Steady as She Goes, Captain

PTC Continues to Sail Towards Goals

By Rick Snider, PTC/USER

When PTC was struggling through a troubled period several years ago, some suggested the company was slowly fading into the oblivion reached by many other famous names of the design technology industry. But with a steady hand on the wheel and a clear eye to the future, the executive team at PTC plotted a bold course to reinvigorate the company. Their strategy—improve software quality and customer satisfaction, while maintaining financial discipline—is now paying off and promises to deliver even great rewards in the not-too-distant future.  

In November 2006, PTC executives shared the highlights of the company's progress with the PTC/USER Board of Directors, providing the following glimpse into its priorities and achievements over the preceding year.

A Strong 2006 Performance

Posting year-over-year growth exceeding 19 percent, 2006 was a banner year for PTC. Revenue totaled $855M, up from $660M just two years ago. With over $180M cash in the bank and no debt, PTC is a financially healthy company that's well positioned to serve its customers.

Although fiscal discipline is an important part of the story, the truly exciting tale is on the revenue side. In an MCAD marketplace many consider to be stagnant, the Pro/ENGINEER product family continued to show remarkable growth of more than 20 percent. This advance outpaces all of PTC's competitors by a considerable margin. Performance was strong in licenses, service and maintenance.   At current growth rates, PTC will meet its revenue target of $1 billion by 2008—and perhaps even sooner.

Quality Is Job #1

The importance of maintaining software quality is an oft-repeated message from the PTC/USER Board in its discussions with PTC. Based on ongoing initiatives and investments, PTC clearly has received the message. Over the past two years, PTC has increased its research and development staff by over 40 percent. Pune, India is the new PTC testing center.

PTC is targeting CMII Level 3 for both Pro/ENGINEER and Windchill. Arbortext is expected to achieve Level 2 sometime in 2007. In addition, PTC is pursuing improvements in requirements management, design, defect prevention, and developing customer-centric documentation and testing procedures. Dissatisfied with the software quality of Pro/SHEETMETAL in Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 3.0, PTC is working hard to address shortcomings.

Focus on Training

Customer education is a key part of PTC's business strategy. The mission of training is to drive customer productivity through adoption and better use of PTC's technology products. The training organization has worked aggressively to achieve its goals, as evidenced by its 2006 acquisition of industry leader CADTRAIN.

Today, PTC University offers three major types of instruction: (1) traditional instructor-led training, which falls under PTC's Precision Learning™ curriculum;   (2) eLearning   courses, which deliver classroom-based instruction materials via the web; and (3) corporate learning programs, which bring PTC's learning architects together with customers to craft a personalized curriculum aligned to the company's business objectives. Corporate programs are developed by first segmenting the organization by job role, identifying knowledge or skill gaps within those roles, performing a needs assessment, and addressing the training needs with a combination of instructor-led and web-based training, as well as one-on-one mentoring. PTC measures the results of these interventions to ensure true success and thorough followup.

As with its software, PTC is intensely concerned about the quality of instruction. In response to the growing complexity of both user needs and training content, PTC is dramatically expanding its instructor certification program. The enhanced “Improving the Education Experience” (IEE) program ensures that both internal and partner instructors are world class in all areas of teaching. PTC has put strict mechanisms in place to certify competency prior to teaching and to monitor trainer success, in an effort to retain only the best instructors in the program. A dedicated team focused exclusively on the student experience   supports this initiative worldwide.

At the course level, PTC is working toward continuous improvements using a better feedback system that involves students more closely in the process. The organization is also looking at the possibility of partnering with PTC/USER to form a customer education council that would provide additional input on course development strategy.

On the horizon is an entirely new set of training materials for the Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 4.0 release. A new top-down design course is also expected early in the first quarter of this year. This instructor-led course will eventually be offered over the web as well.

Product Strategy and Acquisitions

Just prior to the PTC/USER meeting, PTC purchased ITEDO Software and its market-leading product, IsoDraw. The software automatically creates technical illustrations from existing 2D and 3D design data. Although it is a standalone product today, plans are in the works to develop full associativity for a future release. IsoDraw joins the Arbortext product family, continuing PTC's expansion into the technical publications arena. Also of note: PTC will support the Adobe Acrobat 3D standard, with Pro/ENGINEER offering native file creation using this data format.

Mathcad, another recent acquisition, figures largely in PTC's drive to make predictive engineering a standard component of the engineer's toolbox. According to PTC, Mathcad is the internationally recognized standard for performing and documenting technical calculations and applied mathematics. Uniting Mathcad's power with Pro/ENGINEER yields significant productivity and quality benefits for designers. Furthermore, managing the calculations associated with a product design may be more important than managing the design data itself. Thus, integration with Windchill is considered essential.

A Favorable Course

From the discussions with PTC executives, it is clear that the company is achieving significant and rapid progress on multiple fronts. If management makes good on its plans, PTC will reach its stated financial goals as it provides state-of-the-art, comprehensive solutions for its customers. Proof of these advances will come in the highly anticipated releases within the various product families, particularly Pro/ENGINEER and Windchill.   If the software is delivered as promised, PTC can expect smooth sailing ahead.

Rick Snider is Publisher of Profiles Magazine.