What do you mean “selling”!  We went to engineering school so that we can do honorable technical work, not that sleaze ball sales stuff.  Well, what can I say?  Grow up!  Whether we’re mechanical engineers, grade school teachers, or brain surgeons, a significant priority in our professional lives is selling… selling the benefits of what we’ve done or would like to do – to our bosses, colleagues, partners, and customers.

Now, if I haven’t antagonized you to skip this article altogether, put on your selling hat and let’s go to work.  What needs to be sold, because the benefits are so huge, is the leveraging of your 3D data asset to all the potential data consumers in your extended enterprise.  In a previous article, I warned that the “Enterprise is Coming” and encouraged you to take a leadership role in the enterprise movement.  Now we’ll discuss some specific selling strategies and tactics to make it happen.

The Value Message

Every good selling effort should begin with a “value statement”, i.e.  what benefits can the enterprise and its constituent elements expect from our “3D-everywhere” mission.  From my travels, I’ve found that two factors seem to capture this pretty well.  The “factor of 5”… for every author of 3D data (CAD user) there will be at least 4 other people in the enterprise that should be consumers of this data.  And the “factor of 2”… for every dollar/euro/whatever we save or contribute to the corporate bottom line from our process improvements in engineering, a like amount should accrue outside of engineering in the various upstream and downstream data consumer areas.  You will of course have to substantiate these benefit measures and relate it all to the specifics of your company.  But there is a good deal of low-hype testimonial information available from industry sources such that in a few days you should be able to consolidate a pretty good benefit/value message that will appeal to a broad (and high) audience.

Movin’ on Up

You may feel like skipping this step.  Don’t.  You need to get the adrenaline flowing and take your good, clear value message to the highest levels of your company.  Find some moral supporters and fans along the way, but what you’re in search of is an executive champion.  Interestingly, this champion may not be the same person who sanctioned your investments in 3D CAD.  Indeed, for extending throughout the enterprise you’ll probably be best off if this champion comes from operations management, manufacturing, purchasing, or even sales (there’s that word again) and not from engineering or IT.  One tactic that works very well is to get enough tentative acceptance to hold a “management workshop” where you corral the heads of all the aforementioned groups for a few hours.  You’ll present your value message, identify strategic pressure points, solicit their active involvement, and maybe even give them some brief hands-on time with the key tools (3D CAD, PDM, web access to 3D, visual collaboration, etc).  This management workshop should achieve broad general buy-in to the importance of enterprise product development and, as you watch the group dynamics unfold, it will become clear who should be the owner and champion of this new mission.

Takin’ It to the Streets

With a degree of executive sanction, you’re now off to spread the word and convert the masses, in search of your factor-of-5 consumer community.  You (with help from converts along the way) will want to do this with a combination of 1-on-1 sessions and also some larger gatherings.  A few rocks to look under and tactics that I’ve seen work:

But Why Me?

Because someone has to siphon the hose to get this lifeblood of 3D data flowing through the enterprise.  You could keep your head down, busy focusing on your assigned task, and no doubt you’ll be held accountable for your own productivity.  And I realize that “selling” just might not have a great ring to it.  But the ground is shifting.  The excitement and advancement opportunities that you’ve seen in the 3D CAD arena will increasingly belong to those who drive the enterprise movement.  Companies with instigators and champions that stand up to sell and deliver the benefits of enterprise-wide product development will be the market leaders of tomorrow.

A 35-year veteran of the computer-aided design, engineering and product lifecycle marketplace, Wayne McClelland is well-known as an energetic pioneer in the development and implementation of technologies for structural dynamics, finite element analysis, 3D solid modeling, and workgroup data management.  Wayne can be reached at waynemcc@wamware.com or www.wamware.com.