Interview with Philipp Descovich

Interview with Philipp Descovich, CEO of Partium, about the history of the innovative Enterprise Part Search and the team behind Partium.

Please, introduce Partium and the team behind.

Partium enables field service technicians, aftermarket service teams and customers to search for spares and components in seconds, in very large and complex industrial environments.

Partium saves customers time and money wherever machines need to be repaired or serviced. Our customers include companies like Deutsche Bahn (German Railways), Bosch, and The Home Depot. Partium, as it is today, was founded in 2020 through a merger of 3 companies. Partium’s focus is 100% on Enterprise Part Search.

The Partium team consists of 72 experienced employees from over 13 different nations who are responsible for Product Development, Professional Services, IT, Product Management, UI/UX Design, Marketing & Digital Lead Generation, Business Development, Sales, Project Management, Customer Success Management, Finance, Recruiting and Office Management.

We also have a strong Board of Directors, which we count as part of our extended team.

Which problem can users solve with Partium?

Partium offers a fast and reliable way to identify and find parts in complex industrial environments using photo, text or bill of materials search. Industrial parts, whether they are worn, dirty or damaged, can be correctly identified with Partium within 10-30 seconds. On average, this is 50 times faster than searching for parts manually.

The main advantages are:

• reduced search times,
• facilitated spare part orders,
• reduced downtimes,
• minimized identification errors and wrong orders, and
• professionals, who don't waste time searching for parts.

How did you come up with the idea of Partium?

The idea for Partium originally arose from a project with a large German industrial company. The goal was to drastically reduce the maintenance technicians’ search times for spare parts in the production plants. The average search time for spare parts was on 12 minutes - 36,000 times per year at only one production plant.

How would you explain Partium to your grandmother?

You can take a picture of a spare part with a smartphone or a tablet. Partium tells you which part it is and where you can find (e.g. exact storage location) or order it. 

Did the concept of Partium change since the start?

In the past, our technology was used project-based. After the merger we were able to convert the solution into a standard product and thus turn our business from pure project activities to a 100% SaaS (Software as a Service) model.

How does the business model work?

Partium is a SaaS (Software as a Service) solution. That means Partium operates the service for its customers. Typically, Partium is integrated into larger application infrastructures, such as IBM Maximo, ServiceNow, etc.

How did Partium develop since its foundation?

Since we introduced Partium in 2020, it has developed extremely strongly. We won34 new customers and sales have tripled again this year.

Our team now consists of 72 employees, divided between USA, Canada, Spain, Germany, and Austria. Our recurring revenue is increasing rapidly and we are growing fast - both locally and internationally.

Please take a look back: What went wrong the last years?

It took us some time to find the right positioning and the exact technology focus of the product. Initially, this led to a lot of work and frustration.

What are your lessons learned?

We learned that some processes are lengthy and that the market tells you what is important for the customer, what is not, and what is completely missing.

What went well? Where did you do everything right from the beginning on?

Right from the start we decided to focus on Digital Marketing & Lead Generation to 100%. That was definitely the right choice for us. We generate our entire business via digital channels. This is extremely cost-effective, especially when expanding internationally.

How do you finance Partium?

We finance ourselves through our operational business and our two major shareholders – the Berndorf Group (Austrian industrial group) and Anzu Partners (American private equity firm).

What are your plans and goals for the next 12 months?

Our plans for the next 12 months are to double the current number of customers and quadruple our recurring revenues in our two core markets, Europe and the USA.

Thanks so much for the interview, Philipp!