cadalyst
Manufacturing

MCAD Tech News #175

10 May, 2006 By: Brian Bluff


The Buyer-Seller Disconnect

Study by ThomasNet and Google finds that in the industrial supplier community, Web sites don't deliver and sales are lost

Editor’s note: In this edition of MCAD Tech News, we feature an article submitted by Brian Bluff of ThomasNet. It outlines a recent study by ThomasNet and Google that found serious shortcomings in the Web sites of industrial suppliers. Next week, regular author Jeff Rowe will return to look at some of the companies (including ThomasNet and Google) that successfully connect buyers and sellers by eliminating obstacles to sales and continually moving the buying process forward.

Industrial buyers seeking everything from nuts and bolts to sophisticated manufacturing equipment are turning to the Internet nearly twice as often as the offline information sources they have traditionally relied on, according to a recent study of industrial buying behaviors. But at the same time, this study also brings to light a major disconnect between online buyers and the suppliers they seek to do business with.

This joint study, conducted by ThomasNet and Google, revealed that industrial buyers are increasingly turning to the Internet when conducting a search for products and services, bypassing offline sources, such as distributors’ catalogs and sales representatives. This sounds like good news for industrial sellers who are already online. After all, what company today doesn’t have a Web site?

However, the same research indicates that in many cases, suppliers are not providing online buyers with the information they want. To make better use of their online marketing dollars, suppliers need to increase awareness of how industrial buyers look for products and services on the Internet. This includes knowledge of where industrial buyers go online and what types of information they seek.Read more

PLM Strategies -- Industry Best Practices for Sale from Dassault Systemes

by Kenneth Wong

If someone shrink-wraps a series of industry best practices -- proven methodologies and procedures gleaned from the experiences of leading enterprises in your field -- and sells them to you as off-the-shelf solutions, will you buy them? Dassault Systemes thinks you might. That's the raison d'être behind the French PLM (product lifecycle management) titan's latest offerings, known as BPCs (business process contents).

"BPCs are basically productization of our service engagements with various customers," explained Eric Retraint from Dassault Systemes Industry Solutions. "For instance, we do certain service engagements around SMARTEAM by developing complementary offerings to support it. And we also develop a mix of innovative, best-of-breed PLM practices to support industry processes to make sure our customers leverage our products at best." The idea is that these processes can be replicated in other companies that have similar organizational makeup or closely related markets. Read more

Mark Your Calendar: MCAD Events

Accelerate Your Ideas
Various dates and locations
Autodesk series of events will introduce and demonstrate its manufacturing solutions, including Autodesk Inventor 11, AutoCAD Electrical 2007, AutoCAD Mechanical and Autodesk’s Data Management solutions. Read more 

Transforming Product Development for Small & Medium Business
May 17, 2006, 12 p.m. ET
The Product Development Company will host a webcast designed to educate small and medium businesses on how to transform product development to drive growth and lower costs. Read more  

Interior Motives Design Conference 2006
June 6-8, 2006
London, United Kingdom
Organized by Interior Motives magazine, this second Interior Motives Design Conference is designed for designers and experts from the world of car design and automotive technology to share ideas and developments. Read more  

AUGI CAD Camp
June 8, 2006
Marina Village Conference Center
San Diego, California
This is an official Autodesk User Group International (AUGI) learning and networking event designed to help you gain knowledge and skills you can apply immediately to solve existing challenges and make you more productive. Read more  

2006 NAFEMS UK Conference
June 14-15, 2006
Cheshire, United Kingdom
NAFEMS, the International Association for the Engineering Analysis Community, will hold its 2006 UK conference for the analysis and simulation industries covering FEA (finite-element analysis), CFD (computational fluid dynamics) and associated technologies. The two-day event will focus on the future challenges in all aspects of engineering simulation. Read more  

Rapid Manufacturing 1st International Conference
July 5-6, 2006
Loughborough University, United Kingdom
Conference will feature industrial applications and academic research currently used in rapid manufacturing -- the use of additive layer manufacturing techniques for end-use parts. Read more

For Cadalyst's full calendar of events, click here.

what's new at cadalyst.com

Online Archives: Click here to view an online version of this newsletter and past issues of MCAD Tech News.

Solid Thinking (Tutorial) -- SolidWorks 2006 Quick Tips: Discover new tools and tips that you might have missed in SolidWorks 2006.

CAD Manager (Column) – Justifying CAD Expenditures with ROI Metrics: ROI metrics help you evaluate and prioritize spending items in your annual budget.

Cadalyst Discussion Forums Have a New Look — and a new URL: Cadalyst's CAD Manager, CAD Questions and Hot Tip Harry Discussion Forums have moved to a new location. Visit today to update your bookmarks, check out the new look and find out what's on the minds of other CAD professionals.

Cadalyst Daily Update: For all the latest news and new products, subscribe to Cadalyst Daily e-newsletter. Plus, every issue includes a feature you won’t find anywhere else – hardware and CAD software reviews, success stories, AutoCAD tips and much more! Here’s a sample of what you missed in the past week: