DigitalituM Podcast Episode 20 - Dr.Ing Eike Wolfram Schaeffer- Robotop - Hybrid Selling with 3D Content

DigitalituM Podcast – Episode 20
Guest: Dr.-Ing. Eike Wolfram Schäffer, Co-Founder & CEO of RoboTop
Host: Markus Rimmele, Managing Principal of DigitalituM
Theme: Hybrid Selling, Digital Tools, and the Future of Manufacturing Sales

In this episode of the DigitalituM Podcast – Manufacturing at the Intersection of Digital Transformation, Markus welcomes Dr.-Ing. Eike Wolfram Schäffer from Nuremberg, Germany. Eike shares his journey from holding dual master’s degrees in mechanical and economic engineering to earning a PhD in factory automation, and now leading RoboTop, a spin-off from the University of Erlangen, which focuses on turning advanced digital planning concepts into market-ready solutions. The conversation dives deep into the shift in manufacturing sales processes. Both the DE and US face similar challenges: generational change, reliance on outdated relationship-based selling, and the urgent need to adopt modern digital tools. Eike and Markus discuss how hybrid selling—combining trade shows, customer visits, and advanced digital platforms—can bridge the gap.

They explore how extended reality, AI, and 3D visualization can replace expensive, logistically complex machine showcases at trade fairs. Instead of shipping large machinery, companies can utilize virtual models, augmented reality, and interactive digital twins to demonstrate value, enhance training, and facilitate remote sales engagements.

Eike shares examples of creative marketing—like the AI-generated “dancing robot” at Automatica—that capture attention and boost reach on LinkedIn. He emphasizes multi-channel strategies: creating 3D assets once and reusing them across trade show planning, sales presentations, marketing content, AR experiences, training modules, and virtual showrooms.

The discussion also covers how AI agents will further transform industrial sales by automating complex product configuration, integrating with AR/VR tools, and acting as real-time assistants, moving towards an “Iron Man & Jarvis” style of collaboration.

Key Takeaways:

• Hybrid selling is the future—mix in-person and digital channels.
• 3D content should be multi-use, applicable to sales, marketing, training, and virtual showrooms.
• Trade shows are shifting from contract signings to networking and PR hubs—leverage them for content creation.
• AI and extended reality will dramatically reduce the cost and complexity of showing industrial equipment.
• Creativity (yes, even dancing robots) gets attention in B2B marketing.

Sponsor Highlight:
This episode is proudly sponsored by SPS Atlanta 2025 – Smart Production Solutions, happening September 16–18, 2025, at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, GA. Experience the latest in manufacturing automation, digitalization, and Industry 4.0 technologies—right in the heart of the Southeast.
📍 Learn more: www.SPSAmericas.com

Connect with our guest and host:
🔹 Dr.-Ing. Eike Wolfram Schäffer – LinkedIn
🔹 RoboTop – Website
🔹 Markus Rimmele – L

Stay tuned for more inspiring conversations about manufacturing and digital transformation. Also, remember to follow and subscribe to the DigitalituM Podcast for exclusive insights from industry leaders and innovators.

We appreciate your likes and comments. If you feel you can add value to this podcast series and want to be our guest, send an email to Sales@DigitalituM.com

Transcript

Markus Rimmele (00:01)
Welcome to episode 20 of the Digitalitum podcast, manufacturing at the intersection of digital transformation. Today we have another special guest, Dr. Engineer Eike Wolfram Schäfer from Nuremberg, Germany. Welcome to my podcast.

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (00:27)
Welcome Markus, thank you for the invitation.

Markus Rimmele (00:30)
You're welcome, we're glad to have you as we have a lot of interesting topics we're talking about. But before we dive in, ⁓ explain us your academic titles as they're kind of unique and not everybody have these fancy titles.

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (00:50)
So thank you. So basically I have an engineering background, early on started with a bachelor in mechanical engineering and then I thought, okay, what's next? And then master of engineering, but one master has everybody. So I say, okay, how to differentiate.

in the things you're doing. And so I did a second master in economical engineering due to the fact I'm also very interested in economics and other stuff. So basically, mechanical engineering and economical engineering. And in parallel, I always was very interested in IT. So I worked like during my...

working time at university, also with a lot of IT topics as a tutor and also very IT heavy ⁓ 3D technology and AI heavy industry fields. Then ⁓ I started my PhD at the University Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg at the chair of factory automation production systematics and

Within this field, I worked as long with factory automation, digital planning with names like Siemens and Bosch.

and the quiet over 4 million research project within a consortium of Bosch and Schunk. And there we did a lot of research in the field how to scale automation, how to bring it to mass market adoption and how to use modern technology like extended reality, 3D technology and AI to enable this at scale.

And ⁓ currently we made a spin-off of the university, so I'm the co-founder and CEO of RoboTop, where we develop these ideas and concepts to a product. But I think we will dive into the topic later. Beforehand, I think we want to discuss a little bit about what's the current situation, what is relevant to the current times.

Markus Rimmele (02:55)
Yes, that's right. ⁓

Tell us how you see the current situation in the area of manufacturing focusing on the typical ⁓ sales processes. How are they still done in the year 2025?

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (03:16)
So from my perspective I have like this German perspective but I think ⁓ current sales is very one-to-one, person-to-person sales. Like a lot of traditional build relationships in between many companies and due to the growing ecosystems the last 20 years, 30 years in automotive in the fields around.

We have a lot of like connected relationships, but, I think this is the great, but a lot of like, I think US is the same problem. Baby boomers are retiring. So we have like a lot of shift in the decision-making. What is good at one point, because when they, people leave, there are possibilities for new stuff, but also you lose all the relationships to the.

Markus Rimmele (03:47)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (04:11)
existing companies. But also there's a problem. The people who are currently in the decision phase are not really willing to change a lot. Like there's a huge problem because like if they say two to three years to retirement after me people can can do it but

It's too much effort for me. a lot of like also as you know, like political general situation, like there is a lot of wait and see game and also how I go two years in retirement. So ⁓ just wait and sit. And I think this is like a very interesting field. And with one hand side, you see like a lot of like in German automotive is a lot of like current.

It's like my turmoil in problematic situations. see it like to current stock reports. And on the other hand side, from a German perspective, what I see is there are a lot of investment in U.S. like they're like different opinions to the political way how it's done. But I think

what everybody agrees on is there will be a lot of investments and due to investments there will be also lot of opportunities and that's also why I would ask you how do you see from an American perspective the situation because I'm just very focused on the German perspective even I'm very well connected on LinkedIn so I've also like 73,000 ⁓ people on LinkedIn but I have like the local situation seeing

in my network and with my LinkedIn community.

Markus Rimmele (05:52)
⁓ I would argue it has definitely similarities. We have here also the generational shift and we have the kind of older sales guys who do their business since they do it the last 50 years with a lot of personal relationships. But there's the new generation who gets their information from the World Wide Web. ⁓

And if your company still presents themselves on a website from the 90s with a picture and a lot of text, ⁓ not very ⁓ innovative and all of that, ⁓ or with not a lot of information, then you're overseen. And if you don't do any social media activities at all, and ⁓ you're...

you're not even there on LinkedIn, ⁓ again, you're not seen. And as a foreign company coming here into this ⁓ large domestic market, ⁓ as you know, we are here, the land of marketing and the land of sales, ⁓ you have to be present. If you're not present, you're not seen, nobody buys your product.

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (06:52)
Yeah. Yeah.

And I think that's also a very great point on the differentiation between like Germany and US. Like we're in the space of extended reality sales marketing and pre-sales planning. And like in Germany, the people are not really interested in this new technology. They are more the wait and see people. But...

with a lot of like customs and people are discussed, I think, especially the American and the English people are much more involved and interested in this digital tools and much more willing to use it. I think a big differentiation is also the distance, like Germany, it's like 600 to 700 kilometers or like you can translate it in miles. Yeah, like, yeah, it's a state and here you like most people you can ⁓

Markus Rimmele (07:54)
It's the size of a state in the United States and we have 50 of them.

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (08:04)
like one hour to two hour ride and you can reach a lot of people with car and like German Autobahn you can also go very fast so you can like fast cars fast infrastructure so you can go everywhere very fast but I think we discussed beforehand in America I think the problem is you have to fly to customers you have the costs of going to a customer

Markus Rimmele (08:09)
Mm-hmm.

That's right.

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (08:30)
for just one, two, three, four, five sales meeting are much bigger. So, and.

Markus Rimmele (08:35)
That's right. Yeah,

definitely a point plus you really need to showcase specifically if you sell something complicated like a piece of machinery, you have to showcase the value of what that product brings to you. The good old paper sheet or nowadays PDF with a...

⁓ big format picture of the machine and a bunch of technical data and feature ⁓ doesn't help anymore. You have to talk about the value, what this machine brings, ⁓ what features actually help that client ⁓ to do better and make money at the end. And then of course the whole service part and lifecycle management part cannot be overseen as well.

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (09:11)
And

And...

And as an old saying is saying seeing is believing or a picture is saying more than a thousand words. I think like for small products you can bring to your customer you send cheaply. Yeah, you can discuss if it's sensible. But I think especially in special machinery and automation, there are a lot of big expensive machines you can't bring with you. And I think...

Markus Rimmele (09:55)
Exactly. ⁓ Also,

yeah, also on a trade show, for example, ⁓ in the past, machine builders brought their expensive big machines ⁓ on the booth and let them run. ⁓ But that has, of course, a lot of challenges. First, it uses a lot of space. If it's a big machine, it takes forever to set it up.

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (09:59)
⁓ Yeah.

Markus Rimmele (10:21)
You need power, you need air, it's loud, you need material, it's super expensive. ⁓ And so what is then the big value and it costs you 100,000s and more to showcase your piece of machinery when on the other hand you could showcase it in a virtual format maybe ⁓ even better.

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (10:45)
Yes, and I think the future is as we sell is hybrid selling. So I think like if everyone sells, I have only online maybe in the future, maybe with Neura chips, whatever, or Neura interface, maybe there are possibilities, but I think in the near and short term future, it's all about like hybrid selling. That's why you need online presence, you need trade shows, you need customer visits, and you need digital tools.

Markus Rimmele (10:50)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (11:14)
And I think trade shows are a good hint and it's also about creativity to get reach. So I think I brought one example for you. So I will share my screen.

Markus Rimmele (11:28)
Let us take a look at that.

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (11:33)
And just to give you an example, so here you see my LinkedIn profile. So I'm about like 53,500 people and it's like for, yeah, it's right a big route, but it's for me one channel. So like the funny thing about Germans is also just, I have people at meet at a IHK, so at an industrial event.

Markus Rimmele (11:43)
That's quite a big grout.

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (12:00)
and they tell, ⁓ I like your videos, I watch all your videos, I watch all this stuff, I really enjoy the text you're writing, it's very inspiring to me. For two years and they, I never have seen a comment or a like. And I think this is a very typical German thing because a lot of Germans are just, they just reading, reading, reading, but don't commenting. And I think this is also a huge space. Like,

Markus Rimmele (12:01)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (12:27)
I have like 20, 30, 100,000 views on a post, but just 100, 200 likes and comments. it's like the style people are currently operating, but they don't use opportunities. And like I had a trade show, so a few weeks ago, Automatica, so a big German automation event, and where we...

Markus Rimmele (12:49)
which was an end

of July in Munich, Germany.

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (12:53)
Yes, and in Munich in Germany and maybe some people have seen this dancing robot. So basically is like how to create attention with stuff. Yeah. At the end and you have to have like some ⁓ unique situation. So basically ⁓ what we are doing is like a standard reality visualization as a part of our solution toolbox and

The situation is if you go like to an event and you show most people like a robotic welding arm in augmented reality, nobody cares. Nobody cares at all. And it's all about the stories. But if I show like a dancing robots, I get a lot of attention. So this video is just, and it's a very like a funny project because also we, we AI generated it.

So it was like some kind of ⁓ personal guerrilla marketing action for our company. So we just AI generated the model, created the animation. So to say, okay, watch what is interesting and then used it to create videos at the event to get some traction. And like, if you take a look, like maybe you know this person, it's like Patrick Schwarzkopf.

Markus Rimmele (13:59)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (14:18)
So ⁓ head of podium are robotics and automation. And I think if you are creative and use this, you can get quite, quite a lot of like it got some sun attention. So nine repost, 90, 49 comments and over 340 likes. You can get quite some reach if you are working or original. And I think that's, that's the thing.

Markus Rimmele (14:23)
Mm-hmm.

Definitely.

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (14:46)
Like when I started going at trade shows, I see like the Corona bubble stuff with the whole digital showrooms. And I think it's nice. But the problem is you just had at this point, the uniqueness of showrooms, but you didn't add any value. But I think we are out of this phase and now it's about creating value. So we have to entertain the people, give them some unique stuff or to help them to be more efficient. And.

That's also ⁓ what we planning to do at SPS trade show in Nuremberg. So SPS is basically my hometown. So we are to understand for American people. Nuremberg is a very like technology hot hotspot. So I think also if you want to visit Germany, it's a very beautiful place. have a very old castle. We have a lot of like in the...

Markus Rimmele (15:38)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (15:41)
medieval age, blacksmiths and a lot of like high tech. So just Google Nuremberg, a lot of innovative technology from the medieval was around Nuremberg and it was also very big trading hub spot. And so we have also a lot of like big known companies in the area like Siemens, we have Adidas. So the headquarter of Adidas is near here and we have Scheffler. just three very big, big names and

Around this area also what would be interesting fact for the Americans. We have the biggest brewery density in the world. So we have more breweries at like 100 kilometers or some specific area than any part of the world. So if you want to taste very good German beer, it's also a recommendation. But also what I heard, Marcus, told me also SPS is also going to America.

So I think you know a little bit more about that.

Markus Rimmele (16:40)
That's correct.

The Smart Production Systems Trade Show, which is short SPS, will happen this year, the first time in the Americas and it happens right in our front yard here in Atlanta, Georgia, from September 16 to 18 in the Georgia World Congress Center.

large trade show hall here in the city center. Right next, by the way, to the Mercedes-Benz Stadium, home of Atlanta United and the Atlanta Falcons, and home to the FIFA World Cup FIFA Soccer World Cup in next year, 2026.

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (17:37)
Awesome, awesome. So maybe we have to discuss with the people if they also want to have like dancing robots at the trade show. I think humanoids are a bigger trend.

Markus Rimmele (17:46)
⁓ Yeah, that's

definitely an opportunity. tell us a little bit about your connection to the SPS show in Nuremberg. How often have you attended already? When was actually your first time you attended the Nuremberg show of SPS?

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (18:05)
So it's very early. I, due to the fact it's my hometown and it's like next by, so I have like the distance in Germany, I have like a 10, 50 minute subway ride to the, through the event location. So for me it's next by. And so I have first time 2008. And it's also like, you see, if you go like, like when I started studying,

Markus Rimmele (18:17)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (18:31)
Mechanical engineering and started to going at the trade show. It's very interesting to see how trades show are shifting So if you talk like to the old guiles guys, there was a lot of like signing at the trade shows so you did like contracting at trade shows and Currently, it's more in the direction of if there is a signing it's prepared and it's more like a PR event But it's not more like a real sales buzz are

that was earlier, it's much more getting together and meeting people. it's like, community network. it's also like, yes, yes. And also what I started also with my LinkedIn friends is also that it's all about how to use the stuff from the trade show at...

Markus Rimmele (19:11)
community and network.

scene and being seen.

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (19:28)
different channels. I think also like trade show organizers as well as people are going to a trade show. So I think trade show is a place where I can leverage so I can meet my people but I can also then invite a lot of people make a lot of interviews in a short amount of time. So if I like invite 20 influencers at different areas they come can come by make an interview and I can create a lot of

Markus Rimmele (19:30)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (19:57)
pieces of content and I think this is what is totally underutilized. And then also if you use technologies like a Gaussian splatting and stuff like that, you can also digitalize the experience for later on. So I think like in the trade show preparation and afterwards, there is like a lot of opportunity. I can also show you a good example, I think.

Another problem at trade shows is that people do not find, like if you are in a big trade show, it's very hard to find the booth of the company. So...

Markus Rimmele (20:41)
Or on the other

hand, as a booth provider, you have to stand out. And on, let's say, typical old style trade shows, a typical booth is the 10 by 10 feet or three by three meter with a background, a table in the front, ⁓ a...

person behind that and then some industrial components just laying on that table to be looked at and you see hundreds of similar tables with just different components on it which is kind of boring.

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (21:23)
Yes. And that's also like, you're also as me in the digital space. So how to use, here's an example for all the audience, how to prepare a trade show with a digital twin and give the people the possibility to know like a digital floor plan where the trade show is. So basically what we did here, I can show you just, ⁓ we used like the floor plan of the trade show.

Markus Rimmele (21:43)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (21:50)
with one of our customers, Low Rolepoint Instruments. And we created like a digital representation of the booths, but we also added like here information where is the booth. So we combined this digital information for a digital floor plan to know where is the trade show, when is trade show, and also combined like some stuff like digital twins and stuff like that.

Markus Rimmele (22:00)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (22:20)
to give an understanding. you have like, in this case, you have like two advantages. You can beforehand use it as a planning tool. So normally your marketing has to discuss with a lot of people, how do I use the space for the trade show? But I think it's also something trade show organizers, but as well as people visiting a trade show, they can like virtually plan their trade show experience. And then,

Markus Rimmele (22:48)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (22:49)
It's just not for planning and that's what I want people to understand. They then can use the same material to create like a way plan for the trade show and then have like a dual use trade show and afterwards they have all the trade show information and can then use the trade show information for like a showroom in the company or a virtual showroom. And so I create one time

Markus Rimmele (23:14)
Mm-hmm.

Thanks.

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (23:20)
solution have instant marketing material have instant LinkedIn material because also LinkedIn is more about creating a lot of small pieces of marketing information. It's not about like creating one big marketing information as you also on LinkedIn. It's not like you create one video and everybody applauds and then you get like a super bowl attention rate. It's more like you need every day.

Markus Rimmele (23:33)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (23:50)
every evening, a lot of videos, a lot of small videos.

Markus Rimmele (23:53)
Yeah, you have

to chop this big video into small pieces and then share the highlights of it.

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (24:00)
Yes, and it's also about the price. It's also about the price. What does this event cost me? So normally you go to a marketing agency and you pay a lot of money just for one video, but you have just a limited amount of budget. So it's also about thinking about how can I create more content elements.

Maybe at just 80 % of the quality, but to be able to bring it all the time on LinkedIn. And I think even if you combine this like a hybrid and non-hybrid model. So you have at the one hand side, you have like this hybrid model of ⁓ going with your showrooms, also LinkedIn influencer campaigns in front and at the trade shows. Also building up your own.

corporate influences and then also digital sales and planning tools.

Markus Rimmele (25:06)
Yeah, and to break it back down to create 3D content in the beginning or convert existing CAD into showroom 3D, it takes time and effort and that at the end of the day is cost. But if you use that only for planning of one thing, the cost is very high. The whole point what Ike is making is

If you create this content and you use it for a lot of different things, for example, in marketing, and you chop it up in small pieces and highlights and share that on LinkedIn, and then also not only you, the company, your employees, ⁓ influencers, partners, share that as well. That's where you get the big attention, and then at the end, finally, the value out of it. Did I summarize that correctly?

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (26:06)
Yeah, correctly. And it's like what we try to educate also the people. And I think also you're educating is that if we create this content, then you could use it on different channels. And I think people don't understand the multi-channel strategy. It's like...

Markus Rimmele (26:24)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (26:24)
like not only chopping a video down in different variations, but also using and that's I think the different a lot of people don't understand 3D is not an image. 3D is a good representation of something you need. And if you and that's the big advantage. If you like, ⁓ for example, create something. So, for example, here.

I can show you another example because I'm a huge fan of using small understandable examples. So in this case, it's like a small planning concept we did at Hackathon. And you can use it to create videos and I can show it. So we used it for videos. The 3D model, we created videos out of it. But what you can also do and that you can try.

Markus Rimmele (27:01)
That's great.

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (27:21)
scan the square code. And then there is a function which is called that augment reality or augment reality. And then you can give your customer a digital experience of the product. like that's the whole concept of hybrid selling. You're sitting in the US. I'm sitting here.

And now you have it here. And now if you are pressing here the right button at the corner, so if you go on your smartphone and on the right button of the corner, then you can also place it in augmented reality in your room in a one-to-one size. So it's all about think different. Think how can I engage the person like you? Yeah, now you have this machine in your office.

How expensive would that be on the classical approach? You can walk through it, you get a feeling of the real size of the real dimensions, you get an understanding of how is it and...

Markus Rimmele (28:20)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. And

that's the big value as you can see this piece of machinery in size one to one in your place. for example, you can figure out without taking a measurement tape, does this piece of equipment even fit in my room? Or like in many ⁓ production spaces, is there maybe a pillar in the way which

prohibits ⁓ entry or the way to get in or stuff like that. ⁓ With things like this, you easily can configure it out. And then on the other hand, I think the other use case could be also for training, for example. You can ⁓ give a training to that piece of equipment without being in front of this piece of equipment.

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (29:08)
and also

Markus Rimmele (29:25)
which gives you the freedom of being independent of the location and independent of a timeline. Let's say a piece of equipment and manufacturing is in production mode. ⁓ If it's in production, you cannot just stop it and go in and do some training or you interrupt the production. If you take this virtual model and put it in your training room, you're independent of your location and independent of any timeline to do that kind of training.

⁓ maintenance and ⁓ operators and so on and so on.

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (30:00)
Yeah, and it's like, I can give you another example. It's like furniture. So basically you have like ⁓ a lot of stuff like furniture or training where you have to explain or train people how things is working. And then that's basically ⁓ the next step in the process is to enable people like a furniture construction sheet, basically.

You have a lot of companies which have 2D sheets to explain people how to put stuff together. It's like a basic problem. if you have ever built some bad furniture together with a bad construction, you feel the pain of using this really annoying construction sheet, figuring out...

Markus Rimmele (30:52)
That's right.

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (30:56)
Is this the right size? Does it fit here? How's the process? I don't know. And like, if you are doing like this remanufacturing approach in US, like you have to have a lot of people skilled up. It doesn't like, like from my understanding, you have like a very strong elite in US and then you have like a lot of people which are not as literate as the top tier people. And

Markus Rimmele (31:12)
Mm-hmm.

which you

have everywhere in the world. That's just the general problem. But on the other hand, the world is getting more complex, specifically in machinery and manufacturing. Just look back 50 years ago when a piece of machinery was a mechanic piece of thing with a little bit of ⁓ electric and electronic.

and nowadays it's a mechanical beast with a software beast in the back and you do not even know what's going on in the software because it's a black box all ⁓ locked up and how can you troubleshoot that whole thing?

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (32:06)
Yeah. So here also like a sample for a 3D construction. So basically you have like here assembly of an object. And now, yeah, yeah, it's assembly process. And basically now you see just, it's just a product typically. So it's not the order, but just to understand which parts are in which direction assembled together.

Markus Rimmele (32:18)
So that's an assembly process.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, in which orientation and in what step you put them together and ⁓ where are the nuts and bolts and where do they go into it.

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (32:45)
Yeah. And this is the point. It's like, if you think about digital tools in a new way, you just first use it LinkedIn for trade show engagement. Visit my booth, find my booth. Here's a pre-teaser. Create LinkedIn, TikTok and YouTube videos. Augment reality. Create additional videos, give the customer the experience. And then...

Markus Rimmele (33:01)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (33:13)
give the customers really construction sheet. And I think this is the new way you have to think about this whole ecosystem because if you just ⁓ thinking in a classical way, now I created a video, now I do a new project, now I do a new project, now I do a new project that...

Markus Rimmele (33:31)
Yeah, it's

all under the umbrella of Omni Channel. ⁓ Using all the channels available and nowadays you can break it down and you have to be in person at a trade show or at an industry conference because these places are gathering places for people of industry to come together and talk. But...

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (33:35)
Yes.

Markus Rimmele (33:59)
You also have to be strong on the digital side of things, social media, LinkedIn, ⁓ YouTube, ⁓ podcasting, what we do here, which is another format. Like on LinkedIn, everything is chopped up in small little pieces. In a podcast format, we can dive deeper into a specific.

topic and explore it more. It's a conversation. It's a dialogue about 30, 45 minutes, what we capture and put it into a podcast episode. That's another way.

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (34:35)
Yeah, that's the whole point. think that's very important that you say it because it's like the whole point is to think more multi-dimensional. And I think it's also hard for a lot of people to think like that. ⁓ Just ⁓ due to a friend of some examples, ⁓ like

I discussed it also, it's a point like about virtual training. So if you have robots example, you need more safety. If you build like also a lot of like server stations, you need also more training. So what can you do next? So, and this is about a whole ecosystem. So here now you have a safety training about starting a training.

Markus Rimmele (35:15)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (35:28)
And this is like, for example, here's a safety area of a robot and you normally don't see it. So how should a people understand something he doesn't see? And in this case, you see like here is safety zone one. And now I activate and go in safety zone two.

And now I see, okay, this is the safety zone too. So you can use all the digital content you have to create also virtual trainings for employees to train them at scale, to bring them into new concepts and to make them easily understand the stuff. it's the full journey you can do. And...

Markus Rimmele (35:51)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (36:14)
Currently people are thinking totally segmented and trying it like a video project, one project, two projects, second project and that's also why it doesn't really make so much sense for most companies in my point of view.

Markus Rimmele (36:30)
Yeah, I fully agree that Omnichannel is the way to go.

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (36:35)
Yeah.

Markus Rimmele (36:37)
⁓

Going again, jumping into RoboTop, your company, what are the typical things ⁓ you're doing at RoboTop? You showed us already a couple examples, but can you just explain that one more time? And so who is your typical ⁓ customer and client? ⁓ What problem do you solve for them? And how does this

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (36:56)
So.

Markus Rimmele (37:06)
problem solving look like.

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (37:09)
So I think you and a lot of listeners of your audience know Shopify. So basically, Shopify is like an ecosystem for those who don't know, which helps people to set up web shops or Amazon to sell you products. But the problem in industry is you have complex products. So you can't just sell this component without respecting another component.

Markus Rimmele (37:15)
Mm-hmm, of course.

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (37:38)
And this problem we are solving is like when you have a company or company network doing about 100 to X million and revenue and have like different products, different stuff, and you want to sell it to your customer with your Salesforce. You need like a digital tool which helps your Salesforce put together or configure the products in the right way.

to show the customer how would this product look like and how does it work. our typical customers are those who want to scale their sales force with digital tools to be enabled to do like what I told before, hybrid selling. And in doing this, we can enable all the fields I showed before.

⁓ Use this tool for trade show uses tool for for advertising do this to throw is it's a whole system what we provide a whole system to bring sales to a digital level and We're doing like the consulting work. So helping people to understand what I briefly showed also in this podcast What can be done and which pieces we can figure together? To a full

Markus Rimmele (38:40)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (39:01)
like B2B Shopify 3D ecosystem where they can integrate all the partners, all the networks on an online or offline platform. So it works like on web browser, it works on PC, it works on an iPad or on a MetaQuest 3 headset. So it's basically cross platform.

Markus Rimmele (39:22)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (39:23)
and

you want to have like a digital catalog of all your products, which helps your sales force or your customer to bring together the perfect solution.

Markus Rimmele (39:38)
Wow, that's a great explanation and that really solves problems in the market. ⁓ Looking into the future of things, AI is currently the big topic and AI is kind of doing all and everything. How do you see the impact of AI specifically in your market niche? ⁓ What are the things which

get further developed and got better, faster, more efficient ⁓ with AI. Can you get us your thoughts on that?

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (40:17)
Yeah, so AI, to explain, it's a little bit background. So our company is also very research heavy. So we also get like some research funding from German government and working like on the newest AI project. So due to the question, I have a concrete example. So classically, as I showed you, you have like 3D tools and in this 3D tools, you manually click and operate stuff.

Markus Rimmele (40:32)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (40:47)
And what a lot of people are currently experiencing with chat GPT, you talk to chat GPT, interact with chat GPT, have like browser integrations, whatever.

And that's also in the future, what I say, like the Iron Man vision. So Iron Man has Jarvis, his AI, which supports him. And basically also I think in engineering and sales and what we also proven and where our software is going is that you talk to an AI agent and this AI agent is even supporting your sales for more. So you are in the sales and you have like the glasses on and say, the customer needs ⁓

production line in this way or these are the requirements. Then the headsets takes all the information around you, condenses it and then the AI compress works with it and optimizes the concept.

And if you bring together like different parts, you can have like a fully automated sales support assistance, which helps you to solve complex tasks and to enable like this, what I saw B2B Shopify vision at scale, because otherwise there are too many things to inter-fiddle together and to make it work. it's too many detailed work, but with a

there is the possibility to scale it and that's also where we build our software platform so we have like in the backbone all the things prepared so we already used it in research prototypes but currently also integrating into our products to make it more scalable and easier to use for everybody.

Markus Rimmele (42:34)
Thanks for ⁓ that explanation and it makes ⁓ totally sense. ⁓ We're coming now to the end of the Digitalitome podcast at the intersection of manufacturing and digital transformation. Big thank you to you, Ike, for being our guest. ⁓ Folks, visit us at the SPS show in Atlanta, September 16 to 18 at the Georgia World Congress Center. And we may have...

the dancing robot there as well, all right?

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (43:07)
Yeah, let's let's discuss it. So we should discuss with the folks. I also can we can do it together. And also just big reminder for all the people just connect to all the people on LinkedIn connect to us on LinkedIn. You have our names just connect to it proactively.

Markus Rimmele (43:21)
All our profiles will be

down in the show notes.

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (43:26)
Yes, and do it proactively.

And someone told me vitamin B is only bad for the people who don't have it. So if you're not connected, you get lost and even in the digital age and it's all about digital network. And also if you think want to cooperate with Marcus and me on LinkedIn. So I'm also working to expand also my LinkedIn activity. So feel free to contact us if there are any interesting fields to work together or to have some guerrilla marketing for your.

industrial product, I think we can easily make some very entertaining and engaging stuff.

Markus Rimmele (44:05)
Definitely, we're here to help and we're here to share your creativity.

Dr. Eike Wolfram Schäffer (44:12)
So thank you very much and it was a great pleasure Markus. We should continue it. was a great fun for me. So thank you very much for your attention.

Markus Rimmele (44:25)
You're welcome.