This Senior Member Solves Complex Product Lifecycle Challenges

What do an instinct to fix things and the 1999 global panic over whether computers would survive the date change to 2000, known as the Y2K bug, have in common? Both helped shape IEEE Senior Member Ajay Prasad’s career.

Prasad is an industry process director at Dassault Systèmes in Detroit. His focus is global oversight of industry process experts specializing in Enovia, a product lifecycle management (PLM) solution and one of the company’s flagship products.

Ajay Prasad

Employer

Dassault Systèmes in Detroit

Title

Industry process director

Member grade

Senior member

Alma maters

Bangalore University, in Bengaluru, India; and the University of Birmingham, England

As a child growing up in Bangalore, India, his curiosity to build real-world solutions was ignited by his father, a mechanical engineer. Prasad’s father often fixed things around the house, including cars and bicycles. His ability to take something broken and return it to working order laid the groundwork for his son’s career in engineering.

Prasad was in his final year of undergraduate studies when the Y2K panic hit its peak.

“Nobody knew what would happen when the year turned to 2000,” he says, “and it was almost projected like the end of the world was coming.”

The phenomenon left him with the desire to fix computer problems, but he wasn’t sure how he would go about it, as he had no background in computer science.

As it turned out, computer systems didn’t crash when the 1900s ended. The world did not end on Jan. 1, 2000, and neither did his interest in how computers worked.

The consulting pivot that changed his career

Prasad graduated in 2000 with a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering and management from the RV College of Engineering, in Bengaluru. It was at a time when tech companies were heavily recruiting engineers, regardless of their specialization.

“They were mainly looking for problem-solving skills,” Prasad says.

His parents expected him to immediately enroll in a master’s degree program, he says, but a job offer from Tata Consultancy Services in Bengaluru to work as an assistant systems engineer trainee changed that plan.

“My dad was actually out of town for work when the job offer came in,” he says. “I knew he wanted me to stay in school, but honestly, I was done studying for a while. I wanted to get some work experience.”

He accepted the offer, then broke the news to his father. His parents were supportive of his decision, but his dad offered one piece of advice: Keep the idea of an advanced degree in the back of his mind.

Several months of working on mainframes helped him understand algorithms and how to code to achieve outcomes, he says, and the more he learned about computer systems, the more he wanted to pursue a computer science career. With a solid engineering foundation, he says, he knew the pivot made sense. But he also wanted the academic credentials to back up his tech skills.

Heeding his father’s advice, he paused his career at Tata and enrolled in the master’s degree program in computer science at the University of Birmingham in England. At the time, it was one of the few schools offering the program to students who had no undergraduate computer science degree. When he graduated in 2002, he briefly considered pursuing a Ph.D., but he returned to India and a new role at Tata.

Building a global perspective

As a systems engineer, he worked on the MatrixOne platform, a PLM software solution that helped manufacturers oversee products from design to launch. He spent a lot of time customizing the MatrixOne software to meet customer needs. The experience gave him insights into the pain points that different users of the platform faced, such as managing complex product data across large teams and keeping track of complicated supply chains.

In 2004 Tata transferred him to Minneapolis, where he continued working on the MatrixOne platform.

During that time, Dassault acquired MatrixOne and folded it into its existing Enovia product line. He remained involved with the product until he left Tata in 2008. To scratch an entrepreneurial itch, he became a consultant for the product, helping customize the platform for U.S. clients.

The move also forced him to make a decision: He needed to choose between settling in the United States or returning to India. Inclement weather made up his mind, he says.

“I was heading to my next project across the country, and it was winter,” he says. “During the entire drive, I was trying, unsuccessfully, to outrun a massive snowstorm. I was young, and it was an adventure, but it helped clarify where I wanted to be at that point in my life.”

He returned to India in 2010, armed with a more global perspective and expertise with Enovia. As he looked for a job, he focused on a role with the company that owned the platform he’d worked on for years.

“Dassault Systèmes has continuously pioneered new technologies and concepts and set benchmarks in the PLM space,” he says. “When an opportunity opened up there for me, I jumped at it.”

Instead of a programming role, though, he was hired as an Enovia technical sales specialist, working in Dassault’s Bengaluru location. It was an eye-opening experience, he says.

“It put me on the other side of the table: trying to sell software to customers,” he says. “This was the opposite of my experience customizing software after the sale was complete.”

The role of technical sales

The position involved both presale and postsale duties. Technical salespeople bring subject-matter expertise that bridges the gap between a product’s functionality and the customer’s needs. The role works directly with the sales team to craft a presentation that showcases the value of the software as a solution.

On the postsale side, technical sales professionals work with service teams to customize software solutions to ensure customer goals are met. If needed functionality doesn’t exist, they work with the R&D group to create it. They also offer suggestions to customers on how to improve their processes.

When Prasad stepped into his new role, a senior colleague described technical sales as an “exam syndrome” because customers are judging you and your presentation against competitors. The analogy didn’t land well with him.

Recalling all his years of formal education, he had a different perspective: “I wanted to think of it more as an opportunity to fully understand a customer’s problem, then solve it better than anybody else could.

“Every customer has unique pain points. When I can offer solutions that deliver value, they’ll buy the software.”

It’s his belief that the position is best served by professionals with both engineering and computer science backgrounds. He advocates that engineering students consider adding computer science to their studies, and he draws on his own educational experiences to support the position.

Combining engineering and computer science

Dassault recognized the value in his approach. In 2015 he was hand-picked to be part of the company’s new Worldwide Enovia Center of Excellence team in Auburn Hills, Mich. As an industry process expert, he was able to put his Enovia expertise into action.

He’s now a senior leader managing a global technical sales team. One of his objectives, he says, is advocating to engineers that technical sales is a viable career move.

“The moment an engineer hears the word sales, they tend to stop listening,” he says. “They don’t want to be a salesperson in the traditional sense.”

That’s too narrow a view, he says, adding: “I think everyone is a salesperson to some degree.”

If engineers looked at technical sales differently, they’d see an exciting opportunity, he contends.

“In this role, they have the ability to not only develop solutions but also explore the why behind the need for a solution at all,” he says.

“As engineers, sometimes we are so focused on engineering concepts and principles that we get bogged down in the details and don’t focus on what the problem really is,” he says. “I learned with technology that even before you try and create a solution, you need to understand the logic of the problem first.”

From problems to patents

His approach has delivered measurable results. He holds one patent and has a second under consideration. His combination of engineering and computer science expertise played a crucial role in each, he says.

His first patent, granted in 2023 by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, was for his solution to improve product benchmarking for clients with large-scale data management issues. It replaces traditional spreadsheets with powerful databases and a user-friendly interface, ensuring information is up to date, accessible, and shareable.
“I think that being part of the IEEE community is a huge value for folks in the engineering space. It’s a great way to collaborate and to understand what’s happening, especially in your local ecosystem.”

His second patent, pending with the USPTO, is designed to help customers manage large projects that involve a high volume of engineering design tasks. Instead of relying on ambiguous communication between engineers and project managers, his solution would draw data from the work management system and update the project management dashboard automatically. It would replace guesswork with real-time data.

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

In February, Dassault marked Prasad’s success by promoting him to worldwide Enovia industry process director. The title reflects a career built on the belief that engineering and computer science are stronger together, and that technical sales is where the combination delivers its greatest value, he says.

The value of IEEE

Prasad first encountered IEEE at a student branch meeting he attended at Bangalore University in 2000, shortly before graduation. The meeting featured engineers from industry discussing the work they did—which sparked his interest in joining, he says. But with his first job waiting for him, the timing wasn’t right to become active with the organization.

It took nearly 25 years, he says, before he felt he had enough spare time and professional experience to contribute actively and meaningfully to IEEE. He joined the Southeastern Michigan Section in 2024, was quickly elevated to senior member, and then took on a leadership role.

He was nominated to be conference chair for this year’s Innovative Applications of AI in Industry event. Together with a team of eight, he led the planning and execution of the in-person conference, the first time it was held since the COVID-19 pandemic shelved it.

The event explored how AI is permeating practically every aspect of our lives. Speakers came from Amazon, Torc Robotics, academia, and health care.

The event was a success, he says, and he hopes to parlay its momentum into a multiday conference in the coming years.

As a representative from the section, he served as a technical judge at this year’s Robofest, a competition held in May for students in Grades 4 through 12. Since the annual event’s inception, more than 40,000 students from 35 countries have participated. He says his involvement helps him understand how students use robotics to solve problems.

“I think that being part of the IEEE community is a huge value for folks in the engineering space,” he says. “It’s a great way to collaborate and to understand what’s happening, especially in your local ecosystem. There’s always something going on in terms of a conference or a talk where you can listen, gain knowledge, and network. It’s also an invaluable opportunity to discover where you can add value at IEEE.” ...