Tennant Company
A long-view vision defining an autonomous future for facility teams.
A vision for autonomous mobile cleaning that repositioned Tennant from equipment manufacturer to robot technology innovator.
Challenge
Tennant had spent decades defining floor care innovation — but as Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMR) reshaped the category, that reputation risked becoming a legacy rather than a launchpad. To redefine its standing in an autonomous world, Tennant partnered with THRIVE to develop a connected AMR vision and portfolio strategy grounded in customer evidence and competitive foresight.
Approach
To define Tennant’s AMR portfolio strategy, we conducted in-depth interviews and workflow observations with facility managers, janitorial staff, and BSC operators across retail, healthcare, and education. We surfaced six Prioritized Opportunity Areas and built the AMR Vision and Portfolio Strategy Playbook — a modular roadmap and a service-ecosystem Northstar — giving Tennant a unified direction for growth.
Impact
The AMR Vision repositioned Tennant from a traditional equipment manufacturer to a robot technology innovator, establishing global leadership in commercial autonomous floor cleaning across 25 countries. Tennant rewrote the competitive map, deploying 9,000+ AMR units by Q4 2024 with the AMR line now contributing 10–15% of total revenue — a double-digit growth engine Tennant can compound for the next decade.
