In Stay Sharp Episode 98, Digital Product Series – Who Is CONTACT Software, the first of a new series, co-hosts Jonathan Scott and Juliann Grant investigate one of the best-kept secrets in the industry—one that can’t be confined to a single three-letter acronym. To explain, they’re joined by Dimitri Baumtrok, head of international sales at CONTACT Software, whose 20 years in software has primarily been spent providing manufacturing companies with digitalization solutions and helping independent software vendors (ISVs) expand internationally.
What CONTACT Does
Dimitri begins by explaining how CONTACT Software defines and supports digital engineering and manufacturing. A global company based in Germany, CONTACT isn’t easy to fit into a single acronym, because they do a bit of everything: product data management (PDM), product lifecycle management (PLM, manufacturing execution systems (MES), and internet of things (IoT). In fact, Jonathan comments that their combination and variety of services may be the truest expression of the full product lifecycle.
To most simply describe CONTACT, Dimitri says, “We help manufacturing companies design and ultimately launch their products to market faster and less costly.” He likes to describe their approach as “top floor to shop floor,” meaning they support the innovation, engineering, and design processes that happen on a company’s top floor all the way via controlled workflow to the shop floor where the product is produced. And then help cycle information back to the organization from smart products and services. “This is how we define digital engineering, on the top floor, and the manufacturing, the shop floor,” he says. “Plus extending it to the smart products, calling back home.”
CONTACT occupies a unique position in the market. Dimitri compares the digital engineering platform needs customers have to two extremes of energy generation: a mouse running on a wheel at one extreme and a giant, complex power plant at the other. CONTACT’s customers often need more than simple CAD software plus a vault, but extensive software platforms from larger companies are way too much for their needs. CONTACT’s composable architecture “allows mid-size companies to start with a full fledged PLM solution or top floor to shop floor process automation solution,” he explains. “You don’t need to start with a power plant. You can start small and you can extend as your requirements grow, without the need to rip and replace.” With software as a service, he adds, “You can start actually tomorrow with a pre-configured solution.”
He further defines “mid-size” as less about size or revenue and more about decision-making processes or approach to markets. “[They] don’t have years of time for implementation because they need to react fast to the global economy, to the global markets,” he says. “They don’t have the competitive situation to have a five-year PLM implementation before they start the first project in the PLM system to start gaining from that. They need it fast.” As Juliann puts it, their definition of “mid-size” encompasses a company’s level of maturity, their goals, and the speed with which they want to accomplish them.
CONTACT’s Present and Future
CONTACT’s mission is energizing great minds. In practice, this means they free workers from the tasks that can be automated or avoided—the mundane things—“So that people can really focus on the ingenious part of their job and not on looking for the right documents.” A key part of how the company accomplishes that mission is strategic partnerships with certain customers to develop new solutions. CONTACT representatives, including the CEO, travel to customer sites, listen to them, and return home to turn feedback into solutions. It’s possible because CONTACT is manageable and agile, Dimitri says, “When the CEO comes back and says, this is what we need, the turnaround in implementing that is much faster [than] when you go to a giant solution provider.”
Looking ahead, Dimitri is excited about CONTACT becoming more global and incorporating AI into their solutions—especially AI in combination with mobile solutions and applications. Jonathan sees the benefit, noting, “What I think is so exciting is it’s not AI for AI’s sake, it’s not mobile for mobile’s sake. It’s about speed of doing business and getting access to information. It comes back to energizing great minds. Let’s get rid of all the noise and the wasted time and focus on what we’re trying to do.”
Learn More About CONTACT Software
The full podcast contains more discussion and details on a variety of topics, including why Dimitri says CONTACT wanted to partner with Razorleaf, how managing compliance is simply managing processes, how the precision accuracy of German engineering has informed the quality of CONTACT’s products, and more.
Be sure to check out Stay Sharp Episode 98: Digital Product Series – Who Is CONTACT Software and join us each week for a new podcast.
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