The word spirituality brings varied emotions with people across age group and profession. The concept of spirituality itself has leap forged in the last decade, while the advent of social networking and self distracting tools made ‘Spirituality” as must have than can have option for peaceful life, to be spiritually inclined is becoming IoT of life.

The average human life has moved into an era of distractions and these distractions have evolved in spirituality as pit-stop in the life. Spirituality is now a specialised and personalised service, thanks to smartphone’s and apps. This leads to emergence of new concepts in spirituality; few startups have become mega spiritual corporations.

Pre web 2.0 spirituality was used as a step back option to reconnect with inner self and it was also used as affordable lever to mitigate the psychological insecurities. Emergence of web 2.0 resulted in making spirituality a hide out to connect with inner self through professional networking or social networking sites.

The similar effect is evident in the product and services segment; wherein simulation solutions spiritualises the business goals. Customer aspirations have kept the product and services companies on their toes to remain innovative to achieve the brand loyalty; thereby simulation solutions are becoming the limbic brain of the design.

The drivers for spirituality and simulation solutions are very much similar:-

Spiritual guru’s (simulation solver) : Spirituality movement driven by person or institution to provide arrested landing to human mind over distractions and spirituality is religion agnostic.   The fan following to any spirituality way doesn’t just depend on the guru, it all depends on the experiences of the disciples and how well the guru’s concept have connected with their day-to-day life.

Simulation solution addresses the spiritual quotient to all product and service companies by being CAD agnostic and bringing nirvana to their engineering problems (helping their engineering problems attain nirvana). Simulation products helps the companies to protect their IP and uniqueness of the product

Spiritual movement (simulation ecosystem): A unique spiritual ideology brings fanatic followers, these followers become brand ambassadors bringing business value to the movement. This is possible, when follower’s quality of life is enriched in everyday life.

Simulation ecosystem does the same to product and services companies; the availability of qualified manpower and solution capability to solve the engineering problems involving multiple physical entities. The adoption of specific simulation depends on whom the customer is following in day-to-day life than whom he wants to follow.

Spirituality religion agnostic (simulation solution R&D focus and on cloud): Any spiritual movement is successful when

the spiritual gurus/institutions make right research and provide scientific, medical rationales to follow the path. This reassures the followers as ‘Why’ chosen method will improve their quality of daily life.

Simulation solutions get respect and acceptability with customer segments due to its focus on R&D spend, the R&D spend by the simulation solutions will help customers to achieve their business targets, attain high ROI on technology spend and protect the IP.

Simulated products/services will be enable to connect with ‘Why’ quotient of end customers of the product or services and simulation solutions on cloud helps its customers to practice innovation spirituality at low cost of ownership. Soon customers will aim to decipher new ‘Why’ ie IoT with simulation.

We are entering an era, wherein International Yoga Day is being celebrated and Steffi Graf is named as the brand ambassador for ayurveda, similarly multiphysics will be the yoga of simulation very soon.

Image Courtesy: Kishan Harwalkar

India has produces world’s largest number of movie productions in any calendar year. India is the only country which celebrates new year’s of more than 11 different communities. While, 1st movie to enter Oscar nomination was “Mother India”

Bollywood movies are visual retreat and movies were done at every possible romantic flick in pre industrialization era, the industrialization of bollywood had turned each movie production as New Product Development (NPD) exercise from script to detailed location and frame by frame screen play.

The evolutionary change in audience expectation is addressed by bollywood in true democratic sense, now it is critical for movies to capture audience imagination within short period “every romantic flick is not a success formula”!

Industrialisation of bollywood provided benefits like movies on biopic of a sport person, new comers creating blockbusters, small movies make a good business. This transition brought shift in the perception of the business. Gone are the days when movies were assessed based on number of weeks it sustained – 52 week, 25 weeks, Silver jubilee, Golden jubilee. Today it all boils down to the business a movie does – which movie entered the 100 crore club is all that it matters. With entry of multiplexes, mobile aps and social networking movie making is an NPD than an craftsmanship. The audience is now well informed before making a choice to view the movie, they are informed on the script writer, director and other credentials based on which they decide to invest time and money.

India’s best NPD mission “MOM”, Mr.Arunan the architect of this mission is known to millions of Indians due to 24/7 media and emergence of social networking.

Major similarities of movie making with NPD

Script (cad and cae): Bollywood have moved away from melodrama scripts to inspirational, motivational scripts. Any NPD requires exhaustive research on concepts and specialization in each segment. Organizations define their scope with technology in mind than vice versa. Earlier it used to be design based cae now its CAE based cad.

The entry of price point based products wherein companies no longer accept isolated CAD/CAM/CAE products since technology plays important role in keeping the product in market. It is similar to how the scripts are written keeping an actor in mind and actors who also train themselves to fit into the role.

The NPD on mobiles and smart phones which results in a new mobile entering the market week on week is more or less like tv soap which come with twist and turns in every episode. NPD across categories making the product which are cae based cad; the material to make the product takes precedence over looking for material to justify the design. This specialization is found at bollywood as well, no single lyrics writer take on full movie, no leading actor does 3 films a year.

Screenplay (functional design/prototype): The rich movie experience is always due to screenplay, so the editor has to make the right choices to cut or to paste or to reshoot. In NPD functional design takes highest point of reference to make a product successful. The life span of a products is coming down at faster rate with it the used product market is expanding at far more higher rate due to new market places like ecommerce portals and companies offering exchange schemes to keep the customer bonded with the brand.

Security (background music): Every thriller movie is a success when relevant and apt background music is present since mind reacts more to sound than image. NPD is in highly competitive environment every aspect of data security plays major roles as it involves large community of employees, suppliers, service providers, technology and new monster(s) to tackle BYOD and social networking.

Reality shows (Price): Most of production houses run their awareness campaign at reality shows on television, optimum utilization of internet and mobile apps have made the black marketing of movie tickets as ancient history. At NPD products are categorized and promoted at price point market than user preference market.

Marketing(PLM/SLM): The life span of movie is down to few weeks, so the marketing of the movie across the available publicity spectrum

takes the highest importance for the success. The production houses plans the marketing activity at the conceptual stage itself. Television networks have provided 2nd round of monetization for each movie, as movies run on TV channels post euphoria at multiplexes. NPD also faces the same situation as social networking and mobile apps are fastest way to reach the buyer for success. No NPD will be successful without right PLM/SLM in place since isolation can not keep customer engaged. A well implemented PLM and SLM de risks the product from being a copy cats products at market place and to get respectable market share for NPD efforts

Item songs (after sales support): Every bollywood movie showcases 1 song and dance extravaganza as item song, but that sometimes becomes an USP and comes with an high cost. Most of times item song(s) have decided successes of a movie. NPD market looks at warranty and guarantee which decides the engagement with customer. These aspects contribute to keep after market segment intact and facilitate used product market to expand.

Game changer for bollywood was the emergence of multiplexes which existed with shopping malls where customer has the delight of shopping with entertainment and food as well ! Is 3Dprinting game changer at NPD, consumers are in for a delight “bollywoodishtyle”

Every James bond fan eagerly awaits the next release for action and complete automated entrainment with gadgetry display.

In India this was also on display during this parliamentary elections; the worlds’ populist democracy using EVM (electronic voting machines and online registrations of voters, apps to identify the nearest polling booth etc) 007 promotes and executes automation in every possible way and brings enterprising spirit in taking benefit of automation either to nab culprits or kill his opponents. Every movie of 007 promotes automation to mitigate the risks and challenges at normal as well as adverse conditions. The business environments find similar situations in disguise of terminology like issues/challenges/market conditions etc.

What Bond stands for is courage, extremely high loyalty towards his employer, out of the box problem solving techniques benefiting from the technology. To achieve the expected out of the brand” Bond”, he undergoes fitness test before any new assignment, same way automation products must be courageous to manage the situations, loyal to the business owner and adopt new processes to de-risk and evolve beyond business challenges.

Automation product need to undergo security testing as today’s business reality of managing complex security issues of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) and existence multiple software solutions, compliance requirements at customer and customer’s customers.

Every bond movie comes with different actors playing the same characters as per Bond series involved in solving different plot in every movie. Though, the actors are different but the character has a specific role to play. Similarly employees change at organisations but their profile remains the same. The employee is expected to deliver using the existing ecosystem. The customer aspiration changes with market dynamics like the plot of a bond movie but the business outcome remains the same – Profitability.

M of 007 (ERP/ALM/PLM) – Every automation product aims at removing the bottlenecks either from the human resource or the process point of view. But final authority to control the process lies with ERP, which may be already integrated with PLM or ALM. How well the product adheres to requirements of ERP provides insight of ROI. It would not be practical for the customer to have multiple databases due to automation there by creating company inside the company, complicating the decision making process based on bureaucratic system of using spreadsheets than online data.

In every plot of 007 “M” gives unconditional freedom to 007 to perform duties for his majesty; including license to kill. Automation products also need to provide process automation with respect to business goals of the customer including even license to question any bottleneck which includes the decision making as well.

Q of 007 (technology/platform) – This is the character that pioneers automation. Q enables 007 for every eventuality with precision automation which works effective and efficiently. Q also does live testing and showcasing before handing over the gadget to 007 to make sure effectiveness is not compromised on.

The customers aspires for automation product or platform to brings the umbrella cover to mitigate business risks and process challenges of today and tomorrow. Customers also expect solid testing of the solution well before the usage, like “Q” cares for life of the bond. Automation products need to follow live solid testing and showcasing to increase healthy business life.

Money penny of 007 ( Security software, BYOD, Cloud etc) This character of 007 makes every attempt to reach 007 at every possible location and arranges all his comforts – from air tickets, money to passports Automation product needs to integrate with every security application at customer place and provide passport window to integrate with upcoming security applications as customers will spend more and more on their data security due to emergence and acceptance of BYOD with organizations.

007 Agents- Group agents who also have license to kill for his majesty’s assignment. Customers will expect automation products or solutions to bring the utmost transparency in the system by which no hoarding of information which directly /indirectly effects the business health of the customer.

007 car (Pricing) – The automobile bond comes with the aspirational features and control mechanisms by which 007 can travel comfortably and help him to uncover the challenges. This automobile is made specifically for 007. Automation products need to optimise the investment of the customers on the solution and bring the risk mitigation at optimum cost which is directly proportional to business risks.

Skyfall brought generational shift in 007 ecosystem by bringing in new M and Q. The security software’s, emergency of cloud solutions and BYOD bringing the generational shift in business environment already. Customers expect their Automation solutions to be new 007 who is going to co-exist with new M and many Q’s.

Disclaimer: Views expressed above are the author’s own.