Visit Support Centre Visit Support Centre Find a Distributor Find a Distributor Contact us Contact us

Meet the team:
Geoff Besbrode, Product Marketing Executive

Blogs December 1, 2021

Geoff Besbrode, OxTS Marketing ExecutiveTo enable our customers to measure with confidence, OxTS focuses on being dedicated INS specialists. We pour our time, energy and resources into thoroughly understanding our customers’ industries; their nuances, regulations, pain points, challenges and desires. We are only ever as good as our people and the past, present and future of OxTS relies heavily on the quality of our team. Ensuring OxTS customers are central to all we do, and first to hear the latest about our products and services is OxTS Product Marketing Executive, Geoff Besbrode. Here, Geoff shares a ‘day in his life’:

 

1. How long have you worked at OxTS, and what lead you to this career?

I have worked at OxTS for just over 18 months now. My career has very much been commercially focused, and I initially started out in business development and then moved onto more sales-focused roles. After a number of years, I then embarked on a career in marketing.
My understanding of sales has greatly helped my marketing career and it is something I would recommend to any budding marketer. It has given me a greater understanding of the sales process and the role that marketing plays in supporting our customers and partners.
Technology is also something I’ve been passionately involved with throughout my career. A little-known fact but earlier in my career I worked very closely with ESRI – a company who those in the Geospatial community will probably recognise.

 

2. What does a ‘typical’ day look like for you, in your role as Product Marketing Executive?

Wow, what a question. I don’t think there is such a thing as a ‘typical’ day in marketing.
Things have changed dramatically even in the few years I’ve been in marketing. There is more emphasis on data-driven decision making which is, in part, down to more of our world moving online.
Much more of what we do in marketing is digitally focused. This has been an ongoing process over a number of years, and whilst the wheels were definitely already in motion, the last 18 months of the COVID pandemic have certainly accelerated the process.
I prioritise checking on how our various campaigns are performing, and making changes to improve them. Then my time is filled with anything from creating content, working with suppliers, updating information on the OxTS and third-party websites, and working with our engineers to ensure our customers are always receiving the latest and most accurate information.

 

3. How do you prefer to start your day?

OxTS Marketing Executive, Geoff Besbrode's dog, BenjiMy day generally starts with an alarm call from my seven-year-old son, Alfie. It nearly always comes before my actual alarm goes off and as soon as he’s up, so am I! Usually from this point on, my day moves at 100 mph.
The next two hours, before I start work, are spent making sure he is fed, watered, and has everything he needs before heading off to school.
Last year, my partner and I welcomed a new addition into our household, a Cockapoo named Benji. Another part of my morning is spent taking Benji out for a walk. He has recently taken a strong disliking to the cats on our estate which makes early morning walks ‘interesting’.

 

4. What’s the most satisfying thing about your job, and why?

I really like the feeling of working on a campaign and seeing the fruits of my labour turn into results.
I get great satisfaction from helping customers to find the information they need when they are looking for the best technology solution to overcome their project challenges. I measure this in many ways, including the number of brochure downloads and webinar registrations that my work generates.
We recently launched the new xNAV650 INS and worked on several updates to our OxTS Georeferencer software. I’m always pleased to see information requests come in for any of our products, but particularly for these two, as we’ve spent a lot of time developing and talking about them over the past 12 months.

 

5. What’s the most challenging project you’ve tackled for OxTS, and how did you handle it?

Without a doubt the launch of the xNAV650 was the most challenging, but it was a challenge I most certainly enjoyed. I wouldn’t say the lead up to the launch gave me sleepless nights, but I spent a lot of time thinking about it!
With any product launch, things change on an almost daily basis. I think the most challenging aspect was the fact that there were so many moving parts and so many people involved. Not only from within OxTS (commercial, engineering, management, and of course marketing), but also third-party media partners and others supporting the launch.
Things were extremely busy in the lead up to launch day and during the process, Excel was my best friend. I relied heavily on the spreadsheets I created!

 

6. What’s the best thing about being part of the OxTS team?

I think it’s just that; you get a real sense of being part of a team. Everyone is there for one another and if you ever need any help, people are very quick to offer to lend a hand.
I joined OxTS right at the start of the COVID pandemic. I was in the office for two weeks and from then on, I was home-based. At that point I could have felt a little isolated, but that wasn’t the case at all. I had regular catchups with my manager and team mates. And weekly OxTS online quizzes were a brilliant way to get to know the people I worked with outside of the general ‘work environment’.
During the interview process, I was told that while it’s important to get the work done, OxTS understands that their employees also have lives outside of work. For many companies these can be empty words, however this is most certainly not the case with OxTS and I can honestly say that my work-life balance has never been as good!

 

7. What’s next for you in your role as OxTS’ Product Marketing Executive?

Wow, where do I start? Over the past twelve months or so, we’ve built some really strong relationships with LiDAR manufacturers such as Velodyne, Ouster, Hesai and others. It’s something I’m looking forward to developing further over the coming months.
Our partnership with Velodyne led to us becoming part of their ‘Automated with Velodyne’ ecosystem and they have partnered with us on webinars to support our mutual customers. The most recent partnered webinar, ‘Velodyne and OxTS: Using inertial measurements to enhance LiDAR pointcloud accuracy‘ achieved a record number of registrations.
Over the next twelve months, there will be more of these activities to support our customers; some really nice case studies of our xNAV650 work and new videos and guides – so be sure to watch out for these!

 

 

Further resources:

 

 

return to top

Return to top

,