Meet Tony Lawrence: Head of Product

If you've used MOS, our Materials Operating System, you've already seen Tony's work. As Droppoint's Head of Product, Tony leads the direction and roadmap behind the platform that tracks every part from our warehouses to your technicians in the field.

He works closely with General Manager Product & Technology Shane Milne to bring decades of product leadership from some of the world's best-known video game brands, a lifelong love of the ocean, and a clear view of what field service teams need. We sat down with him to find out more.

At the intersection of every team

Tony's week covers a lot of ground. He plans and delivers the roadmap for MOS, including our warehouse and inventory management tools. He also triages issues and works with every part of the business, from growth and operations to customer service and warehousing.

"It's a wonderful place to be," Tony says. "Product sits at the intersection of all our teams, so I get to see how everything connects."

From BioShock to B2B logistics

Tony's product career started in consumer entertainment. He's worked on iconic video game brands including BioShock, Borderlands and Lord of The Rings, and helped take a children's video game company to an ASX listing. Along the way, he's led teams of hundreds across companies and divisions.

Today he works with the Droppoint development team, and he says the core skills carry straight across.

"The thinking behind B2B and B2C software is almost identical," he explains. "Logistics is a very different environment from entertainment, but understanding what customers need, and how to talk with them, doesn't change. I've touched almost every challenge a scaling company can face, so there's not much that scares me. Now I get to apply it to a new industry."

50 years of reading the ocean

Tony has been surfing for 50 years. Moving from New Zealand to Australia brought one big upgrade: warmer water. His timing has been less lucky, though. He'd just taken his board out of storage when he broke his wrist, and he's now out of the plaster and brace with more surgery ahead.

He's itching to get back out there. A goofy-footer, he's on the lookout for new left-hand breaks.

For Tony, surfing and product management have a lot in common. "The ocean can be beautiful, or it can be frightening," he says. "With enough experience, you learn to read what you see: where the breaks are, the rips, the reefs. Understanding customers is the same. You learn to read their needs, their questions and their goals."

These days, he's choosing his waves more carefully. He has the scars to prove it. Now he prefers a long, slow break to a fast, barrelling one, and he's heading to Europe to snowboard with his son later this year.

What MOS does for our clients

"MOS is really cool," Tony says. "It's the manifestation of what we're here to do: get the right part to the right place at the right time."

MOS controls every step of a part's journey in real time, from the warehouse to tracking to the technician in the field. Clients can use MOS directly or integrate it with their own systems. "It's enterprise software we can customise for each client," he says. "And unlike a lot of providers, we're agile enough to make changes when clients need them."

Inside the MOS team

The seven-person team is split into three groups:

• Customer solutions works at the coal face, fixing bugs, building small features and delivering client integrations around the world.

• Roadmap builds larger, longer-term features over several months, like our new warehouse management system.

• Platform keeps MOS fast and stable, looking after performance, databases and the user experience.

"Platform work is unsexy but essential," Tony says. "Logistics runs 24/7, so MOS has to as well. Bugs are rare, and when they happen we know how to fix them."

He takes reliability seriously, a habit from his time as Terminal 1 Security Manager at Sydney Airport. Every new feature is de-risked before release, because it touches a complex platform that many clients rely on.

Built with clients and technicians

Tony counts client feedback and technicians' experiences among the team's most important inputs. He joins client meetings with our Account Managers, and talks to our customer service, operations and warehousing teams about their pain points. The team then prioritises the issues that come up most often and deliver the biggest benefit.

"The question we always ask is: will customers think this is as cool as our developers, who know MOS backwards, do?" he says.

One of his proudest recent projects is single sign-on (SSO). It gave a global client with more than 300,000 employees a new security layer for all its work in Australia. The team also delivered two different integrations for a new client, released two days apart. That work brought a new carriers into our network and improved coverage on the NSW North Coast.

What's next for clients

The team is currently improving our warehouse management system to make warehouse operations even more efficient. They're also expanding our network with locker solutions, giving clients more places to collect parts, and building on our proven pre-8 AM delivery service.

Recent releases include end-to-end reporting that covers an order from the start, through the delivery lifecycle and the approvals along the way. Tony also enjoys SAP and NetSuite integrations, so MOS works seamlessly with the software clients already use.

Looking further ahead, Tony believes field service logistics comes down to one thing: peace of mind. "Clients want to know the part will be there just in time," he says. "MOS is the platform that gives you what you want, when you expect it, without wasting time."

Got an idea or a frustration with MOS? Tony wants to hear it. Contact our customer service team about bugs, or talk to your Account Manager about larger builds.

30 seconds with Tony

• Early session or sunset session? Afternoon. "Old bones feel the cold."

• Favourite board in your quiver? A 7'2" stubby longboard for its manoeuvrability, plus a bodyboard.

• One tool you couldn't work without? Claude. "AI tools are incredible for starting an idea, not for being the idea."

• Coffee order? A long black. "In San Francisco, I've seen Italians asking Australians where to find the best coffee. We've conquered the world!"

• Best advice you've been given? "Do your job. We all know our goals, but doing it well means approaching mastery with clear priorities, not trying to tackle everything at once."

Talk to the MOS team

Want to see how MOS can give your technicians the right part, in the right place, at the right time? New clients can get in touch through our website enquiry form. Existing clients can reach the MOS developement team through their Account Manager or our customer service team.

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