>> Welcome everyone to the Cube Virtual. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight. With me today is Clint Poole, who is the head of marketing at Onshape for PTC. Clint, welcome to the Cube. >> Well, thanks for having me. Appreciate it. Great to be here. >> It is a pleasure to have you. And we are here marking the one-year anniversary of PTCs acquisition of Onshape, which PTC acquired last year for just under five, 500 million dollars. Congratulations. >> Thank you. >> So tell our viewers a little bit about Onshape. It is a true software and service company that helps product developers, by combining computer-aided design and with data management and collaboration tooling. Tell our viewers a little bit more about Onshape and why this space is growing so fast. >> I'm happy to do that. Onshape is the first cloud native, meaning it was built in the cloud for the cloud product development platform. And what that really means is it enables product designers, engineers from across the globe to create and collaborate on the development of any type of product. From mundane, household goods to very complex technology for the automotive industry. And it was founded actually by a group of folks who built the largest player in this market already. Won't be named. And they knew , intimately, the challenges that customers were facing with the old technology, which was the only technology available, when the previous set of products was built. So that was the motivation. It's very centered on the mission of the customers and what they're trying to do. And the way that we see it as is our role is just to give them a better set of tools so they can enable, to enable them to accomplish their mission of creating better products for a better world. >> So in terms of the challenges that customers face in this realm, can you dig in a little deeper there and talk, talk about what customers are trying to accomplish here? >> Well, they were trying to create, in whatever sector they work, the best possible products for their end customers, sets of customers. And the challenges are it's hard enough to ideate and design, but historically they've been restricted in the way that they had to work, because the technology that was available. The second generation of technology that most people are using today, wasn't built for global collaboration and most organizations, even if they're a small business, are collaborating with suppliers outside of the organization who are across the globe, different time zones, different locations. And certainly, for larger companies, you know, you have global design teams and, you know, their ability to work in real time on the set, the same set of models, same set of data is restricted. So we really unlock that challenge for them and just give them the power to work the way that they want to for the modern era. >> Empowering these people to collaborate. And as you said in real time, which is so critical, right now. >> Correct. So we've seen the SaaSification in CRM and also in human resources, in other things. Is this product lifecycle management, is this just a logical extension of those trends, in your mind? >> It is. I mean, again, this is, you know, Onshape itself was founded because this was an industry that hadn't seen much innovation in, really, decades on the product development side. And the team set out to build, you know, the only SaaS native product in the market. And we're seeing an increased adoption of the platform. Really was a natural extension of a macro trend called digital transformation, right? That's something this entire sector has been focused on. Manufacturers and product development teams have been focused on transforming their businesses and in every facet, whether it's, you know, enabling engineers to work from anywhere, if it's bringing additive manufacturing, 3D printing into the supply chain, robotics and factory automation on the factory floor, digitization of the supply chain, et cetera. You know, that macro trend has been going on for some time. And the industry, because it's so complex, has sort of been laggard in the adoption. And some are more mature along that digital transformation curve than others. Or what you saw with the pandemic was an absolute accelerated need to make movement and to become more mature, because you, really, you couldn't even work. You couldn't work the way that you had traditionally for 20 years. And it requires a completely different set of tools to accomplish the same set of goals. And, you know, we were built for the future and the future was accelerated by, you know, external crisis that no one could predict, but it is opening manufacturer's and design teams eyes to what they could accomplish if they work differently. >> So, as you're saying, a lot of companies are under a lot of stress and strain because of the pandemic, but it's also been a time for a lot of innovation and ingenuity and resourcefulness. And you said yourself that the pandemic has been almost a forcing mechanism to make companies make changes that maybe they had planned to make within the next five or 10 years. And they're having to make them now, out of necessity. So what kinds of products are you seeing customers making that's particularly interesting, in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic? >> Yeah. You know, our, again, the vision for us, which is it's a customer centric vision was always to give them something, our customer, a platform to enable them to make better products for a better world. That's our, our joint mission. And so pre-pandemic I described a little bit, you know, there's everything from the mundane to light switches. And lighting to really, really cool tech, you know. You know, battery packs for electric vehicles and even more socially conscious products like farm bots and affordable prosthetics. What has been incredible during the COVID crisis is engineers around the world have really come together and you know, focused on areas where they could help and particularly in the healthcare sector, which has been under siege with patients and was facing a shortage of supplies and in particular personal protective equipment, PPE and ventilators. And we watched these groups of teams, you know, sometimes formally under makeshift non-profits, and sometimes just informally with groups of engineers in their local community. You know, really thinking outside of the box and doing things like retrofitting scuba gear to be a medical grade masks and delivering those to their local hospital care providers. Designing, you know, face shields that could be easily manufactured with 3D printing locally and source and deliver. And folks taking all their equipment and retrofitting it to be ventilators, you know, and again, you know, mass manufacturing them as, as fast as they could in their local communities. It was really at the local level and you're seeing it globally. And it was incredible to watch the power of this customer community and what they can do. It was a living example of what we call innovation for good. >> Well, I definitely want to talk more about innovation for good, but of course, there's that Winston Churchill quote, never let it never let a crisis go to waste. It sounds as though the way you're talking about the way these engineers have come together, it's really inspiring. And it sounds, they got really creative. Do you think that this will be a lasting trend or does it take a crisis situation to have these people come together to solve these really difficult problems? >> No, this is a group of folks who solve problems every day and that's their persona. It's their passion and, you know, our role in their lives is to give them better capabilities to do that. It was just an opportunity for a set of professionals who are uniquely qualified to solve a problem in real time to come together. But it did show that what the modern workforce should look like for the sector. It showed how mint product design teams and manufacturers could collaborate globally, all right? Some of these groups of non-profits, were pulled together globally, overnight. You know, engineers who've never met each other, working across time zones on products. And then also with the advancements in manufacturing, additive manufacturing, 3D printing, you could build things locally, right? So maybe you don't need a global supply chain. It really was an illustration of how the industry needs to rethink how it designs, how it works and how it delivers products. There's ways to do things on a global basis more quickly, there's ways to source things locally and rethink supply chains. So it was really an inflection moment for a group of folks who've been trying to advance really better products for a better world, for some time. >> How do you see this confluence of CAD and PLM workflow affecting society in the coming decades? >> It really comes back to the joint mission that, you know, Onshape has with our customers and everybody in our space has with our customers. Developing better products for a better world. The idea of bringing those technologies together was integrating CAD with the management capabilities and a SaaS platform was all about enabling product teams to more easily collaborate on designs with colleagues or external vendors in real time, across locations, across time zones and not being inhibited by legacy technology. And this means that they can spend more time iterating on actual ideas and actually doing designing and focused on innovation and, and less time on the menial tasks that the former technology required of them. You know, administrative tasks, always tasks in every sector, inhibit innovation and good work. And, you know, because that's been removed what you're going to see as a better outcome at the end of the product development process. And that benefits everyone because as we've, as I said, they're working a lot of these folks are working on socially conscious products. They're all working on products that make our daily lives better as consumers, as patients and as customers. >> And making things better for society too. And importantly, they're enjoying their jobs more, which leads to bet better engagement and better productivity too. >> Correct. No employee likes to show up and have headaches with the way that you're supposed to work. And it's never been a driver of employee engagement. And for types of employees like this, who have this intellectual curiosity, you know, for the ability to expand that the scope of the team that they'd work on to give them more access to other intellectuals and professionals like themselves, and other times zones across the globe, you know, all brought together in a singular technology platform and empowered by it. You know, it is really a new way of thinking in a new way of working. Which yes, it drives our employee engagement, because this is, it suits their their persona and it suits how they want to work here. And that's a good thing for everybody because when employees are showing up fully engaged and fully empowered to do their best work, you have a better outcome. >> And excited to solve these important problems. You know, we talk a lot on the Cube about tech for good, and this is the theme innovation for good, which has been a theme of our conversation here today. And it's also an event that the Cube is co-hosting with you next month. The event is December 9th. What can people look forward to at the innovation for good event? Who should attend? What's in it for them? Give us the lowdown. >> Yeah. I mean, everybody who's involved in the product development and manufacturing sector, anyone who's involved in the development and the design and the development and manufacturing of products will benefit from the content that they'll see. And it's educators, it's professionals. You're going to hear from actual customers who are doing this, who are doing the actual work. You know, everything we do in Onshape is about the customer. You know, we enable the great work of other people, just to be very clear. And so you're going to hear from technology companies, aerospace companies, defense companies and academia. What they're doing to solve these challenges, what they're doing to leverage technology, to drive innovation for good. And you're going to walk away with insights of what you can do differently inside your workforce. >> So it will be actual news you can use and bring back to your company and apply the lessons that you're learning at the event. >> Correct. >> Excellent. Well, Clint Poole, a really, a pleasure to talk to you. By all means, join us on December 9th for Onshape's innovation for good event. We'll put the link in the description of this video. So please register and add the event to your calendar. We hope to see you there. Clint, again, thank you so much for coming on the Cube. Real pleasure talking to you. >> My pleasure. Hope it really joins us. >> Indeed. >> I'm Rebecca Knight. Stay tuned for more of the Cube Virtual.