Dassault Sees Auto Suppliers Driving Next Digital Growth Wave

Dassault Systèmes India sees India’s automotive supplier ecosystem as the next major growth frontier for digital product development platforms, with the company estimating that suppliers could offer a 50x opportunity, as Tier-1, Tier-2 and Tier-3 companies move to manage rising vehicle complexity, multiple OEM relationships, bills of material, variants and manufacturing-linked data on common digital systems.

Ravikiran Pothukuchi, Director - Enterprise Apps, Dassault Systèmes India, said Indian automakers have already achieved strong digital maturity in product development, especially in design, validation and new product introduction. The next phase of growth, he said, will come from extending digital tools deeper into OEM shop floors and, more importantly, into supplier networks.

Supplier Ecosystem Opportunity

According to Pothukuchi, the opportunity within OEMs now lies in downstream functions such as manufacturing execution, shop-floor digitisation and closing the loop between design intent and manufacturing output. If the current design-office opportunity is taken as “X”, he said the downstream opportunity within OEMs could be about 10x. The opportunity in the supplier ecosystem, however, could be far larger.

“So, that opportunity is probably 50x. So, x is what we have captured. 10x is in the downstream of the OEMs and 50x is in the supplier ecosystem. And that's the market opportunity,” Pothukuchi told Autocar Professional in an interview.

Suppliers typically work with multiple OEMs, each using different engineering tools, data formats, product-development processes and timelines. This makes it harder for them to manage customer-specific schedules, product variants, bills of material, and configuration changes on one system.

Pothukuchi said this challenge was difficult to solve a decade ago, but now platforms such as 3DEXPERIENCE can connect with non-native applications and allow suppliers to manage multiple systems through a common environment.

Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE is a platform-led software portfolio, with a strong focus on automotive, manufacturing, engineering and product development. The platform acts as a common digital environment that connects teams, data and processes across design, simulation, product lifecycle management, manufacturing, supply chain and customer experience.

EVs and Software-Defined Vehicles Add Complexity

The supplier opportunity is also growing because vehicles are becoming more complex. Electric vehicles bring together battery chemistry, electronics, software and mechanical systems. Software-defined vehicles add another layer, where software and hardware must remain synchronised across a vehicle’s life.

Pothukuchi said future product development will require stronger governance because mechanical, electronics and software teams can no longer work in isolation.

He said a modern car is now effectively a “computer on wheels”, with mechanical parts, electronics, software, battery packs and material systems all needing to work together. This makes product orchestration more critical than before.

The challenge is not limited to design. Over-the-air updates, telemetry data and real-world vehicle performance will increasingly need to flow back to engineering teams, making product lifecycle platforms relevant even after a vehicle is sold.

India Adoption Gathers Pace

Dassault Systèmes has seen adoption from both established automakers and new-age EV players in India.

In June 2024, Mahindra & Mahindra selected Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE platform on the cloud for end-to-end new product development for future auto programmes. More recently, JSW Motors partnered with Dassault Systèmes to deploy the platform for electric and plug-in hybrid vehicle development in India.

Pothukuchi said EV companies are increasingly adopting Dassault’s platform because it helps integrate multiple engineering disciplines on one system.

He said most electric vehicle companies are adopting Dassault Systèmes “in some other sense or sometimes in a complete end-to-end sense”, as the platform approach makes it easier to integrate mechanical, electrical, software and battery-related development.

Legacy OEMs and Startups Differ

Pothukuchi said digital adoption patterns differ between legacy OEMs and new-age EV companies.

Established automakers have invested heavily in IT infrastructure over many years and often prefer on-premise solutions due to intellectual property concerns. Startups, especially born-electric companies, are more open to SaaS and cloud-based platforms because they do not carry legacy infrastructure.

However, he added that even legacy automakers are gradually exploring cloud-based systems, though the shift remains slower.

For OEMs, the next big shift will be extending the digital thread from design offices to the shop floor.

Pothukuchi said many companies still have some paper-based processes in manufacturing execution. The opportunity lies in making shop floors more digital and creating feedback loops where production issues are captured and fed back into design.

He said the core question for automakers is whether a product designed with a certain intent is being manufactured exactly as intended, and whether any shop-floor shortcomings are being fed back into the design process.

This has implications for suppliers as well. As OEMs digitise manufacturing and product governance, suppliers will need to align their own systems to handle faster development cycles, more product variants and tighter traceability.

India as Development Base

India is also becoming more important within Dassault Systèmes’ global development network. Pothukuchi said India is the company’s second-largest technology development contributor after France and accounts for more than one-fifth of its overall capacity.

He said Dassault Systèmes is increasingly developing technology “in India for India”, instead of treating the country only as a global outsourcing base.

For Dassault Systèmes, the India opportunity is moving in layers. The first phase was OEM-led design digitisation. The second is extending the digital thread from design offices to shop floors. The largest potential layer now lies with suppliers, where multiple OEM relationships, EV complexity and software-defined vehicles are forcing companies to move beyond basic design tools and adopt common digital platforms