Guido Porro says...‘Among SMBs, the level of positive aggressiveness in India is quite significant’
Published on : Monday 30-11--0001
How is the current scenario in India in terms of building the Partners eco-system?
I do believe it is extremely favourable situation, and I am not just saying these because theoretically the projects we are doing are very exciting, but the fact is whatever we are doing with the 3DEXPERIENCE in India is booming, not just in terms of interest but also in terms of execution, but it is also about numbers, where during last few quarters we have had fantastic growth. While we are growing globally, here in India the growth is more than what we are achieving anywhere else, especially indirect channels, and it is not just about numbers but also quality. Also, more and more we are moving from our traditional value proposition in the pure design arena, to something that is broader than this, to manage everything that has to do with the integration and flow within the entire company, in order the break the silos that exist within between engineering and manufacturing to service and then back to manufacturing, to go back to something that is managing the entire value stream of the company. So that’s what we are doing here in India. At present we have about 50 partners in different areas of business, service education, etc., and all these are listed on our website.
You say in India it is the indirect channel that is growing fast. How different it is elsewhere?
It is also something that is different here. India is a very vibrant market. Every time I come here I also see that the entrepreneur is willing to take the risk to go for the next level in terms of technology. They do not really rely too much on the legacy but want to jump to the next level. So from this point of view there is an implicit factor of natural growth happening in our ecosystem. Then there is the fact that we developed technologies that are very relevant for India – not only aerospace and defence, in transportation and industrial equipment but also other sectors like mining, consumer goods, packaging where we are really strong, and these are very important for India. So in the last few years when we thought where to invest strategically, we looked at India in a very careful way and the country was at the centre of our thinking where to develop our products and now we are getting the results.
Another thing I would like mention about our partner ecosystem here is they have really invested a lot in our new technologies, not just relied on the past glories of Dassualt Systemes. They understood our strategy and based on that took action based on the business case, and develop skills – skills that are not only technical, but envisioning the next step of the business model.
Globally SMBs are strong in the Dassault Systemes’ equation. How is the situation in India on this front?
If we look at the Small & Medium Business scenario in different countries, we do believe that the level of positive aggressiveness, in terms of technology among SMBs in India is quite significant. India is one of the most important hubs in start-ups, with a lot of young people looking for new trajectories from a career point of view; we do see people who are willing to take risks and develop from scratch technologies that are quite state-of-the-art. And when they ask us for technologies to support the hyper growth they are targeting, they are looking for the best. One of the major drivers we want to push in India, especially for SMBs, is the cloud. We believe the cloud is going to be a tremendous accelerator of our capabilities to democratise our technologies for the SMBs, to get the most from our technologies, especially technologies that were till a few years ago only within the of the super large businesses with big budgets. Apart from reducing the IT application the cloud is going to force everybody to simplify the thinking process in the entire development of the product, because the cloud in itself is not only the technological framework but also the best practices that are embedded in the value proposition we are developing. It is going to simplify the entire flow of interaction in the company.
Are organisations becoming more customer-centric by using digital technologies and solutions?
Well a lot of people talk about digital continuity or digital revolution. We do not like these terms, do not think it is the right way, because digital is not the goal, it is just a tool to achieve the final product which is the customer experience. This in turn has to do with the company’s capability to match perfectly the customer expectation. Now this is a generic statement, it’s there since a long time – this customer-centric topic, and we need to implement this from a technological point of view. In 2012 when we announced this big step of 3DEXPERIENCE Platform, the concept from the business as well as technological point of view was to put the customer at the centre, and how, was the question. Now this was not easy, but it was natural. Because everything that has to do with experience has to do with the capability of the company and its different departments, taking into consideration that what they make is going to be sold to the customer. The requirements of the customer are developing implicitly or explicitly, and have to flow naturally through the entire value flow of the company. And in order to do this from the pure business point of view, you need very strong technology and platform. That’s basically the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform, which is enabling the capability of the company to take the best ideas coming from the customer and make them flow through the entire organisation from the design to engineering to prototyping and then manufacturing and onto service.
Can organisations break the silos and bring about the Operational Technology (OT) and Information Technology (IT) convergence?
There are visible trends that are going to facilitate a dialogue between these different departments. One of these is the capability of the software technology to be out of the box. I believe a lot of failure we witnessed in the last few years in the manufacturing side to digitalise was on account of the fact that the technology was not fully ready to match the requirement or at least to convince the customer that somehow it is possible to at least change some of the internal processes to get some of the best practices that are coming from outside. There are a few trends that are going to simplify this now. First one is the maturity of the processes that are now already embedded in the technology, which means there are products now available off the shelf rather than customise everything which is the nightmare for the IT department. The second one is the maturity of capabilities of the software vendor and our partners, where we have to speak the language of the customer, as the customer cannot adapt to the IT language but it has to be the other way round, talking the language of the manufacturer right down to the shop floor level. The third one which is going to simplify things very much is the cloud. As mentioned earlier, the cloud is going to be the driver of simplification, as a lot of the best practices are already embedded and things can be presented to the final user in very simple way, without the never ending proof of concept, etc.