How does a company change when its product stops being a physical object and becomes software? This is the central theme of the interview conducted by TechTonic, the industry tech discussion forum by BIP (Business Integration Partners), with Mattia Piunti, Head of Product Portfolio at HUB Parking Technology.
An opportunity to trace the digitalization journey of the parking sector. The full interview follows below.
I'm originally an engineer, and I started my career in telecommunications. In my early years I worked in R&D, focusing on innovation and coordinating research lab activities, building a product innovation team with very different backgrounds: people from consulting, from startups, and myself with a more research-oriented background. That experience marked the beginning of a journey that took me through different realities.
I then joined Datalogic, where I worked as a Product Manager on rugged smartphones (a reinforced smartphone designed to withstand harsh environments, ed.), then to FCA (now Stellantis) as Marketing Manager for connected services. Finally, in 2023, I joined the FAAC Technologies Group, in the HUB Parking division.
The common thread throughout my career has always been mobility world, viewed from different perspectives: telecommunications, hardware, and digital services.
HUB Parking develops “off-street” parking systems, the ones you find at airports, shopping malls, hotels, railway stations, and hospitals.
Historically, this has always been a niche industry: there are only a handful of global players, and the expertise is highly specialized, with many professionals spending decades in the same field. For many years, it was a relatively closed ecosystem.
Recently, however, the industry has undergone profound change. This transformation has been driven primarily by digitalization and, more broadly, by the evolution of the mobility sector.
In particular, the widespread adoption of smartphones has completely reshaped user expectations: today, we're used to seamless digital experiences when booking a trip or a hotel, and we naturally expect the same convenience when it comes to parking.
I wanted to tell the story in a fresh way and highlight the connections between functions and disciplines that people don't usually associate with one another, while keeping the concept easy to understand: after all, who does not know Scrabble? When I joined the parking industry, I realized how much complexity lies behind what appears to be a very simple action: entering a parking facility, taking a ticket, paying, and leaving. As users, we never think about the system itself, we only notice it when something goes wrong.
The traditional image most people still have in mind is the same: you arrive at the barrier, collect a paper ticket, pay at a pay station, and drive out. A few years ago, paying by card, or even paying directly at the exit, already seemed a borderline solution, because if something goes wrong and the exit lane is blocked, it creates traffic congestion and potential safety issues.
Today's new installations work differently: cameras automatically recognize number plates, paper tickets have disappeared, and even at the pay station you simply enter your license plate number. Beyond that, there are now “gateless” or “free-flow” systems, where barriers disappear entirely: vehicles enter and exit freely through camera-monitored areas, and pay via app or QR code.
Digitalization means, first and foremost, a paradigm shift in the product itself: companies move from selling physical devices to delivering software and digital services.
That's a great question. It's actually something I've been working on since I joined the company. As long as the product was a barrier or a pay station, the development logic followed that of a traditional physical product: requirements gathering, technical specifications, and a well-defined roadmap. The moment you shift to software and user experience, however, the rules of the game change. Our direct customer is a parking operator, someone who manages a parking facility to generate revenue from parking and related services. They no longer ask us for product specifications, but for how we can meet their use cases. That's how we've evolved into a solution provider: the more effectively we help customers streamline their operations or unlock new revenue streams, the more valuable we become.
For example, one service that works very well commercially is “J4M”, which connects parking facilities with nearby merchants. Drivers park their vehicle and can receive discounts at local stores, or receive a validation with free parking. It's a win-win model: users save money, merchants attract more customers, and parking operators preserve the economic value of parking.
The risk of this approach is becoming too reactive. Every customer may request specific integrations with local systems, apps, or payment methods that aren't necessarily scalable or reusable across the broader market.
In such a rapidly evolving landscape, where countless local apps and services coexist, R&D can easily become overwhelmed by fragmented requests and loses prioritization. That's why we decided to clearly separate Product Marketing from Product Management. Product Marketing acts as the company's market antenna, it has a regional organization across Europe and North America. It scouts emerging trends and regularly interview salespeople, not about the individual projects they're currently pursuing, but about the broader market dynamics they're observing. Those insights reach headquarters and to Product Management, whose role is more internally focused: it consolidates market requirements with technical ones (for example, privacy and cybersecurity requirements, which become increasingly stringent as parking systems integrate with digital services) and oversees product development together with R&D. Once development is complete, Product Marketing steps back in to support the sales force communicate the selling points effectively. Some internal efficiency is lost, but focus is gained.
In our case, we didn't encounter significant resistance within the team: we were addressing a real pain point, so people were motivated. The greatest challenge was building the right processes. From a people perspective, our goal was to introduce new roles capable of enabling the transformation: today we have 8 R&D teams distributed across four development centres, 7 of them are software development teams and only one is dedicated to the physical product. That alone gives a sense of how much the focus has shifted.
One change that involved both people and processes was the adoption of Scrum and Agile methodologies. An iterative approach is especially valuable in uncertain environments like this one: allows features to be refined and improved quickly, based on feedback from real customers. Our system behaves like the smartphone we all carry in our pockets; it's updated every three months with new features. Adopting Agile methodologies also had a strong motivational impact on developers, who can see the results of their work much sooner than they could with the long development cycles typical of hardware products.
It was hugely significant. When our core product was a barrier, customers bought us for qualities like durability, build quality, and wear resistance. Today, 7 out of 8 teams are develop software: that alone says a great deal about how customers perceive us and how we want to be perceived. We're no longer simply a hardware supplier, but a provider of digital solutions that enable our customers' business use cases as seamlessly as possible, allowing them to operate efficiently and generate revenue.
This shift also has a direct impact on pricing models. If you buy a barrier, I know exactly what it costs and what my margin is. If I buy software, I enter different logics: licenses, subscriptions, revenue share, pay-per-use. This last model is particularly compelling because it aligns everyone's interests: if we help our customer succeed, they generate more revenue, and so do we. At the same time, it lowers the customer's initial investment. Identity and sales models go hand in hand in shaping how the customer perceives us.
Sales is certainly an area where we still have work to do. I don't say that critically, it's simply a structural challenge. When your customers have known you for twenty years as a supplier of physical products, introducing new pricing models or new value propositions takes time and effort, while preserving the trust built over the years.
This is precisely where Product Marketing has made a real difference. Over the past year, it has played a pivotal role in repositioning our entire suite of Digital Services, the solutions that connect parking operators with their end users. This wasn't simply a matter of rebranding: we redesigned our sales processes, offer templates, and marketing materials. Concrete, detailed work that changed how the sales force communicates these products to the market.
Without that level of focus, even the best-designed service risks being positioned with the wrong narrative, preventing customers from recognizing its true value. A solution provider's value proposition doesn't sell itself: it needs to be translated, properly positioned, and supported with the right tools.
It's really hard to narrow it down to just one thing, but I'd say this: in the early stages, when we first introduced alternative pricing models, we did it in a somewhat sterile way, meaning we made sure the flows worked at a product and technical level, but lost sight of other processes that could undermine their effectiveness. A classic example: if I move from one-off sales to recurring sales, whether a fixed or usage-based subscription, I then need to build consistent incentive schemes for the sales force, so that this model is actively promoted. So, all the technical enablers need to be in place, but there are also less tangible processes that deserve just as much attention. If they're neglected, they can create distortions that undermine the success of the initiative. Simply put: if I could do it again, I'd pay much closer attention, right from the start, to the entire ecosystem, not just the product itself, but all the processes that determine its success in the market.
1. When the product becomes software, everything changes (not just the interface): the transition from hardware to digital services is far more than a technological upgrade, it requires new value models, new success metrics, and a shift from feature-driven product development to a use case-driven approach.
2. You're no longer selling a product, you sell outcomes for the customer: becoming a “solution provider” requires the PM to think in terms of impact on the customer's business (efficiency, new revenue), not just technical requirements or roadmaps.
3. Agile is not just a method, it's a catalyst for cultural transformation: short development cycles and frequent releases don't simply help teams manage uncertainty, they also motivate teams and make the value produced tangible, especially in ex-hardware contexts.
4. Product success depends on the entire ecosystem, not just what you build: pricing models, sales enablement, positioning, storytelling, and commercial processes are all integral parts of the product experience. Even the best solution can fail if the market doesn't understand its value (or doesn't buy).