August 2017
Supplement
HBS Case Collection

PTC: A Transformation to IoT (B)

By: Rajiv Lal and Sarah McAra

Format:Print
| Language:English
| Pages:11

Abstract

In 2013, manufacturing software company PTC Inc. entered the Internet of Things (IoT) market under the leadership of CEO Jim Heppelmann, but the company’s culture was not fully aligned with the new strategic direction. Historically, PTC's culture was defined by aggressive sales tactics, a customer-focused attitude, and highly specialized engineers, many of whom had worked at PTC for 10+ years, and it did not emphasize collaboration or innovation. To help align PTC's culture with its new strategy, the company's leadership launched PTC 2020, an HR initiative that involved optional Learning Labs to teach employees about PTC 2020 and a Change Champions program that recognized employees who embraced the cultural shift. Heppelmann and other PTC leaders had enthusiastically spearheaded PTC 2020, but there were many challenges to achieving organization-wide buy-in across PTC's different divisions and global offices. In late 2016, Heppelmann and the HR team had to assess the progress made so far and look forward: Were their current programs sufficient, or were new programs needed to drive organization-wide change?