SOLIDWORKS 2015: Your access to 3D experience platform

French software company, Dassault Systemes, has been at the forefront of product lifecycle management solutions, 3D design software, as well as 3D digital mock-ups. INTERNATIONAL METALWORKING NEWS FOR ASIA (IMNA) recently sat down with Sharon Toh, Dassault Systemes' Senior Director of Professional Channel, Asia Pacific South. We discussed the company's latest product, SOLIDWORKS 2015, a suite of products which includes simulation, 3D design, electrical design, product data management, and technical communication.

IMNA: What's new in SolidWorks 2015 and how can it help manufacturers in ASEAN?

Sharon Toh: Every year we improve our functions and about 90% of the changes come from our customer's feedback. There are a lot of new features, but we have organised them into four main categories:

1.Design efficiency. So we have a feature function that helps users design better and faster.

2.Increased collaboration. We know that people collaborate and share a lot of projects together, so we've provided tools to assist.

3.Cost. If we can help to reduce cost, it will increase the profitability for our clients.

4.Ease of use. Our software has always been easy to use, but we have made it easier so that design engineers don't focus on the tools, but instead, focus on their design challenge.

IMNA: In your opinion, what are some of the recent and larger challenges ASEAN manufacturers face? How can you help these manufacturers overcome these obstacles?

Toh: ASEAN is just like any other place in the world, except for the ASEAN Economic Community which will take place next year. It will bring the whole ASEAN into one marketplace and we believe it will change the dynamic of business to a very large extent. The product that we are releasing will help these companies increase their innovation. Personally I am a very big believer in innovation, and I believe that this is what drives a company's success and improves efficiency. In ASEAN countries we still have fairly manual processes, so with the integration with slightly more advanced countries with the developing, and emerging countries it will help to improve efficiency. It might also increase collaboration because it will encourage getting the right skills at the right cost. It's very interesting for me. We have a tool to help our customers, and with this, they can improve their profitability.

IMNA: What has changed since SolidWorks was first introduced? What are a few key enhancements?

Toh: Commercially, SolidWorks started 18 years ago and it was focused on 3D CAD modelling. But today, we offer the whole design solution as well as collaboration tools. This really helps our customers to take their designs to the market very quickly. Today SolidWorks is not just one product, for example we have simulation, technical communication, electrical, plastics, and a new technology called a Math-Based Model.

IMNA: What sets SolidWorks apart from its competitors?

Toh: Our focus has always been on ease-of-use. Our customers just love SolidWorks and our customers are very successful. Because it is so easy to use, people are using it to design products very quickly and efficiently. But we also have a very unique community. We have the largest CAD community who are very active and they share information. SolidWorks is such a great platform. Business-wise we are unique because of our channels. We don't sell to customers directly, we sell indirectly, but we have the best channels in this industry.

IMNA: How involved is Dassault Systemes, from a manufacturing and marketing perspective, in Asia?

Toh: We don't manufacture, we just do R&D. We have R&D all around the globe – from India to Israel to France to the United States. From a marketing perspective, we are very aggressive and we set the standards. We are very innovative in engaging our customers, business partners and emerging community.

IMNA: How do you reach out to this emerging market?

Toh: We have a lot of activities set in place - from blogs to Facebook to Twitter. We are very well connected and each of our business partners have their communities. We have a very vibrant community both online and offline. We do have some technical groups online who share information. But some of them physically meet up a few times a year and these meet ups are driven by the users themselves, they drive their own community. We also conduct seminars and reach out to students who are only starting out with SolidWorks. 

IMNA: How do you measure product success?

Toh: It's when you produce a product that customers love to have and the company makes money selling that product. It’s like Apple, they make products which all of us can't wait to get our hands on and they make tons of money selling these products.

IMNA: Give us an example of an innovative idea or solution that you've identified and implemented.

Toh: A few years ago, our company decided that we needed to get to know our users very intimately. Knowing your customers and knowing your users are two very different things. So we developed my.solidworks.com, a platform and resource for our users where they can learn new skills. They can also input data such as their company, industry, competitors, performance, and projects so they can create a dashboard where they have everything they need to do their job. Design engineers have many demands – they need to design, attend meetings, find out information, improve their skills, and so on. This site is designed to help them and the standard access to the site is free.

IMNA: Tell us the steps you take to obtain feedback from your clients and integrate relevant requirements into the company's products.

Toh: It's interesting that you asked this, because I think this is very unique to us. Every year our R&D team goes out and talks to customers. They want to understand how the end users are using their products. We have seminars and have very close interaction with our users. For example, we are holding SolidWorks Innovation Day, where we bring thousands of people together in various locations around the globe. It is very important for us to engage with our users and we make sure to do so. There's also very valuable information on blogs and forums online. We have many layers of interacting with our users so that we know what our clients like and what they don't like. Additionally, our business partners visit the customers to talk about their challenges and aspirations too.

IMNA: What are the business trends that you see happening in the manufacturing industry? How will Dassault Systemes react to these trends?

Toh: A very big trend that we're seeing is additive manufacturing, where there's a direct output to the machines – whether it's to the 3D or additive manufacturing machines. I think we're very well positioned in that area.

IMNA: Looking into the future, what are the company's business plans in ASEAN for the future?

Toh: This is my favourite questions. Being part of ASEAN, with the AEC and all that, is really, really exciting. It's the best season for companies in the region. We continue to increase our market share aggressively. I can't share the numbers with you, but our targets are something like more than doubling our customer base every three years. We have very aggressive goals. We also want to be very close to our customers, for example, we don't want our customers to have to drive five hours or wait for five hours before they can get support. So we are aggressively expanding our channels in order to be close to where the customers are. We want to engage customers on an even deeper level to ensure that they are successful on all levels – from product simulations to cost efficiency to time to market. It's my passion to make sure that our customers are successful using our products. Today, we have a full suite of solutions and I think it will sit very well with them. Our product is very simple to use, the cost is very reasonable, and we have this emerging and fast growing ASEAN. I think we have the perfect match.