The world of digital systems

Exhibitors from all over the world come to the leading international trade fair Light+Building in Frankfurt every two years to showcase where building and lighting technology is headed in the future. In 2016, Hager’s trade fair stand was once again one of the highlights of this industry show, attracting over 25,000 visitors. Incidentally, this number of visitors equates to the population of a medium-sized city.

This time, trade professionals were especially interested in the newly developed planning software hagercad 3.0. It is the first piece of software capable of creating uni- and multipolar electrical installations automatically. The programme ensures that all currently applicable national standards and regulations are taken into account and even allows installers to calculate the amount of work that will be required for particular quotes. In a nutshell, it is in keeping with Hager’s aspiration to “provide installers with first-class tools so that they can plan, configure and use Hager products efficiently and straightforwardly“, as Ulrich Holzer, Hager Group Corporate IT Director, puts it.

More than 30,000 users have already installed the software. Thierry Friederich, Senior IT Manager for hagercad, explains this success, “…this product contains our in-depth knowledge of all the relevant and current standards in place across various markets, and it also incorporates the experience of our customers, which we have factored into the programming so that our products offer the best possible assistance in practice.”

Thierry Friederich has helped shape the digital coming of age at Hager from the very beginning. “It all began over 20 years ago with the first e-catalogue, which was still being sent out to customers on a CD”, recalls Thierry with a smile. He is now in charge of the hagercad platform, the ‘mother ship’ as he calls it, because a range of additional services for customers can ‘dock’ at it.

These applications are also increasingly being provided to customers in the form of efficient apps for mobile end devices. The next step will be to integrate new technologies such as virtual reality.

Connection to the myHager world

Ulrich Holzer sees in digital installation aids like hagercad a segment that is becoming ever-more significant. Ultimately, this means that Hager products are also penetrating ever deeper into the world of things and leaving behind their digital traces in the cloud. Hager is increasingly equipping its products with digital interfaces, computing power and software to create platforms as a new space for digital applications and interactions with customers.

Hager is being guided along this path by its own exacting individual standards and its customers’ requirements. While the concept of the customer has expanded somewhat, in the future end users, such as tenants and owners of residences and residential buildings, will also play a more important role than ever before where Hager is concerned.

One of the challenges involved is to incorporate the many digital applications and various customers into a homogeneous digital Hager world. In the case of the planning software hagercad 3.0, this can be achieved, for example, by connecting it to myHager. The platform acts as an global habitat for Hager’s digital evolution, and has been available in ten countries since the start of 2015. By the end of 2017, the number of markets will have risen to 20.

More than 50,000 customers already have access to the digital Hager cosmos. This brings different digital systems into contact with Hager‘s product range, enabling product configuration, project planning and archiving of vital data. Thomas Burklé illustrates the direction that Hager would like to take using the example of the car: “…you start your car with your key and instantly have control of the music, air conditioning system, lights and many other features that have nothing at all to do with driving. It would never cross your mind to have to log in specifically to access these features.”

The coviva app

Thomas Burklé is in charge of IT marketing applications. He says that “…until now, there were still too many different touchpoints and plug-ins in the Hager world. Users often needed a whole series of passwords to access the various applications.”

Simplifying certain aspects in this regard and implementing intelligent links is the key, for example, to successfully making your mark in the extremely exciting smart home segment. The modern home already shares many similarities with Thomas Burklé’s analogy of the car. Nowadays, music, lighting, heating, air conditioning, door locking…, can all be controlled using a single control unit: the mobile phone, for example. The functions communicate with one another, as well as collect and process data. The smartphone is turning into a regular access key for buildings and a general remote control for all devices. For installers, on the other hand, it is becoming the smart equivalent of the classic screwdriver, which they can use to inspect and adjust electronic systems.

Products of the future will no longer be developed purely to fulfil a simple function. Rather, there will be a number of questions to answer such as what data they collect, what services they can provide customers and what other components they can connect with. Hager’s new smart home application, coviva, provides a response to questions like these.

The coviva Smartbox

Users are increasingly looking for products and digital applications for the smart home from a single source. This represents a considerable opportunity for Hager. Taking advantage of this opportunity requires a closer connection with users and building owners. “In the past, this kind of connection didn’t exist with conventional hardware products. The contact we had was primarily with installers and wholesalers. Tenants and homeowners are now confronting us with a whole new set of expectations” notes Thomas Burklé.

It’s all about establishing a relationship, personal contact, a confidence based on trust. When customers start up their coviva smartboxes today, they are greeted with an e-mail personally welcoming them to myHager platform. The smartbox checks which devices are already connected, to then deliberately make suggestions and provide support for additional applications and optimisations. The smartbox can be linked to the myHager world and also be managed on the go. This has a positive impact in areas such as energy efficiency, living comfort and security. coviva is the first product to be connected to myHager. Another six products will follow suit in 2017.

The digital connectivity of things harbours considerable potential. Two thirds of all residential buildings in Germany are in need of renovation. However very often, modernisations still leave us limited in terms of designing electric systems as installers are commonly bound by existing wire structures. Wireless connections such as those established through the coviva smartbox enable a state-of-the-art and custom-adapted service, without needing to rewire the electric infrastructure.

Configuration and collaboration

This new connectivity between functions and devices is resulting in a new sense of solidarity between market groups. End users, installers and wholesalers are all on an equal footing in the digital Hager world. Hager offers everyone in this digital world access to its tools and expertise. Wholesalers are using Hager’s configuration tools for sales with their own customers.

Installers, on the other hand, are saving planned and implemented installations on myHager, which means they can access them anywhere using a number of different devices.

Success in the future will depend on whether competitors develop the best understanding of the complete life cycle of a product and, from this knowledge, derive products and services that offer the greatest customer benefit. This requires us to make more of an effort, including in our day-to-day business, to put ourselves in the position of the end user, to not only think about selling products but also about new services, such as leasing products for digital applications or providing digital applications themselves. One such example would be connected smoke detectors that can also collect data to be sent to insurers for loss reports or trigger emergency calls. Hager is already marketing smart devices like these inclusive of such services. In other cases, an additional service can increase the attractiveness of the products, for example when Hager offers alarm systems that include a three-year video monitoring service.

Doesn’t that sound like an exciting future?