From The Shop Floor Up
Sanjai Keshavan is President of JENOPTIK INDUSTRIAL METROLOGY NORTH AMERICA, responsible for one of the most respected precision measurement portfolios in the market. He has spent more than two decades at the intersection of machine tools, precision measurement, and commercial leadership, and it all started somewhere most people would not expect. He was not thinking about sales. He was thinking about machines, and that turned out to be exactly the right place to start.
He entered the industry through the machine tool world, building superfinishing and honing machines, the very equipment that produces the precision components that the metrology industry then goes on to measure. From the beginning, gauging was embedded in his world, not as an afterthought, but as part of the production line itself. In-process size control, gauges embedded at grinding and finishing stages, and final inspection at the end of the line. He grew up understanding that measurement was not separate from manufacturing but woven through every step of it. His path into metrology was a natural continuation of a career that had always lived closest to the process.
From there, Sanjai moved through R&D, applications engineering, and product management. In smaller and mid-sized companies, he quickly noticed something: the head of sales was always closest to the customer, and therefore closest to the decisions that shaped a company’s future. R&D budgets flowed through commercial leadership. New product roadmaps were defined by what sales knew the market needed. The technical experts were building things, but the commercial leaders were deciding what got built next.
That realization was the pivot point that steered him from the engineering track into sales. Not a dramatic moment, not a single conversation, just a gradual and clear-eyed understanding of where the real influence sat, and a decision to go there.
“The head of sales had the pulse of the customer. They had a very large say in what R&D would do next, what future products would be developed. That’s what steered me from applications engineering toward the commercial side.”
He moved through the ranks with that same logic applied at every stage: understand the customer’s world better than anyone else in the room, and the rest follows.
The First Sale Is The Hardest
Ask Sanjai about launching a new product into a market, and he will tell you immediately: the first sale is the hardest sale you will ever make. There are no shortcuts and no clever campaigns that replace it. There is only persistence, credibility, and the willingness to sit with rejection long enough to learn from it.
When he was tasked with bringing new divisions and product lines into the North American market, starting from zero, with no installed base and no track record in that specific category, he encountered what every commercial leader does in that position: a customer being asked to take a risk on something unproven. At that stage, it is not about price, and it is not about features. It is about trust, and trust must be built from the ground up.
“The first buyers of your equipment have to believe in your story. They have to trust that you will be there to support them when things don’t go as planned, and things always don’t go as planned.”
His approach was methodical. Demo machines in the market. Parts finished and measured in front of the customer. A clear narrative around the organization behind the product and what ongoing support would look like. Once the customer believed the problem could be solved and that someone credible was standing behind the solution, Sanjai puts that at 80 to 90 percent of the sale done. The last 10 percent is reassurance that is earned, not sold.
He is equally clear-eyed about what losing teaches you. In capital equipment, any serious procurement process mandates at least three competitive proposals, which means two-thirds of the industry goes home empty-handed on any given deal. Sanjai does not treat that as failure. He treats it as market intelligence. Lose on price, and you now know where the ceiling sits. Lose on a technical gap, and you now have the most valuable product feedback your R&D team will ever receive. Every deal, won or lost, is a data point that sharpens the next decision.
“Every sale has to be treated as a learning opportunity, whether you’re learning the market, where your pricing sits, or where your product has a shortfall. That feeds straight back into product development.”
Eyes On The Road
Sanjai is, by his own acknowledgement, analytical. He runs on numbers. But he is careful to be precise about what data can and cannot do, and that distinction is one of the things that sets him apart as a commercial leader.
Data is the rear-view mirror, he says. You need it to understand where you have been and to make an informed lane change. But you cannot drive looking only backwards. Instinct, the kind that comes from years of being in the room with customers, understanding what the competition is offering, and knowing which way the market is leaning, is the windscreen. The two must work together, and the leaders who rely entirely on one at the expense of the other are the ones who eventually come unstuck.
“You have to look in the rear-view mirror to switch lanes, but you also need to look ahead to make sure you don’t hit someone else. Data is good, but don’t underestimate instinct. Instinct comes from understanding your customer and your competitor very well.”
He applies the same rigour to how he leads. Running a multi-million P&L across two facilities and 75 people is not a job for someone who wants to control everything. Hire competent people, give them enough rope, and then make their problems disappear so they can function at their best. That, in his view, is where 90 per cent of the job gets done. The rest is inputs, from the sales team, from engineering, from whoever is closest to the customer, and then making frequent, informed course corrections based on what comes back.
When he is hiring, he is looking for self-starters who do not need handholding, who are competent in their subject, and who understand that in a technically complex business, the ability to work well inside a team is not a soft skill but a commercial requirement. The products are complicated, the systems intricate, and no individual can hold it all. The best people know that, and they lean into it rather than away from it.
His advice to the experienced professionals he mentors distils down to one thing: put yourself in the other person’s shoes before you try to solve anything. Addressing symptoms gets you nowhere. Find the root cause, and the solution becomes obvious.
Don’t Put All Your Eggs In One Basket
The metrology industry does not exist in isolation, and Sanjai is not someone who pretends otherwise. Its fortunes are tied, more than almost any other precision sector, to automotive, and automotive is currently in the middle of one of the most disruptive cycles it has ever experienced.
A decade ago, the prediction was total electrification and fully autonomous vehicles within years. Internal combustion engine development programs were wound down across the industry, supply chains restructured, and capacity evaporated. And then the take rate for pure electric vehicles did not materialise the way the forecasts said it would. Manufacturers are now re-adding combustion capacity that no longer exists in the supply base to the degree it once did, and the machine tool and gauging companies that support automotive production have felt every one of those shifts. Smaller and weaker players have not survived the whipsaw. The nimble ones have, and the ones with the discipline to diversify have.
The broader automation wave is reshaping the landscape too. The old model, offline quality labs where sample parts were periodically pulled from the line for inspection, is giving way to fully inline and integrated measurement. Gauges embedded at every critical stage of production, hundred percent inspection at the end of the line, and measurement that does not just confirm quality after the fact but actively controls the process in real time. The equipment must be hardened for the shop floor, fully automated, and reliable in conditions that are different from a quality lab. The companies building for that future, and the leaders who understand it, are the ones positioned to win the next decade.
“The automotive industry is not for the weak-hearted right now. But when things are in a state of flux, that is where opportunity lives. If you have the enterprise and the willingness to act, you will find a way to thrive in it.”
His broader advice for anyone building a career or a business in this space is the same principle applied at scale: do not put all your eggs in one basket. Every industry is cyclical: automotive, semiconductor, aerospace and medical. Diversification is not a hedge; it is a strategy. The companies and individuals who survive the long game are the ones who understood early that riding one wave, however strong, eventually means crashing with it.
