Innovation rarely happens in a vacuum. In addition to being the result of a great idea—and perhaps a few rough drafts along the way—meaningful innovation is often the product of strong collaboration, compromise, and a willingness to listen and take to heart alternate points of view. It’s an especially important lesson to remember in our increasingly connected world, where the ability to gather feedback, collaborate, and ideate is often only a few clicks away.
As my colleague, Amy Bunszel, EVP of AEC Design Solutions, shared recently, Autodesk has redoubled our efforts to innovate in tandem with our customers. We’ve focused on listening to more of their ideas, responding to their feedback, and getting more innovation into their hands, more often.
Over the past few months, we’ve unveiled dozens of exciting new innovations across our entire product portfolio—in Architecture, Engineering & Construction; Product Design & Manufacturing; and Media & Entertainment. Most were the direct result of strong partnerships and listening to our customers’ needs. One example is our strategic collaboration with Epic Games that will deliver new real-time 3D rendering and storytelling capabilities inside of Revit. Another is a new Carbon Calculator plug-in for Fusion 360 we brought to trial with Makersite. It combines Makersite’s environmental impact and cost data with Fusion 360’s product design data—allowing customers to instantly calculate the environmental and cost impacts of their design—a capability more customers are asking of us.
Just one of the exciting innovations we’ve announced in recent months: our strategic collaboration with Epic Games to deliver new capabilities inside of Revit.
This effort to listen and respond to customer feedback—and deliver on their needs—isn’t limited to product innovations. As Autodesk has become a subscription-based business, it’s changed the way customers work with us: how they purchase solutions, how they manage their software implementation inside of their organizations, and how they ensure they’re getting the most value out of their Autodesk subscription.
A great example of this is Autodesk Flex. Launched last year, Flex is a new, cost-effective option for occasional users. We’d heard from customers that not all of their users need a full subscription to Autodesk software. Some simply need to review a file, gain insight on a specific project, or want to try out new products to expand their skillset. Flex is made for them. And it’s an idea that’s gaining momentum across the entire software industry—as more companies offer “pay-as-you-go” options to complement their subscription offerings. It’s an option that Autodesk’s customers are beginning to take advantage of, leveraging Flex to save money and streamline how they deploy Autodesk software across their organizations.
We also recently announced several additions and improvements to our subscription plans—inspired by feedback we’ve heard from customers—aimed at bringing more value and more capabilities to them:
- User-level reporting: Autodesk Standard Subscription managers now have access to user-level reporting. This was one of the top requests among our customers. User-level reporting gives administrators better insight into how subscriptions are used across their teams—allowing them to make better and more accurate user assignments and purchase decisions. Managers can also remove users in bulk, another capability that’s been a popular request from customers.
- Expert Coaching: Autodesk Premium Subscription plan customers now have access to Expert Coaching. Expert Coaching features Autodesk product experts who work to help create a personalized plan for your organization—to adopt new workflows and features in products like AutoCAD, Revit, Civil 3D, InfraWorks, Inventor, Fusion, and more.
- Solution Adoption Advisor: With Solution Adoption Advisor customers get an automatically generated, customized action plan for managers and business leaders to identify areas of focus for their team.
- Autodesk Assistant for AutoCAD: AutoCAD is one of Autodesk’s most beloved products. But we’ve heard the feedback that it can sometimes be hard to find solutions to your problems or get in touch with support when you get stuck. That’s why we launched Autodesk Assistant for AutoCAD. It’s an AI-powered assistant, that helps you get the advice and answers you need quicker, all within AutoCAD.
All of these new services are a direct result of customer feedback. And whether it results in innovations inside of our solutions, or changes the way customers do business with Autodesk—know that we remain committed to listening, responding, and delivering for customers.
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