Each year at Insights, Accruent’s annual user conference, customers come together for a unique opportunity to connect and learn from one another. Attendees gain valuable networking opportunities with thought leaders and experts in their industries, while product experts share market updates, product deep-dives and in-depth learning in an interactive environment. This kind of collaboration enriches the community and equips Accruent customers with the information they need to amplify their organizational impact and make better use of their existing tools.

While this year’s Insights user conference was a virtual event, it still offered attendees the same great valuable training and knowledge. Unprecedented changes in the world have fundamentally altered the way businesses interact with one another and with their business-critical tools. The Insights 2020 Virtual Conference explored these changes and provided valuable perspective into this “new normal,” including product updates that will allow Accruent customers across industries to effectively navigate these changes and enter 2021 with continued success.

The event, which was attended by more than 1,400 virtual attendees, showcased profound insights from President of Accruent Andy Ruse and Accruent’s Commercial President Melissa Hammerle, as well as offered an exciting first look at some of Accruent’s latest innovations in a segment with Greg Rivera, the company’s Chief Product and Strategy Officer. These leaders shed light on the transformative changes seen this year and how corporations and Accruent technologies have evolved to help navigate this change.

Transformative Business Changes in 2020

Across industries, 2020 has accelerated the need for strong data and for digital, data-driven operations. In the healthcare industry, Hammerle explained, ever-shrinking margins and resources have called for clearer data to improve purchasing decisions and allow for better financial planning. Similarly, the manufacturing industry had needed to facilitate remote collaboration and automated work order management to continue operating in the totally remote post-coronavirus world. In the enterprise environment, facility managers have had to reconfigure offices and move collaboration to the cloud to allow for social distancing and contact tracing – and the list goes on.

All of this has required immense creativity, reallocation of resources, and a reconfiguration of existing products and practices to meet these changing needs.

It has also required that people do more with less: to run manufacturing facilities with fewer employees, to ensure a positive campus experience with spaces cut in half, to create a positive dining experience while maintaining social distance. And it has all called for a renewed focus on facilities and shared spaces as companies strive to maintain compliance, operations and employee safety.

While it has been a struggle, many companies have successfully evolved and even thrived. And they have done so because of a renewed focus on facilities and the built environment.

The Future of the Built Environment

So, what does all of this mean for the future of your business and your tools? As we mentioned, the pandemic has accelerated digital transformation across industries, forcing people to update their technologies to communicate and operate across devices and locations.

The future, Ruse explained, is all about “working to reimagine your entire cross-platform experience, moving toward purpose-built suites of solutions with core, integrated workflows built for the specialized needs of your industry. With best practices already built in and workflows automatically sparked into action – eliminating the need for manual response.”

In other words, it is about true digital evolution with built-in best practices, automations and solutions.

This is only possible through truly integrated systems and the Internet of Things (IoT), which connect and automate critical workflows and daily operations without the need for human catalysts. This will allow industries to focus on their jobs and their true functions, rather than on tedious day-to-day tasks and processes, knowing systems are tackling a lot of the work for them.

Accruent is working hard to make that future a reality, explained Ruse: “We will become the premier, data-led solution provider for organizations across the globe, managing every aspect of the built environment so you can deliver an incredible experience for your people and your customers.”

Accruent’s Path to the Future

Greg Rivera shared how Accruent is bringing these changes to life today with, “Things like big data, Internet of Things, next generation business intelligence, predictive technologies, and new ways of interacting, like with natural language queries and chatbots […] We are also integrating many of our leading products together to enable the workflows you have told us are important, and we are confident this will deliver even greater value.”

Some major areas of focus here include:

  • Integrating products and workflows
  • Providing mobile access to business-critical solutions
  • Enhancing user experience and analytics
  • Infusing tools with AI and Big Data to bring new insights and experiences

These improvements along with many others shared during the product roadmap sessions will enhance uptime, increase efficiency and reduce costs for Accruent customers. To learn more about these enhancements, customers are encouraged to contact their customer success managers.

Catch Up with Insights On-Demand

Unable to join us this year for Insights 2020 Virtual? You can still catch a selection of our best breakout sessions on-demand. Explore the sessions.