Following the recent acquisition of Delcam by Autodesk, the company’s 2014 Sales Partner Meeting was always going to be one of the most significant in its history. It was little surprise that the Meeting, which was held at the St. John’s Hotel in Solihull from 9th to 11th February, attracted the highest attendance in the company’s history.
In fact, the opening session had to be moved to the nearby Cineworld cinema so that over 450 Delcam staff and Sales Partners could hear more about Autodesk and its plans for Delcam from Delcam President Clive Martell, and Autodesk’s Buzz Kross, senior vice president, Design, Lifecycle & Simulation, and Carl White, senior director, Manufacturing Engineering Products.
Martell explained Delcam’s status as a wholly-owned, independently-operated subsidiary of Autodesk. “This special status reflects Autodesk’s recognition of Delcam’s internationally-renowned brand, strong products, and deep CAM knowledge and expertise,” he told the audience. “By maintaining the existing structure of the business, including our relationships with our Sales Partners, Autodesk is demonstrating its trust in, and respect for, Delcam’s software range, management and organisation. It means that Sales Partners will be able to continue to support their customers and to grow their businesses, with no significant changes to their operations.”
He added that, “Autodesk brings to Delcam increased financial strength that will support our plans to continue the growth of the business, unparalleled expertise in design and a long history of making technology accessible to broad audiences. In the longer term, the acquisition will create new opportunities for sharing and transfer of technology and expertise between the companies that will benefit our business and our customers.”
Kross welcomed Delcam’s employees, customers, and partners to the Autodesk community and expressed his optimism for the future, noting that “the acquisition of Delcam is an important step in Autodesk’s continued expansion into manufacturing and fabrication and beyond our roots in design. Together with Delcam, we look forward to accelerating the development of a more comprehensive Digital Prototyping solution and delivering a better manufacturing experience.”
Martell then moved on to more familiar themes, including Delcam’s continued growth, both in terms of its geographic reach and in the increasing diversity of the applications of its range of CADCAM software. Once again, he was able to thank the Sales Partners for their contribution to another record year for Delcam in 2013. Sales for the second half of the year had set another new record for a six-month period, continuing a rising trend in sales that had seen record levels in each of the previous seven six-month periods. Despite this success, Martell emphasised that he was expecting the sales people in the audience to contribute to further growth during this year.
He confirmed that the Autodesk acquisition would see no change to Delcam’s long-term policy of investing around a quarter of its revenues in product development, with the latest increase in sales leading to further expansion in the company’s software development team. “Even though we have more than 220 staff in our product development team, by far the largest development team in the CAM industry, we will continue to increase our investment in this area to ensure our products offer even greater benefits to our customers,” he promised.
The latest results of Delcam’s investments were demonstrated over the three days of the meeting. Major releases are planned for the full range of the company’s software during the coming months, both for the established manufacturing products and for the newer systems for the healthcare industry.
