Tech-Clarity Insight: Unlocking Engineering Value for Small and Medium Businesses with Product Design on the Cloud
explores the business benefits of a design environment on the cloud. The report examines the savings from an IT perspective as well as the strategic value and competitive advantage it can provide product development.
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Table of Contents
- Executive Overview
- Lower IT Costs
- Let Innovation Drive Business Decisions
- Create Expense Flexibility
- Enable Better Collaboration
- Extend Access Beyond Engineers and Designers
- Improve Processes
- Overcome Security Concerns
- Conclusion
- Recommendations
- About the Author
Executive Overview
Today’s global environment is so competitive, it has become very difficult for companies to stand out from the competition. To be profitable, companies must design better products, at less cost, in less time while offering customers something unique. This can be especially challenging for small and medium size businesses (SMBs) who face many of the same challenges large companies do, but with fewer resources to address them. With this in mind, they do not have any resources to spare. Yet, research published in Tech-Clarity’s report, Reducing Non-Value Added Work in Engineering, “Engineers spend a third of their time on non-value added work. Even worse, 20% of their time is spent working with outdated information, which often leads to wasted effort and rework.” Figure 1 shows the breakdown of that non-valued added time.
Turning to a design platform on the cloud can be a way to help. The adoption of cloud technology continues to grow as applications for both personal and business applications become readily available.
As stated in Tech-Clarity’s Assessing the Cloud PLM Opportunity, “Cloud computing is generally recognized as the next generation of information technology (IT) architecture. Large and small companies alike are using cloud solutions to simplify their IT infrastructure. These companies are taking advantage of lower costs, faster time to value, and increased agility available from Internet-based applications. Many companies have already moved applications such as e-mail, customer relationship management (CRM), collaboration, and other systems into the cloud.” As an example, companies such as Salesforce.com have proven success with a cloud-based, enterprise solution, even with highly sensitive customer data. ERP is another example that is finding success on the cloud. Based on research done for Tech-Clarity’s report, Modernizing Manufacturing Systems with the Cloud, “…cloud ERP results in a better, lower risk implementation than most companies could support in-house, offering web class performance and reliability.”
Given the success of other cloud applications, it makes sense that those benefits would also extend to a design environment on the cloud. Companies such as AKKA Technologies have found just that. AKKA Technologies is a French company that provides engineering and technology consulting services for the transportation and mobility, aerospace and defense, energy, life sciences, and hi-tech industries. Philippe Obry, Chief Innovation Officer at AKKA Technologies says, “Designing products on the cloud has led to a 30-40% reduction in development time. The time savings come from combining the expertise of multiple team members on a single platform and giving them easy access to the design data.”
Such significant time savings can turn into a real competitive advantage. This report details the business value and return on investment that can be achieved when designing products on the cloud.