English
By Jan Homola on 23rd March 2011
JH: Speaking about the last year Technodat could boast with very significantly growing revenue. What is the main reason for the success?
AK: I can see two main factors which helped us succeed. One of those is the improving condition of the Czech industry, in our case this is also due to new-coming investors or new investments with the support of structural funds. The other factor is the results of our effort in the past two years. In case of Technodat I do not hesitate to say that today we are stronger than we were at the beginning of the crises. We strengthened our team, improved our organisation and marketing, we targeted at the strong points of our solution, at improving the communication with our customers etc.
Did the crisis have any impact on your customers` behaviour and their attitude to the used software and the supporting services?
The customers` behaviour was definitely influenced by the start of the financial crisis. All companies reduced the inessential investments. In fact, this included Technodat Company`s investments as well. The customers focused on the efficiency of the used tools. We supported them with our experience in the area of processes. The efficiency goes hand in hand with the level of knowledge. For this reason many of our customers were offered extra user trainings together with audits of the processes and the used tools. A very positive piece of news was that almost none of the customers stopped or cut down the software maintenance or our support. This is a proof that the customers attach great value to the solutions that we offer.
Which products are your customers most interested in nowadays?
Let` talk about two different groups of customers: the new ones and the existing ones. The existing customers are interested mainly in improving the main business process and the assets of 3D/PLM, with better use of the existing tools or their extensions, mainly still on V5 platform, possibly with pilot projects on V6 platform. In case of the new customers we can talk about a totally new approach to the main business process of the company and to the assets in the area of 3D/PLM, mostly with the full engagement and with all the assets of V6 platform.
In February, Dassault Systèmes Company awarded you for excellent business results in 3Dvia Composer sales. What customers are mainly interested in this software and what do they use it for?
3Dvia Composer is one of the Dassault Systèmes tools based already on V6 platform. Its success lies in the fact that both the new and existing customers try to increase the efficiency of the main business process, mainly in the area of technical product documentation, in product maintenance and service documentation, partly also in business and marketing activities.
Didier Martre from Dassault Systèmes awards the managing director of Technodat Company, Mr. Ales Kobylik, a prize for the business results in 2010.
How do you motivate your customers to upgrade their current versions (V4, V5) to the latest one, i.e. V6?
There are two aspects which motivate the existing customers to upgrade their versions. One of those is the assets of V6 platform which cannot be expected within the V5 development. Together with many of our customers we are preparing pilot projects on which they can check up on the assets of V6 platform (e.g. the project management, the configuration management, working with large assemblies etc.). The other aspect that will highly motivate our customers could be their own customers` change to V6 platform. The global "players" (e.g. Renault, Airbus etc.) supported this aspect when they announced that they were heading towards V6 platform. There is a large number of migration scenarios towards V6 platform with regard to individual interests and priorities of our customers.
How is your company going to develop its activities this year?
Technodat current activities are based on several pillars and actually the business and implementation activities of 3D/PLM solutions form only one of those pillars. If I should target at the business and implementation activities of 3D/PLM solutions, then our main motivation is to master the V6 platform in an excellent way. In 2010 and at the beginning of 2011, Technodat invested a great effort to prepare a team ready to handle the V6 platform with the best quality possible. The 3Dvia Composer achievements in 2010 prove that we are heading the right way. In 2011, we would like to achieve the same success in the area of Enovia V6 and Catia V6..
Thank you for the interview.
