explores the secrets to Hexagon’s consumer product success.

Summary

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? ...

About the Author

For 19 years, Maija Palmer covered technology for the Financial Times. She’s now a senior reporter for Sifted, a news site that reports on the innovation economy in Europe. She also created Future Proof, a Sifted newsletter on corporate innovation.

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