Google were starting to ramp up their development of the Driverless Car and they had recently purchased the Dassault Systemes 3DExperience systems for their Google Car (later Waymo) division. This was a period of rapid development and effective implementation of the tools and systems was high priority. Dassault recognized the importance of close partnership in order to ensure the mutual success of the two companies in the increasingly competitive Autonomous Driving space.
Dassault Systemes assigned a Technical Program Manager to work closely with Google Car to address any issues that may arise during the development of the technology. the TPM would also provide a direct line into Dassault's R&D to drive and manage any technical issues and gaps in functionality that were identified to enable Google Car to move forward, quickly, with their development
By providing a dedicated on site Technical Program Manager Dassault were able to respond quickly to the needs of the customer, driving the use of new techniques and helping the customer work through the problems they were encountering. This approach was very successful and was a major factor in Google decision to select Dassault 3DExperience for all their GoogleX projects.
I was the Technical Program Manager on the account and was responsible for managing the day to day issues, guiding the customer, orchestrating Dassault's technical resources and driving development requests from the customer through Dassault's support and R&D departments. This demanded a deep understanding of Dassault's organization: the management structure, the capabilities of the technical resources, the capabilities of its extensive product suite and future road maps as well as the internal processes and policies which needed to be followed to be effective in delivering customer value.
This was a role which demanded that the Technical Program Manager role that I was executing, worked in very close harmony with the Sales organization. This was a very successful relationship that resulted in the closure of a significant multi million software deal with Goggle Car's umbrella organization Google X. During this time Google reorganized to become Alphabet and Google Car graduated to become Waymo, a business unit in its own right reporting directly to the Alphabet company.
