Today, we have chosen to interview Milan Simek. He is the Co-Founder and CEO of Sewio Networks.
First of all, tell us about you, your career, and how you founded this company?
I received my Ph.D. indoor Positioning Systems at the University of Technology in Brno, where, as a project manager, I also led research on wireless sensor systems. My passion for UWB (ultra-wideband) technology, industrial IoT technologies, and business-related strategies later brought me to the idea of founding Sewio Networks. I founded it with the vision of building a company that would revolutionize the global market of Indoor Positioning services by helping industrial clients to maximize their efficiency and safety.
So let’s talk about Sewio and how your business works in practice?
Sewio Networks is a Czech-based manufacturer of real-time location systems built on ultra-wideband technology (UWB). The company was founded in 2014 and is headquartered in Brno. However, with our efforts to be closer to our partners and customers, we also have offices in the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany.
In simple terms, we bring a brand new level of understanding to work, material-flow processes, and employee safety by introducing industrial companies to exact indoor tracking and rich data analytics, helping them maximize their efficiency, profitability, and safety. We deliver a precise, easy-to-integrate, reliable, and fully scalable IoT solution for indoor location tracking through a global network of over 100partners who operate in 30 countries all around the world, helping end customers with the implementation of the Sewio RTLS.
We are also proud to be among the few analyst-recognized solutions as we positioned in the 2021 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Indoor Location Services as a Niche Player; we received the 2020 Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice for Indoor Location Services and were recognized as one of the top 50 fastest-growing Central European technology companies by Deloitte two times in a row.
Who are your customers? How do you think you are different from your competition?
We focus primarily on three verticals: automotive and aerospace OEMs, manufacturing companies, distribution centers, and warehouses. Our customers include Volkswagen, Toyota, Budweiser Budvar, TPCA, Škoda, and ENEL.
As for our competition, many companies are trying to do similar things and bring RTLS solutions to the market. However, it is often tempting to tackle many verticals – from healthcare to retail with new technology. Unlike other RTLS vendors, Sewio has a clear focus on the industrial environment and scenarios. Additionally, we don’t restrict our efforts to delivering solely the hardware and/or software, but rather the overall business success it should bring. Years of in-field experiences have proven our initial strategy, that customer success only comes by creating a closed-loop between the product and its customer and then going beyond the physical product, providing full customer services including support, training, and consulting, all to enable a highly positive ROI and great customer experience.
Have you introduced any significant innovations recently?
We have been focusing on innovating both our hardware and software in the past year. In terms of software, we rolled out RTLS Studio 2.4, which enables a whole new set of workplace safety use cases and supports enterprise-level and large-scale installations thanks to adopting a system-agnostic approach and easier integration with third-party systems. As for our hardware, we released new, fully certified (CE and FCC) industrial anchors, which complete our in-house manufactured Sewio industrial infrastructure portfolio.
How has the COVID Era affected your business?
Although personal meetings and traveling to customers’ sites were limited, we could still support major Sewio RTLS deployments, including two automotive enterprises in South Korea and a trailer producer in Mexico.
We’ve also continued growing our business by strengthening our US presence, getting Viren Mathuria on board as general manager for our North American market, bringing his 10+ years of experience with Atlas Copco and Ubisense. Sewio RTLS technology is also featured in two USA-based innovation centers – in Deloitte’s Smart Factory in Wichita, KS, and INGRAM’s IoT Center of Excellence in Irving, CA.
Knowing that we managed all this despite the difficulties we faced during COVID times, I am extremely proud of the entire team at Sewio and look forward to seeing what the future holds for us.
Your final thoughts
Since digitization plays a crucial role in revolutionizing the industry, I believe that Real-time Location Systems are becoming one of the key technologies enabling Industry 4.0 to become a reality. I am excited for Sewio Networks to be a part of this digital transformation.
- Spokesperson: Milan Simek
- Company: Sewio Networks
- Website link: https://www.sewio.net/
