CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
19 April 2012
CIMdata News
Autodesk’s One Team Conference 2012
A CIMdata Commentary
CIMdata was invited to attend and speak at Autodesk’s One Team Conference (OTC) 2012 in Las Vegas during the week of March 11. Over three thousand Autodesk global partners and employees attended this annual event, which was greatly anticipated following a recent series of important Autodesk® announcements targeted at the manufacturing industry. These announcements included “Everything Changes,” from Autodesk University last November, and the launch of Autodesk PLM 360 in February. At OTC 2012 CIMdata led two half-day Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) training classes that were attended by several hundred channel partners and employees preparing to take advantage of the many new opportunities these announcements create to better serve Autodesk customers.
CIMdata observed at OTC 2012 that true to the One Team Conference name, both Autodesk channel sales partners and their direct sales employees are working together as a unified sales and customer support force to pursue and infiltrate PLM solution markets. The word “infiltrate” is quite appropriate, because it describes the fervent attitude of many Autodesk PLM channel partners and executives CIMdata spoke to, who see their role as insurgents leading a transformation—if not a revolution—to a new era in PLM. Autodesk views itself as a leader in the democratization movement of “PLM for everyone,” made possible by a new generation of PLM applications with what is claimed to be unrivaled levels of solution accessibility, simplicity, usability, configurability, and affordability. A portfolio of PLM applications is promoted under the banner “Autodesk PLM 360—the next generation cloud based alternative,” as profiled at www.autodeskplm360.com.
The deferred entry of Autodesk into ever-expanding yet highly competitive PLM markets, which CIMdata has reported on for over twenty years, may very well work to the company’s advantage. A convergence of external technology trends, internal development initiatives, and continued acquisitions by Autodesk appear to have converged at a most favorable time to empower their new approach to delivering PLM. Given the freshness of its PLM offering, combined with the staying power due to its well respected legacy CAD products, CIMdata expects Autodesk to establish itself as a PLM market mindshare leader that one day may parallel its leadership heritage in CAD (mechanical and AEC) and entertainment applications such as Maya and 3ds Max. As a preview of future growth opportunities to come, Autodesk reported impressive growth rates at OTC in manufacturing industry solution sales as they continue to deliver an ever-expanding portfolio of solutions.
CIMdata attended few presentations at OTC 2012 where the two key words “cloud” and “focus” were not used in abundance. Autodesk’s commitment to the cloud (previously reported in CIMdata’s December 7, 2011, market commentary on “PLM in the Cloud”) is notable for the confidence of an all-onboard bet that the cloud will become the preferred delivery platform of choice, for small businesses and large enterprises alike, which may render the desktop obsolete for most PLM-enabling applications. While championing the cloud’s ubiquitous access, infinite computing, and unlimited scalability—which, to be fair, other cloud-based solution providers can claim to offer as well—Autodesk has upped the ante with a combination of product suites licensed over the cloud by subscription usage at disruptive pricing levels. As if this was not enough to earn the attention of an experienced force of sales partners and widely respected resellers, Autodesk no longer restricts which solution suites they can sell.
An attractive capability of Autodesk PLM 360 is the promise of its accessibility, flexibility, configurability, and instant-on usability to quickly deploy PLM-enabling technologies to attack specific business process pains without requiring a more massive, comprehensive enterprise-wide deployment project. The functional business process areas to be addressed by PLM 360 applications include: research and development, engineering, manufacturing, suppliers, quality, compliance, operations, and sales and service. Equally important to these promoted capabilities is that at OTC 2012 Autodesk demonstrated it recognizes that developing, selling, and supporting PLM solutions that address customer critical workflow business processes is quite different from selling to and servicing CAD users.
To support the success of its channel partners in selling PLM into these process areas, Autodesk is encouraging them to focus on key industries, targeted applications, and critical workflows where they can develop both the repeatable skills and core competencies required to deliver the value-added expertise their customers will need to be successful. CIMdata has often reported that the failure of individual channel partners, if not entire channel programs, can be attributed to a lack of organizational focus and operational discipline. With the size and complexity of PLM markets it is especially important for partners to avoid trying to sell every product to every industry for every application in every process, as it is impossible to have sufficient experience to deliver, much less have the expertise to truly excel, in every facet of PLM. Once partners begin to appreciate the magnitude of opportunity for PLM solutions in the small-to-medium business (SMB) markets, which CIMdata recently reported grew over 15% in 2011, it is easy to be overwhelmed without additional levels of market focus and application specialization not normally required for CAD markets.
At OTC 2012, Autodesk demonstrated in words and with new applications that it believes the window is open for a game-changing approach to buying, implementing, and using a new generation of PLM-enabling solutions that exploit the cloud, social collaboration, and mobile devices. Autodesk believes it has the opportunity to leapfrog over a whole generation of traditional PLM solutions as those solutions have a long legacy of being developed and implemented using more classic IT technology and are not as flexible and easily adoptable as Autodesk PLM 360. They may be fortunate to not have a large installed PLM customer base that might otherwise restrict them from such innovative delivery and disruptive pricing. However, they and their partners must develop deep levels of customer intimacy that their PLM competitors, and their competitors’ channel partners, have acquired over many years working within their industrial user bases to deploy PLM as an enterprise business strategy. Autodesk demonstrated at OTC 2012 it is ready for this challenge of investing in, and preparing their sales and support partners to develop, the sharp market focus and customer intimacy required for long-term success. And with nearly two thousand sales partners and resellers primed to go, this OTC season may be looked back upon as the start of their very own PLM-democratizing Autodesk Spring.
About CIMdata
CIMdata, an independent worldwide firm, provides strategic management consulting to maximize an enterprise’s ability to design and deliver innovative products and services through the application of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM). CIMdata provides world-class knowledge, expertise, and best-practice methods on PLM. CIMdata also offers research, subscription services, publications, and education through international conferences. To learn more about CIMdata’s services, visit our website at http://www.CIMdata.com or contact CIMdata at: 3909 Research Park Drive, Ann Arbor, MI 48108, USA. Tel: +1 734.668.9922. Fax: +1 734.668.1957; or at Oogststraat 20, 6004 CV Weert, The Netherlands. Tel: +31 (0) 495.533.666.
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