Veteran CAD and PLM vendor Dassault Systèmes made a recent acquisition that's bound to confuse a lot of traditional engineers still scratching their heads over where the Web and social media fit into the product development equation.
For an estimated $26 million, Dassault snapped up Netvibes, which markets what's billed as sentiment analytics technology that large companies like Coca-Cola and the US Department of Energy use to track their social media presence throughout the real-time Web. Simply put, what Netvibes does is create a real-time dashboard that serves up intel on customer sentiment related to brand image, product preference, and even rate of adoption.
Netvibe's real-time customer sentiment dashboard will bring a social intelligence flair to Dassault's 3D experience vision. (Source: Dassault Systèmes)
Newly appointed executive vice president for Industry, Marketing, and Corporate Communications Monica Menghini put it this way in her explanation of what Netvibes technology actually does:
Netvibes is a social intelligence platform that enables you to have a snapshot view of any information you might want. As part of Dassault, it will allow marketers to connect what consumers are saying about a product directly to the design process or engineers to have an intelligent cockpit of information, from technical to consumer-oriented. This synchronization of those outside of an organization (namely, consumers) and those inside (across all departments) ultimately leads to better products that can be brought to market faster.
Finally, something to connect this amorphous social intelligence thing to something concrete related to Dassault's bread and butter -- 3D engineering applications. Menghini and Dassault's top dog and visionary, Bernard Charlès, positioned Netvibes as one of the pieces of its newly dubbed 3D Experience platform. This is its vision for the post-PLM era where designers, engineers, marketing managers, and consumers connect in a new social enterprise where they deliver "experiences" to consumers as part of their continuous innovation.
This is really interesting, Beth. Obviously Dassault is betting (with millions) that social media -- and its resulting audience -- will play an increasingly larger role in design. They are probably right. Like collaboration, though, it will only pay off if the design community is willing to take in the wider feedback.
Good point, Rob. You can tap into social media venues and let the "voice of the customer" rabble on about product requirements, etc., but if engineers aren't ready, willing, and able to listen, it's a moot point. That said, listening to customer requirements has always been a hallmark of effective product design and this is really no different. It's just a different venue for listening and one where experts say customers are much more willing and comfortable to expose their true voice--not in random surveys or focus groups, which have been how companies traditionally get customer feedback.
I agree, Beth. This is a necessary voice for the design team to hear. In the Made by Monkeys blog, those commenting continually say this information needs to go back to the design team. Of course, there is no mechanism to make that happen. Social media tied to design may create an effective echo chamber.
What strikes me is the talk about delivering "experiences". People do not buy experiences. They buy products. This talk about experiences is all the rage in the software industry these days. In my experience, when someone starts trying to change the conversation in this way their motivation is that they have not competed well in traditional arena. An example of this is with corporate software that I ran into a few years back. We were talking to a customer and our competitor came in with a pricing scheme that stressed value of the software. They waned to customer to tell the customer what the value of the application was to them. This stalled the deal for everyone, but in the end we prevailed. It had just been a tactic to do just that, stall the deal. For one thing, the customer did not necessarily want to tell the vendors what the applicatiion was worth to them. They needed a product to help them dio thier business. Another thing that comes to mind is that the whole tone is that customers do not have an experience today. That does not make sense.
I am not saying, though, that this software will not bring value. Knowing what customers think and getting good and extensive feedback is a good thing. The reality though, is that this will feed into future versions of the product, not some "experience" that they might have.
I understand what you'e saying, Naperlou. It was my understanding that the tool was meant to deliver customer feedback such as, this product doesn't work under these condictions -- much like we hear in the Made by Monkeys blog.
Excellent article. Social media is still a forum that needs to prove itself to some extent. There's no question that interacting with other users is an effective tool for software users. Support forums certainly demonstrate that the ability to ask questions, or report bugs, is an effective way to gain from the experiences of other users. It will be interesting to see how these kinds of tools evolve in the future and how widespread their use is adopted. Some love social media; others consider it largely a waste of time.
I completely agree with Al, about the two ends of the spectrum in terms of how social media is perceived. I think that most engineers would bucket social media in the "not very useful" or "waste of time" category as of now. This particular Dassault alliance is definitely a bit odd, but is in keeping with the firm's overall strategy to blend its engineering oriented software, which has been its staple, with more consumer-oriented technology with the goal of opening up the product development process from a locked door, engineering club function to more of a mainstream endeavor using 3D data as the universal language.
Due to its targeted focus, this type of social media experience may actually have a greater chance of attracting consistent and meaningful discussions. The best social media sites attract interested, knowledgeable people committed to the topic, which can provide an excellent source of news and discussion. Will be interesting to see how these types of forums develop.
This capability will actually allow engineers and others in the product development food chain to tap into what is said about their products (likes, dislikes, requirements, problems, etc) in other social media forums. The idea, according to Dassault, is to capture customer sentiment about the product and the "experience" and then feed that data or intelligence back to those involved in product design so they can consider it in the early stages of development--not after the fact and in reactive mode. Like many cited here, I'm not sure individual engineers will do much or even think much of random "customer sentiment" captured in that fashion. But perhaps having a tool that lets you dial into what customers are thinking/saying might have some impact, especially if the mandate to do so comes from the top.
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