"None of the foreign players in the engineering software market has delved so deeply into the specifics and needs of our country"

A wide range of engineering software is currently being developed in Russia. And although domestic developers still need a lot of effort to achieve all user expectations, there are no problems with the main technical tools in the country anymore.Sergey Sych, Director of the Product Management Department at Nanosoft, told Izvestia about this. According to him, there are already many mature products in the Russian engineering software market that can be used to enter international markets.

— How are current trends, such as artificial intelligence and cloud technologies, changing the engineering software market? What opportunities do they open up and do they help companies strengthen their positions?

— Naturally, as a company developing specialized industry software, we do not stand aside from technological trends and are also looking for ways to apply them. In particular, machine learning models can be integrated into engineering products for comprehensive data assessment, decision-making assistance, and process optimization for overall accuracy, quality, and speed of results. Data analytics, AI components — the market today continues to seek their benefits in design processes.

A good example is digital regulatory checks when working on a project, which are created based on the limitations inherent in engineering standards. Firstly, they allow for better design, and secondly, they speed up the process of compliance checks and examinations. We are already putting this approach into practice in the NSR Specification software product.

Cloud technologies are also relevant, with the integration of which into platform solutions, you can reduce the cost of maintaining your own IT infrastructure and simplify the implementation process. Ready-made services are more convenient, cheaper, and more mobile. We are finalizing preparations for the launch of an online project data management service, nano360, which allows employees located anywhere in the country to work together in a single cloud environment of shared data and exchange project information.

Projects are becoming more complex today in terms of technological innovations, purpose, and specific operation of buildings and structures. In this sense, the trend towards the Internet of Things (IoT) is promising, the elements of which are integrated into engineering systems, systems for a smart home or office, as well as an entire enterprise are being built. We also take these technological perspectives into account when developing our products.

The world is moving towards environmental automation in many ways. Companies want to automate routine tasks and reduce the impact of the human factor. Employees need to be trained to become more advanced and strive to optimize their work, find and implement new tools and technologies.

Of course, trending technologies reduce the cost of building heavy infrastructure, integrating software, using additional labor resources, and so on. But, on the other hand, it is also impossible to rely solely on innovation. We need to try and find a middle ground between the trend and the development of proven solutions.

— What challenges are engineering software developers facing now? How can you deal with them?

— The main challenge is the speed of adaptation to changes. We must constantly study the needs of the market and new technologies in order to understand which ideas are promising. In addition, it is important to integrate with many solutions that customers use and work on compatibility.At the same time, it is important to develop our own innovations, test ideas, and convey that we, along with our customers and partners, are in the midst of technological change. This way we will remain competitive and be able to give more to our customers.

— How do integrations and partnerships with other companies develop the business and the engineering software market as a whole?

— In terms of product development, we are always on the move. Our solutions evolve in a common technological environment.

I'll give you an example: the computers used by the designer-user of our software must have a Russian operating system, so integration with the developers of the system software is very important for us. In Russia, the trend towards replacing Windows with domestic Linux-based operating systems is important, primarily for government and corporate customers, so we have signed a technology agreement with Astra Linux to jointly adapt this stack and ensure users work with our engineering products. Strategy Partners predicts that by 2030, about 90% of operating systems in the corporate sector will be developed on Linux.

Another example is the integration of Russian—made equipment and products into our software product libraries for use in various project sections. To do this, we constantly interact with those we already know and are always open to new manufacturers.

The nanoCAD platform and most of our specialized products have an open API (Application Programming Interface), and this is one of the main advantages of the company. This allows us to scale our ecosystem. Any developer of engineering software or our user can develop our solution in the direction of specialized technical needs. We are always ready to look for common growth points, ready to integrate and build more complex product solutions.

— Has the industry managed to restructure itself and ensure import substitution in recent years?

— We have been engaged in import substitution for more than 10 years. In recent years, the motivation of users has rather changed. Nanosoft's products were mature enough to be closer and more accessible to most domestic users in the current situation.

Our solution is based on the basic CAD engineering for drawing and modeling, the nanoCAD platform. When the main international player, Autodesk, with their AutoCAD system, left the market, we were absolutely ready to replace it in terms of product functionality, familiar interface, user experience, file format, and so on.

In addition, we are developing several industry software lines based on the nanoCAD Platform, including: nanoCAD BIM products for information modeling in construction in all sections of the project from architecture and structures to the entire range of engineering systems; products for land management and survey projects called nanoCAD GeoniCS; a promising product line for mechanical engineering with the first specialized nanoCAD product Mechanics Pro; a completely innovative product related to the processing of laser scanning results — nanoCAD Point Cloud, which is used for digital monitoring of construction and certification of facilities, reconstruction, re-equipment projects, etc.; products for technical document management and interaction with technical documentation. We create many different high-demand engineering software and plan to further develop our offering.

The main thing is that none of the foreign players in the engineering software market has delved so deeply into the specifics and needs of our country. Only domestic companies can do this.

Russia has a strong engineering school and quite mature solutions in almost all areas of engineering software. It takes time to give the market even more opportunities, and in Russia this is possible, unlike in many countries where their own engineering design systems are not being developed at all.

— In your opinion, which new segments or audiences can become the main drivers of growth in the coming years?

— The drivers of production activity in Russia now are the military—industrial complex and the continuation of import substitution in industries focused on the production of products of the highest precision and quality -aviation, shipbuilding and others. All this requires mature engineering software.

Another strategically important segment of the country's economy is construction, where we see great potential for digitalization.

Unlike banking, retail and other industries with deep integration of digital technologies, there is something to strive for here: both the design and construction cycle can be automated.

Production and construction, in our opinion, will continue to grow even despite temporary downturns. It is also in our power and plans to bring the industry to more complex and advanced technological solutions.

— Are you planning to enter new markets?

— The maturity of our individual solutions allows us to be optimistic about competing with Western players, even where their products are available today. We are currently considering friendly countries and are already delivering supplies to our closest CIS neighbors. We are always ready to take a step forward to meet customers from abroad.

— What products or initiatives do you consider to be the drivers of your company's success in 2024? And can you tell us about your plans for 2025?

— The main driver is the growth of license sales of our basic CAD platform nanoCAD. Gradually, companies that still use unlicensed software (and there are quite a few of them) are realizing the need for high-quality and legal software to work, and we are ready to help them with this.

Trends in automation and further integration of information modeling technologies into construction design, which are of great interest to customers, can also be called market drivers. Moreover, the Ministry of Construction and the entire construction industry are now actively implementing TIM: at the request of the regulator, it becomes mandatory in some segments of the industry. I think this will serve as an additional driver for companies. In addition, TIM is an opportunity to receive projects, information models of objects with a set of properties, parameters, and results needed by the customer, designer, and builder.

Users are increasingly trusting complex products and adopting trending technologies more often. We will continue to step up our efforts to automate and verticalize our industry solutions so that in 2025 our customers can move on to more technologically demanding projects. This will guarantee success for both our customers and us.