Do you master these 3 key business trends?

January 10, 2017

Jonas Gejer (JG):  What key trends do you see in our market for the coming 3 years?

Stephen Chadwick (SC): The three key trends that I see kind of builds a story. The first one is collaboration in industry, the second one in industry as the next generation, also called Industry 4.0, and my third trend is cloud.

From the collaborative industry perspective, I see an increased number of companies within diverse industries wanting to understand how they can collaborate better both inside their company but also outside their company with their customers and with their supply chain. They want to have one source of the truth, a data model on which everybody can collaborate, and leverage the data inside the company, and to be able to exploit it as a capital asset. That is an important trend because it shows that companies are moving forward in their thought processes. Companies want to move away from a siloed industry, and they want to be more agile, innovative, and able to expand their business and grow.

Collaboration forms a key part of the industry 4.0 message because it is around exploitation of data. It is about looking at data as an asset inside the business, understanding the data, and being able to analyze the data, what information it delivers, and information shared creates knowledge. Ultimately, the creation of knowledge allows business to operate more freely, understanding the operations of their business and processes right back from the design to innovation stages, all the way through production, engineering, in life, and disposal. Being able to module and simulate real world changes in a virtual environment, utilizing one single data model for multiple interactions, whether that would be from customers or supply chain partners, to be able to be agile, and to be able to change their offering.

Thirdly, cloud will liberate the organization. It allows the expansion of the organization’s data model to be exploited by multiple sources of the truth. To be able to focus on that single data approach, to be able to move that data between reliant agents operating within the process, to be able to ensure that the accuracy and understanding is clear. Whilst not having the tight down infrastructure of an onsite assets, but to being able to leverage the cloud capabilities of free use. The cloud does not come with no restrictions, and of course it needs to be secure. As companies become used to the availability in use and the flexibility of cloud, and they will understand how they can move critical and core processes, which all are adopted in Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE platform, allowing them to work in a totally new way.

JG: How can companies take advantage of the key trends by utilizing the 3DEXPERIENCE platform?

SC: The 3DEXPERIENCE platform is a business platform. It brings together all the functions within an organization to be able to view one source of the truth, through a lens of that function. Obviously, the benefits for the design and the production are plenty, these follow the traditional product lifecycle management platform approach, but by expanding that approach across the whole business, it will bring detailed insights into data as an asset inside the business.

The platform is full of collaborative capabilities bringing people together. so that no longer are we waiting as a product engineer able to look at the latest design we are already working on that latest design whereas the design is not formally pushed forward. They can interact and offer advice and best practice procedures to design approach, and ultimately all that at the right time.

So, the first product coming off the production line is a fit for purpose to the marketer and to the finance department, it is made in the right structure, it is composed with the right technology, it is utilizing the latest company adopted core processes, and it fits for the market straight away. All those things together is incredibly exciting – it gives insights into what a true business performance can achieve by leveraging the 3DEXPERIENCE platform.

As mentioned earlier, the 3DEXPERIENCE platform can be used in the cloud too. In the cloud, companies can use their core processes, leveraging all the assets they have inside their business, and being able to expose them outside of their business to their partners and supplies.

JG: How is the adoption of 3DEXPERIENCE platform in the Nordics versus UK and Benelux?

SC: If we look at the Nordics first, we see a heavy understanding of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), particularly within the traditional industries of the countries. Comparing that with for example UK, the PLM adoption has not been quite on the same level, and probably because the industries differ, away from heavy manufacturing to more service alignment. I think that the population and economy of the Nordics support companies moving to the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. We see some exciting customers like Ericsson taking the 3DEXPERIECE platform in use. Obviously, this creates a huge understanding and insights into how a major company like Ericsson can change their business utilizing a platform approach, and it becomes very exciting for also other Nordic customers if they are involved in the supply chain of Ericsson. In UK, I see the 3DEXPERIENCE platform adoption growing in the traditional industries that already followed the path of PLM but also for new industries exploitive approach looking how they can gain an advantage, and the Benelux is the mix of these two.