I was glad to listen recently to Bernard Charlès, head of PLM & 3-D technology software company Dassault Systèmes, who came to speak at Capital IT last week. Charlès was interviewed by Emmanuel Libaudière (left on picture), a partner at Mar-Tech & Finance which hosted the conference, who did a great job at having Charlès speak about many different topics in just 45 minutes.

I find it hard to relate the exact minutes of the lecture since many topics were tackled, amongst which entrepreneurship, the business of software, how struggling start ups eventually succeed, M&A strategy, fundraising, IPO, general management, innovation & Dassault Systèmes of course.

However, here are some interesting quotes and stories to take away if you couldn’t manage to make it @ Capital IT:

• “Companies selling SaaS, or Software as a Service, aren’t service but software companies”

• To software entrepreneurs: “the R&D effort should be considered a sunk cost whatsoever. What matters most is your very first client. Delivery should become a day and night obsession provided that the client takes a risk working with you”

• An anecdote: in 1991, Dassault Systèmes went to Boeing Headquarters with no product, just a brilliant idea enabling manufacturers to build mock ups 100% digitally. Boeing was to launch a US$ 10m program, namely commercial aircraft 777. All Boeing Vice Presidents were sitting in the meeting room when one of them asked: “Can you deliver?”; Bernard Charlès replied: “I can do it…Well, we can do it, together. I want my future first client to get involved in product development from scratch”.

• “Growing a company from 100 employees to 1000 employees takes time and commitment. The threshold I found most challenging though was 200 employees. When you reach 200 in headcount, interactions can only diminish. You can’t know about everybody’s personal issues and career drivers. And there’s no way you can meet with everybody everyday. That’s why when reaching 200, 300 maximum, and in order to keep everyone well on the deck and motivated, one need to start formalizing one’s vision, convictions, consolidate a management structure and build a human resource department. When you have less than 200 employees, you can afford to have an oral culture; but when you reach 200, you must start implementing a written culture”.

• “Taking VC money or preparing an IPO represents a tremendous opportunity to communicate all documents not only to shareholders and financial third parties, but to all employees as well. Preparing a capitalistic operation helps put up a nice story and express your business model clearly. In other words, VC material should also be used internally”.

• “Most companies naturally tend to hide it when they face quality issues. When Dassault Systèmes started having problems with its software or the delivery, I called my 5 biggest clients instead and asked if they were okay with the idea of organizing a quality audit committee. All said yes indeed, came to us in no time, helped us solve all problems, and resumed purchasing our products. Don’t think of clients as evil: they want you to succeed! Furthermore, interacting with the quality audit committee was like getting top consulting for free…”

Bernard Charlès concluded saying he obviously supports the idea of a European Small Business Act before making a call: the CEO of Dassault Systèmes is willing to meet with bright software entrepreneurs who would see an opportunity in building a partnership with Dassault Systèmes engineers – who spend 10% of their office hours working on outside projects. Charlès says he has a passion for innovation, and would do what it takes to enable entrepreneurs to leverage the power of the Dassault group whilst remaining fully independent.

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