Alan Limoges

As the Manager of Product Growth for Construction, Alan leverages his engineering background and extensive experience working directly with customers to guide CM Labs’ most meaningful product advancements. His work ensures every solution is grounded in real-world needs.

“We have a relentless drive to push forward and try things that haven’t been done before.”

Can you tell us a little about your background and how you came to join CM Labs?

I studied mechanical engineering in university before moving to Montreal to join CM Labs after graduation.

But I grew up in Ontario. My grandparents had a farm outside the city, and I was always fascinated by the great big machines my family used on the farm. Along with a lifetime interest in math and science, CM Labs was a great fit for me.

What is your official title and current role, and what are your main responsibilities?

As the Manager of Product Growth for Construction, I am responsible for ensuring our products, product launches, and overall marketing have the maximum impact. Every day, I make sure we’re shipping the right products to the right people at the right time, while explaining what we do in a relatable way. This means helping define what features a product might have, deployment timeframes, and guiding the messaging for each product to generate interest.

At a more strategic level, I work on growth initiatives to help CM Labs capture new business. This includes collaborating with partners, defining and expanding ideal customer profiles, and identifying new market opportunities. I help translate market needs into product and portfolio direction to ensure we are investing in the right areas to support the long-term success of the organization.

We are not going to grow if we don’t provide the right products to our customers, so a major part of my role is advocating for the customer. Our products must be a reflection of real customer needs. So, I serve as the bridge between the engineers, marketing, and the market itself. Because of our engineering focus, we need an educator who understands both sides to make our products and messaging relatable and comprehensible.

How has your previous experience prepared you for your role here?

My education in mechanical engineering paired with a longtime interest in heavy machinery has prepared me to firmly grasp how these heavy machines work, which is key to understanding the power of our solutions. The first time I used the simulation training system, I realized right away that CM Labs was not messing around.

I started with CM Labs over six years ago on the tech team, installing simulator training systems and meeting customers around the world. Within a couple of months of being hired, I found myself halfway across the world in New Zealand installing a simulator at a customer site, and I could hardly believe I had been given such an opportunity.

This hands-on experience gave me direct insight into the products and how our customers interact with them. It also gave me the opportunity to go through the installation process and see where it could be improved. Over some years, I moved into product management, where this experience proved invaluable.

The new role catapulted me into the world of product and serious decision-making. Suddenly, I am the one responsible for asking and answering that critical question. What’s the right product to build next?

To answer that question, you have to know the existing products, the market, and the customer, and my start at CM Labs perfectly prepared me for what I’m doing today..

What are some of the key projects you’ve worked on since joining the company?

Since joining the company, I’ve worked on countless products and launches, including some of our most popular simulation curriculums, like the Skid Steer (CTL) and Tracked Excavator.

A recent project that’s been key for our potential customers is a new ROI calculator tool for our account managers. We’ve spoken at length about how our simulators end up saving lots of money for organizations in the long run, but it’s another thing to show people a real dollar figure that’s customized to their lived reality. It was a fun project to code and do all of the error testing myself. Now it’s in the hands of our account managers who have found it useful to illustrate what a profound effect a CM Labs simulator can have on the bottom line of an organization.

Can you share a particular achievement or milestone that you are proud of during your time here?

I’m especially proud of our launch of the Mini-Excavator Curriculum. Beyond the challenges of releasing a new product, we had to differentiate it from our existing tracked and wheeled excavators in a way that resonated with our audience.

We optimized the curriculum for organizations working with underground utilities to ensure it offered something meaningfully different, rather than a minor variation of what already existed. We put a major focus on aligning the product and messaging so the distinction was immediately clear.
Bringing that alignment together and executing the launch successfully was a rewarding and exciting challenge. It stands out as a moment where a strong go-to-market strategy directly shaped and contributed to the product’s impact..

How do you believe your work has contributed to the company’s success and growth?

My foundational understanding of the customer allows me to tweak product requirements to always line up with customer needs and craft the right messaging to communicate our products at the right time, to the right people. The more a product and message resonates, the better we perform when it comes to product adoption.

The way we engage the industry is important. The market needs to see that we are indeed the subject matter experts we claim to be. Meanwhile, we also need to effectively communicate how CM Labs goes the extra mile in a way that isn’t overly technical or complicated.

Also, a key part of being a leader is listening. We have to deliver what people need right now and predict what they’ll want in a few years; understanding our customers’ needs is how we do that.

In your opinion, what sets CM Labs apart in the industry?

We have a relentless drive to push forward and try things that haven’t been done before. We deliver comprehensive solutions for our customers, not just individual products.

This drive is what created our technology, and it’s why we continually update it. But technology alone only goes so far. Competitors can develop similar features or similar products. So, we push to offer something more than just technology.

Having done this for a long time, we’re the leader in our field. We have the privilege of not following anyone else’s lead, which can be daunting but also extremely rewarding.

How do you stay updated with the latest trends and innovations in our field?

Aside from the stack of industry magazines that arrive on a weekly basis, I’m always going to shows and customer sites to learn how we can help solve more of their problems.

I work regularly at updating our internal documents to reflect the latest changes in the industry and make sure it’s represented in our solutions.

I present at large tradeshows, like Bauma in Europe and CONEXPO-CON/AGG in the US. I gave my first presentation at Bauma, the largest construction tradeshow in the world, to a full room. Now that I give the presentations, it’s not always me being updated. It’s my turn to update the industry on the latest technology.

What do you enjoy most about working at our company?

It sounds cliché, but it feels like we’re all on one team. The best idea almost always wins out, no matter whose idea it was. Everyone at CM Labs is sharp, friendly, and ready to help out. I enjoy being a part of that.

That sense of teamwork and seeing the tangible mark I leave at CM Labs is so rewarding. I can read our press releases or boot up the simulator and see firsthand the impact of decisions made by myself and our team.

What excites you most about the future of CM Labs?

How fast we are creating and improving our products. When you’re in the trenches every day, you don’t realize how fast things are moving. Then I look back on when I started and it’s clear just how much has changed in a relatively short time period. We’re growing. We’re improving. And we’re making great strides.

I’m excited about simulators becoming more essential and commonplace in heavy equipment training. I’m focused on reaching a point where the assumption is, “If I offer heavy equipment training, I need a CM Labs training simulator.”

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