A Chat with Søren Peters, CEO at HowToRobot: Helping Businesses Get Access To The Global Robot Market

Søren Peters How To Robot

HowToRobot.com is a global online platform connecting robot buyers and suppliers. We’re helping businesses with getting access to the global robot market – and making automation much easier to handle.

A growing network of independent robot & automation advisors are partnering with our platform. They are already making robotics and automation practical for lots of small and medium-sized companies.

These companies use our platform for getting started with automation, calculating business cases, finding suppliers, solutions, products and services. We cover more than 16,000 robot & automation suppliers worldwide.
 
 
HowToRobot – danskudviklet robot-matchmakingsplatform
 

How did you come up with the idea for the company?

 
It started with our sister company Gain & Co, which is an independent advisor on robotics and automation to the industry. We saw that there was – and is – huge interest in robots. But often, companies are not well-prepared for all the changes robots bring. And they don’t have the resources to implement robots in a structured way needed to succeed. It resembles the IT industry from 20 years ago when the air was full of excitement, but it was hard to navigate as a buyer.

As an example, it has been very difficult for customers to find robot suppliers with the right experience. They simply didn’t know whom to call. We, therefore, started mapping out all the robot and automation companies globally back in 2019. This turned into the platform and marketplace that we know today as HowToRobot.com. The response from suppliers and buyers has been incredible so far – we’ve seen companies from Europe reaching out to suppliers from the US and China and the other way around because of our platform. We’re quickly making the world of robots more connected.
 

 

How has the company evolved during the pandemic?

 
The pandemic has been the perfect storm – with supply chain disruptions and labor shortages going through the roof. So many new companies are now starting to consider robots and automation to make up for these issues. But, at the same time, meeting with suppliers in person at industry expo’s etc., has also been extremely difficult.

HowToRobot.com has, as a result, seen tremendous growth. The physical first-time meeting is being replaced by matchmaking online. Customers from across the world are every day posting new projects on our platform asking for suppliers to help them automate many different tasks. Because we can match these projects accurately to suppliers, the hit rate is much higher than what you would get by walking around booth-by-booth at an expo talking to suppliers.

It’s not that in-person meetings are gone. They are just starting to happen at a later stage in negotiations with suppliers.
 

What can we hope to see from HowToRobot in the future?

 
We are already seeing small signs that the robot market is maturing: Buyers are becoming more educated, and suppliers are standardizing their robotic solutions and expanding to the global market.

Just as the IT industry has become transparent, mature, and digitally connected, so will the robotic industry. Simply because it drives down costs for buyers and suppliers and makes the value chain more efficient.

There is no doubt that a key driver in this development will be a digital platform capable of connecting the global robot market – just like we are doing now with HowToRobot.com.