Sept 2016
Christine Easterfield
@cambashi_Chris
LinkedIn
Cambashi has been researching the design and engineering software market for over thirty years. These ‘Technical Applications’ cover CAD, CAM, CAE, GIS, BIM, PLM, and Visualisation tools.
They have become ubiquitous in the development of modern life – whether creating a building, a car, a bottling plant, a utility network, or even a new shoe – these tools come into play throughout the lifecycle from devising the concept right through to the final paint job or the promotional video.
“To choose a pathway through the many options open to you, you need evidence – hard, reliable evidence – that the direction you choose has the potential for a convincing return on your investment.”
So if you are in the business of providing these design and engineering tools, with this huge potential in front of you, how do you begin to plan your way forward?
Do it by the numbers
To choose a pathway through the many options open to you, you need evidence – hard, reliable evidence – that the direction you choose has the potential for a convincing return on your investment.
The Cambashi Market Observatories – the vehicles for our 30+ years of research into the market – between them have over 25 million data points showing figures for technical applications by country, industry, and provider both historic and forecasted (currently 2012 to 2020) in multiple currencies. And to balance that, we have a view of the occupations of employees in each industry – a useful proxy for demand in many cases.
Let’s look at some of the slices that might help you find the pathway through.
Explore industry growth
If you have an offering targeting the AEC industries, and an existing office in, say, Hong Kong, maybe a view of other emerging economies in Asia will help – like the chart above of the AEC market size and projected growth of Taiwan (in USD) from the Cambashi Country Observatory. So although there is a little dip in 2016 compared to 2015, the growth returns to near double-digit in two years.
 Check likely number of users
A second view that could be useful is what types of roles are being filled in Taiwan in the AEC industries.
This extract (below) from our Employment Observatory shows that of nearly 51,000 Architects, Planners and Designers in Taiwan, just over half are employed directly in AEC industries.
But it also shows that of the 270,000 plus ICT professionals, only 3% are in AEC and – while that is still almost 30% the number of Architects, Planners and Designers – targeting an ICT user in the next release of your AEC toolkit may not be the strongest choice.
Easy summary of the stats
Both of the charts shown here – the ‘Size and growth of the AEC market in Taiwan’ and the ‘Occupations in AEC industries, Taiwan’ – have been lifted directly from the dashboards of the relevant observatories.
We recognised that, although many market planners are happy analysing statistics first hand, there is a useful place for a summary of the market from each of the perspectives offered by our different observatories.
We provide this summary through a dashboard – a series of pre-defined charts and graphs, pulled together on a single screen, that provide an overview of the data in the observatory.
Of course each observatory ships with the underlying ‘raw’ data, ready for your in-house, number crunchers to fashion into the exact view that will support your own plans.
What the dashboards provide is a shortcut to an alternative market view; one that can be generated in true ‘what-if’ style, without needing to be an expert with a spreadsheet.
Author
Christine Easterfield is a Principal Consultant with Cambashi. You can tweet her @cambashi_Chris or connect via LinkedIn.
Cambashi Market Observatories – A comprehensive source of Market data
This is one of an occasional series looking at the Cambashi Market Observatories from the inside.
The data for the graphs discussed above come from the Cambashi Market Observatories.
Click on the links below to find out more, or view our webinar series to understand just some other ways that Cambashi’s Market Data can be used to guide crucial business decisions:
- The Cambashi Product Observatory segments the technical applications market by product group, revenue stream and geographic area for the top 28 software providers
- The Cambashi Country Observatory provides a snapshot of market opportunity by investigating technical application spend across 50 countries worldwide
- The Cambashi Industry Observatory breaks down global technical applications spend into over 100 industry classifications in over 50 countries
- The Cambashi Employment Observatory highlights the potential user base for technical software in over 100 different industries and occupations and across 50 countries
- The Cambashi Provider by Industry Observatory maps the revenues of the top 28 global technical applications providers across 11 major industry sectors
- The Cambashi System Engineering and Embedded Software Observatory captures provider revenues of over 300 companies to help you to identify market trends and growth opportunities