senseFly widens commercial strategy and announces new leadership

Cheseaux-sur-Lausanne, Switzerland, December 6, 2018—senseFly, the industry’s leading provider of professional fixed-wing drone solutions and a subsidiary of Parrot Group, today announces the evolution of its commercial strategy and a new collaborative leadership structure as it looks to build on the excellent initial adoption of its eBee X mapping drone.

senseFly today reports that its average monthly order book has doubled since the arrival of the eBee X onto the market in late September, with twice as many geospatial and agricultural professionals choosing to purchase an eBee X in October and November than bought previous-generation eBee systems in the previous two months.

Evolving partnership strategy

As Parrot Group adopts a more decentralised and flexible strategy, senseFly is in turn adapting its approach in order to reap the benefits of its enhanced independence.

While the company will continue its close collaboration with its sister companies in Parrot Group, such as Parrot Drone, Pix4D and MicaSense, its leadership team is also looking across the industry with the aim of identifying interesting new commercial partnerships, for example with the providers of other industry-specific software titles.

“As the commercial UAV market matures, it is essential that we at senseFly chart our own path forwards in order to best meet the needs of our customers and to bring the productivity benefits that fixed-wing drones offer to as many businesses as possible,” said senseFly’s CEO Gilles Labossière. “This, of course, means working closely with the other companies within Parrot Group to create further integrated offerings in the style of today’s Survey 360 and Ag 360 solutions. However, it also means renewing our focus on wider strategic partnership opportunities, as this will ensure we continue to offer vertically-relevant, end-to-end solutions to the growing number of organisations looking to integrate drones into their businesses.”

Today, senseFly operators enjoy seamless compatibility with some of the industry’s leading image processing software programs. Users can, for instance, transfer the imagery that any eBee drone captures, seamlessly, from the aircraft’s eMotion flight software into Pix4D, Agisoft or Trimble Business Center processing platforms, with just one click.

“As we continue strengthening our offer, further industry partnerships will be key to widening such compatibilities and expanding the usability of our solutions,” Labossière added.

New co-leadership approach

Following the announcement of Labossière as the CEO of senseFly in April 2018, Jean-Thomas Célette—previously senseFly’s Head of Product Management, Business Development and Customer Support—has now been appointed Managing Director of the company.

These two experienced executives will work in close synchronisation, as dynamic co-leaders, to build on senseFly’s position as the market’s fixed-wing leader and drive the company’s growth through 2019 and beyond, closely supported by the rest of senseFly’s leadership team.

Labossière will be responsible for driving the company’s commercial and product strategy. Célette meanwhile will continue to be responsible for senseFly’s product roadmap, in addition to now overseeing the company’s R&D, customer experience and operational functions.

“By adopting an intelligent and carefully-defined collaborative approach, supported by our trusted department leaders, I’m confident that Jean-Thomas and I can increase the scope and capacity of senseFly’s leadership function to move the company efficiently forwards,” Labossière said.

Jean-Thomas Célette, the company’s new Managing Director, added: “Since my arrival at senseFly in 2016, I’ve been blown away by the talent of our team and, in equal measure, by the enthusiasm and professionalism of our thousands of clients around the world. Therefore, I’m excited to be granted this opportunity. I look forward to working shoulder to shoulder with Gilles to help us meet the needs of even more clients across an ever-wider range of industries.”