Dassault Systèmes’ Commitment To The “Generative Economy”

At last week's analyst conference, Dassault Systèmes presented their mid-term vision for the transforming company in a changing world. Pascal Daloz, the recently appointed CEO, laid out the big picture: the foundation, the steps leading up to the new five-year plan, and the first steps in executing it.

The foundation is a well-understood and used 3DExperience platform, Mr. Daloz said. The company does not defocus from ‘things’, that is, products and processes, and while adding focus on ‘life’. The acquisition in 2019 of Medidata, a solution to manage clinical trials, and discover the optimal treatment for a patient population was the first manifestation of the strategy. The COVID pandemic demonstrated how crucial the human experience of digital tools is. Dassault Systèmes invests in and identifies with science: life science, materials science, and data science underpin the solutions. 

While the company’s business is still for around seventy percent based on the industry verticals, life science, health care, infrastructure and cities are growing markets. The company gains a point of market share every year and wins back clients from the past. Medidata’s revenue and personnel have doubled since 2019.

The new five-year plan, dubbed “Metamorphosis” adds more breadth and depth to industry: the company applies a system-of-systems approach, to decompose the monolithic life cycle into to cycles of subsystem lifecycles, required to implement sustainable practices. The company uses the term virtual twins and not digital twins to emphasize the users’ potential experiences and power of imagination. The company calls “UNIV+RSE” the universe of  representations, that is, virtual twin systems, plus the universe of ‘experiences’, that is, the real world, or information describing it. As the virtual twin systems include behavior and/or 3D models, they help interpreting data from the real world and creating understanding and knowledge.

Generative Economy

Other crucial aspects of the strategy include “generative economy”, which aims to learn from nature, to regenerate ‘things’ and ‘life’ and transition to a circular economy, or maybe more accurately, a regenerative economy. As Patrick Johnson, responsible for science and R&D explained, Dassault Systèmes makes big strides in implementing the strategy, by offering molecular simulation to design materials, design new pharmaceutical compounds based on chemical structures, providing detailed and standardized carbon footprint analyses of product and processes, and use generative AI to improve parts design, or design of gene therapies. Medidata’s approach to search for populations that do not have adverse effects of therapies, rather than finding the least toxic therapy for an average population is one of the original strategies used by this brand.

Sovereign Cloud Hosting

Mr. Daloz pointed out that Outscale has become a brand, emphasizing the importance for the company. Outscale provides cloud hosting for the company’s products, and on-premises implementations for safety and security-sensitive industries such as nuclear and military. This also includes a sovereign cloud offering, that is, hosted on the company’s own servers, in well-identified locations, using in-house virtualization and ‘coordination’. Mr. Daloz explained that the company had to include strategies to protect itself and its clients from geopolitical tensions and comply with regulations and implemented sovereign solutions in all regions. Dependencies are derisked, as illustrated with the cloud software approach.

Engaging with Patients, Users and Citizens

Dassault Systèmes believes it should address new audiences, engage with patients, users and citizens, and empower them with data-driven experiences. As the company has very clearly articulated its ethics, emphases humanistic values, and walks the talk about sustainability, we feel this will be done in a very respectful, inclusive and ethical way.

Root Cause Analysis Equipment Breakdown

One of the demo stations we looked at in details was a use case for Jindal Stainless Steel in India, demonstrating 3D visualization of detail production planning. When a real event such as an equipment breakdown disturbs the schedule, the historical sequence of actual equipment activities can be played back to analyze the event, and plan for improved reactive problem solving, while providing input to maintenance and engineering for long-term improvements.

Value Creation with Digital Transformation

Dassault Systèmes is far beyond the stage of making a business case for implementation of digital transformation, proposing a virtual twin of the enterprise transformation. The company has capability to develop implementation programs through a dedicated methodology called “ Value engagement” that include all the tracks to make change successful: the technology track, the project management track, the added value track, and the organizational change track. Dassault Systèmes has a good understanding of the individual and collective psychological mechanisms that help or hinder a digital transformation roll-out, which we consider industry-leading. The approach is implemented at the automotive OEM Renault in France, who have a profound transformation process ongoing. Dassault Systèmes can successfully help Renault because of a trust relationship that has been built up over long years.