Senior Member Solves Product Lifecycle Challenges

As a toddler rising up in Bangalore, India, his curiosity to construct real-world options was ignited by his father, a mechanical engineer. Prasad’s father usually mounted issues round the home, together with vehicles and bicycles. His means to take one thing damaged and return it to working order laid the groundwork for his son’s profession in engineering.

Prasad was in his remaining yr of undergraduate research when the Y2K panic hit its peak.

“No one knew what would occur when the yr turned to 2000,” he says, “and it was nearly projected like the tip of the world was coming.”

The phenomenon left him with the will to repair pc issues, however he wasn’t positive how he would go about it, as he had no background in pc science.

Because it turned out, pc methods didn’t crash when the 1900s ended. The world didn’t finish on Jan. 1, 2000, and neither did his curiosity in how computer systems labored.

The consulting pivot that modified his profession

Prasad graduated in 2000 with a bachelor’s diploma in industrial engineering and administration from the RV College of Engineering, in Bengaluru. It was at a time when tech corporations had been closely recruiting engineers, no matter their specialization.

“They had been primarily on the lookout for problem-solving abilities,” Prasad says.

His mother and father anticipated him to right away enroll in a grasp’s diploma program, he says, however a job supply from Tata Consultancy Services in Bengaluru to work as an assistant methods engineer trainee modified that plan.

“My dad was really out of city for work when the job supply got here in,” he says. “I knew he wished me to remain at school, however truthfully, I used to be carried out finding out for some time. I wished to get some work expertise.”

He accepted the supply, then broke the information to his father. His mother and father had been supportive of his determination, however his dad provided one piece of recommendation: Maintain the concept of a complicated diploma behind his thoughts.

A number of months of engaged on mainframes helped him perceive algorithms and the right way to code to realize outcomes, he says, and the extra he realized about pc methods, the extra he wished to pursue a pc science profession. With a stable engineering basis, he says, he knew the pivot made sense. However he additionally wished the tutorial credentials to again up his tech abilities.

Heeding his father’s recommendation, he paused his profession at Tata and enrolled within the grasp’s diploma program in pc science on the University of Birmingham in England. On the time, it was one of many few colleges providing this system to college students who had no undergraduate pc science diploma. When he graduated in 2002, he briefly thought of pursuing a Ph.D., however he returned to India and a brand new position at Tata.

Constructing a world perspective

As a methods engineer, he labored on the MatrixOne platform, a PLM software program answer that helped producers oversee merchandise from design to launch. He spent loads of time customizing the MatrixOne software program to satisfy buyer wants. The expertise gave him insights into the ache factors that totally different customers of the platform confronted, equivalent to managing advanced product information throughout massive groups and preserving observe of sophisticated provide chains.

In 2004 Tata transferred him to Minneapolis, the place he continued engaged on the MatrixOne platform.

Throughout that point, Dassault acquired MatrixOne and folded it into its current Enovia product line. He remained concerned with the product till he left Tata in 2008. To scratch an entrepreneurial itch, he grew to become a marketing consultant for the product, serving to customise the platform for U.S. shoppers.

The transfer additionally compelled him to decide: He wanted to decide on between settling within the United States or returning to India. Inclement climate made up his thoughts, he says.

“I used to be heading to my subsequent venture throughout the nation, and it was winter,” he says. “Throughout your entire drive, I used to be making an attempt, unsuccessfully, to outrun a large snowstorm. I used to be younger, and it was an journey, however it helped make clear the place I wished to be at that time in my life.”

He returned to India in 2010, armed with a extra world perspective and experience with Enovia. As he appeared for a job, he targeted on a job with the corporate that owned the platform he’d labored on for years.

“Dassault Systèmes has repeatedly pioneered new applied sciences and ideas and set benchmarks within the PLM house,” he says. “When a chance opened up there for me, I jumped at it.”

As an alternative of a programming position, although, he was employed as an Enovia technical gross sales specialist, working in Dassault’s Bengaluru location. It was an eye-opening expertise, he says.

“It put me on the opposite aspect of the desk: making an attempt to promote software program to clients,” he says. “This was the other of my expertise customizing software program after the sale was full.”

The position of technical gross sales

The place concerned each presale and postsale duties. Technical salespeople deliver subject-matter experience that bridges the hole between a product’s performance and the shopper’s wants. The position works instantly with the gross sales crew to craft a presentation that showcases the worth of the software program as an answer.

On the postsale aspect, technical gross sales professionals work with service groups to customise software program options to make sure buyer targets are met. If wanted performance doesn’t exist, they work with the R&D group to create it. In addition they supply ideas to clients on the right way to enhance their processes.

When Prasad stepped into his new position, a senior colleague described technical gross sales as an “examination syndrome” as a result of clients are judging you and your presentation in opposition to opponents. The analogy didn’t land nicely with him.

Recalling all his years of formal schooling, he had a distinct perspective: “I wished to consider it extra as a chance to totally perceive a buyer’s downside, then clear up it higher than anyone else may.

“Each buyer has distinctive ache factors. Once I can supply options that ship worth, they’ll purchase the software program.”

It’s his perception that the place is finest served by professionals with each engineering and pc science backgrounds. He advocates that engineering college students contemplate including pc science to their research, and he attracts on his personal academic experiences to assist the place.

Combining engineering and pc science

Dassault acknowledged the worth in his strategy. In 2015 he was hand-picked to be a part of the corporate’s new Worldwide Enovia Center of Excellence crew in Auburn Hills, Mich. As an trade course of professional, he was in a position to put his Enovia experience into motion.

He’s now a senior chief managing a world technical gross sales crew. Certainly one of his targets, he says, is advocating to engineers that technical gross sales is a viable profession transfer.

“The second an engineer hears the phrase gross sales, they have a tendency to cease listening,” he says. “They don’t wish to be a salesman within the conventional sense.”

That’s too slender a view, he says, including: “I feel everyone seems to be a salesman to a point.”

If engineers checked out technical gross sales in another way, they’d see an thrilling alternative, he contends.

“On this position, they’ve the power to not solely develop options but additionally discover the why behind the necessity for an answer in any respect,” he says.

“As engineers, generally we’re so targeted on engineering ideas and rules that we get slowed down within the particulars and don’t give attention to what the issue actually is,” he says. “I realized with know-how that even earlier than you attempt to create an answer, that you must perceive the logic of the issue first.”

From issues to patents

His strategy has delivered measurable outcomes. He holds one patent and has a second into consideration. His mixture of engineering and pc science experience performed an important position in every, he says.

His first patent, granted in 2023 by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, was for his answer to enhance product benchmarking for shoppers with large-scale information administration points. It replaces conventional spreadsheets with highly effective databases and a user-friendly interface, making certain data is updated, accessible, and shareable.

“I feel that being a part of the IEEE group is a large worth for folk within the engineering house. It’s an effective way to collaborate and to know what’s occurring, particularly in your native ecosystem.”

His second patent, pending with the USPTO, is designed to assist clients handle massive tasks that contain a excessive quantity of engineering design duties. As an alternative of counting on ambiguous communication between engineers and venture managers, his answer would draw information from the work administration system and replace the project management dashboard robotically. It could substitute guesswork with real-time information.

Prasad has authored the peer-reviewed technical paper “Transforming Product Development With a Platform-Based Approach to Product Lifecycle Management,” which was printed by SAE International. His writings on the usage of information monitoring and AI in product lifecycle administration have appeared on Engineering.com and in Wavelengths, a month-to-month publication from the IEEE Southeastern Michigan Section.

In February, Dassault marked Prasad’s success by selling him to worldwide Enovia trade course of director. The title displays a profession constructed on the idea that engineering and pc science are stronger collectively, and that technical gross sales is the place the mixture delivers its biggest worth, he says.

The worth of IEEE

Prasad first encountered IEEE at a pupil department assembly he attended at Bangalore College in 2000, shortly earlier than commencement. The assembly featured engineers from trade discussing the work they did—which sparked his curiosity in becoming a member of, he says. However along with his first job ready for him, the timing wasn’t proper to grow to be energetic with the group.

It took practically 25 years, he says, earlier than he felt he had sufficient spare time {and professional} expertise to contribute actively and meaningfully to IEEE. He joined the Southeastern Michigan Part in 2024, was rapidly elevated to senior member, after which took on a management position.

He was nominated to be convention chair for this yr’s Progressive Purposes of AI in Business occasion. Along with a crew of eight, he led the planning and execution of the in-person convention, the primary time it was held for the reason that COVID-19 pandemic shelved it.

The occasion explored how AI is permeating virtually each side of our lives. Audio system got here from Amazon, Torc Robotics, academia, and health care.

The occasion was a hit, he says, and he hopes to parlay its momentum right into a multiday convention within the coming years.

As a consultant from the part, he served as a technical decide at this yr’s Robofest, a contest held in Might for college kids in Grades 4 by way of 12. Because the annual occasion’s inception, greater than 40,000 college students from 35 international locations have participated. He says his involvement helps him perceive how college students use robotics to unravel issues.

“I feel that being a part of the IEEE group is a large worth for folk within the engineering house,” he says. “It’s an effective way to collaborate and to know what’s occurring, particularly in your native ecosystem. There’s at all times one thing happening by way of a convention or a chat the place you may pay attention, acquire data, and community. It’s additionally a useful alternative to find the place you may add worth at IEEE.”