Dassault Conference, Pt 3 - Dassault Mines for Credibility

Nov 11, 2012, ORLANDO, FL (3DEXPERIENCE FORUM North America) – CEO Bernard Charles gave a hint of how he hopes Dassault will achieve credibility as he targets new industries with the recent Gemcom acquisition (see press release )

CATIA and SolidWorks were probably in use for the design of earth mining machinery. But what of the geologic analysis, the planning and management of the mines, etc.? Dassault was only scratching the surface (ha ha, get it?).

Dassault solved this problem by going out and buying the mining software market leader, Gemcom (its product will be renamed GEOVIA by the time you read this). Gemcom was such a force to be reckoned with that mining terms are named after the founder of the company, according to Bernard. Everyone in mining knows Gemcom, like everyone in airplanes knows CATIA. With this acquisition, Dassault bought itself instant credibility.

Can Dassault keep buying market leading software? The company reports $1.6 billion of cash and cash equivalents. It could buy 4 more companies the size of Gemcom outright.

Still miners don’t know the Dassault name. But that is slated to change. Dassault is targeting corporate name recognition from the high vantage of national advertising campaigns (remember the iceberg commercial) along with a marketing maverick – more on that later.

If Gemcom serves as an example, look for Dassault to try to achieve market penetration and leadership by buying industry leading software while at the same time increasing its name recognition to the world at large, Impressing the public, which includes stockholders, other approvers, as well as targeted industries. Why not establish the ideas that that Dassault is a huge company with a world vision, one that acts with the whole world in mind? This 2 pronged approach, which relies on establishing name familiarity, would be vital in prevent skeptics from asking “Who the heck is Dassault. Don’t they make software that designs airplanes?” Instead, they would remember a company that is good, green, benign, friendly, smiling… a personification of Bernard Charles himself, intent on saving the world – and, incidentaly, a comany you can count on to do your job. 

Comments

[Srihari Gangaraj]

It would very interesting to see if DS now extends the GEOVIA into Oil & Gas Exploration Software or Reservoir Simulation..like the PetroMod.