Dassault Systèmes’ Growing Scope and Vertical Depth

Summary

In a recent two-day session, Dassault Systèmes' executives provided ARC Advisory Group with new insights into the company's strategy, products, and business dynamics.  The scope of the 3DEXPERIENCE platform continues to expand and encompasses modeling, design, simulation, analysis, and collaboration.  Key takeaways include:

• Each Dassault Systèmes industry team has the deep knowledge of the business processes and roles needed to market solutions that address the major challenges of their customers.
• Digital twins are moving beyond product development to managing the "as maintained" state of a machine in the field. 
• The company is successfully penetrating the SME market for product design and has added ERP and MES solutions for the mid-market.

Dassault Systèmes’ Expanding Footprint

3DS has grown the 3DEXPERIENCE footprint well beyond its traditional strength in product design, with applications for the broader enterprise.

The company is well known for its 3D design software with CATIA and SOLIDWORKS, and ENOVIA for product data management and engineering collaboration.  DELMIA takes collaboration further by bridging the virtual world of modeling and simulation with the real world of operations, from manufacturing through to the supply chain and logistics.  SIMULIA provides simulation for evaluating the performance, reliability and safety of materials and products before committing to physical prototypes. 

The company’s EXALEAD, 3DVIA, NETVIBES and 3DEXCITE applications include enterprise search, business analytics, dashboards, and marketing.  Other applications like GEOVIA (model and simulate the planet), BIOVIA and the recently acquired Medidata Solutions for life sciences, provide functions for specific industries that are beyond 3DS's traditional discrete industry product design. 

With the acquisition of IQMS, Dassault Systèmes' expanding footprint now includes ERP.  This software targets SMB companies, which 3DS views as an underserved market for ERP.

Industry Solutions

3DS’s strategy involves targeting specific industries beyond its typical discrete manufacturing customer base, and includes sub-segments with unique challenges like OEMs, systems, and components.  The targets include:

• Aerospace & defense
• Transportation & mobility
• Industrial equipment
• High-tech
• Construction, cities & territories
• Consumer packaged goods & retail
• Energy & materials
• Home & lifestyle
• Life sciences
• Marine & offshore

• Business services

Each industry solution experience is a curated collection of 3DS's products and services.  They span the business processes to conceptualize, design, manufacture, test, certify and sustain the products, and help accelerate innovation and drive efficiencies.  Bernard Charles, Vice Chairman and CEO, described this as an “Industry Renaissance,” with new categories of companies and consumers with the 3DEXPERIENCE platform becoming a catalyst and enabler of industry transformation across the business experience.

Vertical Depth

By combining application, content, and services, the company has created a rich portfolio of vertical industry solutions.  For each industry, the industry solutions team has defined:

• Industry solution experiences for end users including roles, applications, and impact on KPIs

• Industry structure, ecosystem, and business processes

Each industry team that presented showed over 100 specific roles for users within that industry.  Many of these roles involve a unique business process specific for the industry and its participants.  3DS modeled and optimized the business processes using the 3DEXPERIENCE platform and selected Dassault Systèmes applications.

3DEXPERIENCE Marketplace

3DS has created a 3DEXPERIENCE marketplace for members of the ecosystem to collaborate with qualified industrial service providers across a range of services.  This includes the product innovation process from upstream thinking to ownership.  The first two available services are:

• “Make” for on-demand manufacturing (additive manufacturing)

• “Part Supply” for intelligent part sourcing

Conclusion

The Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE platform has broadened to support areas well beyond the company’s traditional focus.  This expansion includes post-product development business processes like manufacturing, sales, and asset management.  It also includes more industries like life sciences.  Some insights obtained during the two-day session with Dassault Systèmes’ executives are:

• Each 3DS industry solutions team has a deep understanding of the associated business processes and roles, providing a credible addition to the sales team.
• For each industry, the 100+ roles for users of the company’s software were well-defined, real, and credible.  This demonstrated great depth of understanding of each industry and how the software is applied.  In their marketing messages, most suppliers have just a few roles - like operators (users), managers (for business processes) and supply chain (for materials management).   Obviously, 3DS has gone much deeper. 
• The industry solutions and roles also define who sells what to whom. This should avoid conflicts during pre-sales among the product groups and confusion within the prospect for what they should buy.  This improves the sales cycle, sales productivity, and customer satisfaction.
• 3DS customers have used digital twins for simulation during product development for design optimization.  The application of digital twins is now moving to the product's user for managing the "as maintained" state of a machine in the field. 
• Dassault is successfully penetrating the SME market typically with design, manufacturing, and simulation solutions. The recent acquisition of IQMS has added ERP and MES to its SME portfolio.

3DEXPERIENCE, CATIA, SOLIDWORKS, ENOVIA, DELMIA, SIMULIA, EXALEAD, 3DVIA, NETVIBES, 3DEXCITE, GEOVIA, and BIOVIA are trademarks of Dassault Systèmes.

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Keywords: Dassault Systèmes, 3DEXPERIENCE platform, ARC Advisory Group.