Understanding Industry Before Technology:
“Our role is to bridge the gap between technological innovation and the realities of industrial businesses”
Understanding business challenges before discussing technology, building long-term partnerships, and supporting manufacturers as they navigate the challenges of artificial intelligence: Francis Bellet, Sales Director at Percall Group PTC Partner, shares his vision of customer support built on expertise, proximity, and long-term value creation.
Hello Francis, you work with industrial companies across a wide range of sectors. How do you approach this diversity of challenges?
Francis Bellet: Hello, people often assume that our role is primarily to master the technological solutions we sell. Of course, that expertise is essential, but it is not what truly sets us apart. Our real value lies in our ability to understand our customers’ business challenges.
Every industry faces its own specific challenges, regulatory constraints, development cycles, and competitive pressures. Whether we are working with companies in A&D, energy, luxury, expectations are never the same. Before discussing PLM, MES, IoT or any solutions, we must first understand the environment in which the customer operates.
This is one of the reasons why our teams are organized by industry sectors. This approach allows us to build genuine business expertise and engage in more meaningful discussions with the manufacturers we support.
How is this expertise developed within your teams?
It is built first and foremost by the people who make up the company. We are fortunate to bring together professionals with a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences. Some team members have deep expertise in specific industrial sectors, while others contribute a more recent perspective on emerging technologies and new ways of working.
This complementarity is essential. Continuous exchanges between teams allow us to share perspectives, learn from past experiences, and deepen our understanding of customer challenges. In an industry that evolves rapidly, this collective intelligence is a real strength.
Percall Group PTC Partner has been working alongside PTC for many years. How would you describe this relationship?
It is a complementary relationship. PTC designs and develops some of the most innovative technology solutions on the market. On our side, we bring field expertise, consulting capabilities, and deep knowledge of industrial processes and business environments.
Our mission is to bridge the gap between the innovations developed by the software vendor and the practical requirements expressed by customers. We help manufacturers identify the solutions best suited to their challenges and deploy them effectively within their organizations.
This collaboration also relies heavily on teamwork. Sales representatives work closely with consultants, pre-sales experts, project managers, and industry specialists. This diversity of expertise enables us to provide a comprehensive response to our customers’ expectations.
You often mention the importance of long-term support. Why is it so critical?
Because industrial digital transformation is a long-term journey. The projects we deliver alongside our customers often span several years, sometimes even decades.
We have been supporting some manufacturers for more than twenty years. Their needs evolve, their organizations transform, and technologies continue to advance. Our role is to evolve with them and keep delivering value at every stage of their journey.
This long-term relationship of trust is a defining characteristic of our business. The fact that a customer continues to rely on us throughout its transformation journey demonstrates our ability to adapt to evolving challenges and support them over the long term.
How do you adapt to supporting your customers not only over the long term, but also throughout their international growth and the challenges that come with it?
As our customers expand internationally, we naturally evolve alongside them. Many of them are now operating across multiple countries, which means our ability to support them cannot be limited to the French market alone. This represents an important challenge for Percall Group PTC Partner, as we must be able to meet our customers’ needs wherever they operate.
However, supporting a customer internationally is not simply a matter of having a presence in different countries. It is essential to rely on local teams that understand the specific characteristics of the market, the industrial and regulatory environment in which the customer operates, and that can communicate in the customer’s own language. This local proximity remains fundamental to building trust and ensuring the successful delivery of projects.
Artificial intelligence is at the center of many discussions today. How are your customers approaching this topic?
Like many organizations, manufacturers are highly interested in the potential of artificial intelligence. The opportunities are significant, and software vendors regularly introduce new capabilities based on these technologies.
However, industrial decision-makers remain highly pragmatic. Above all, they are looking for concrete use cases capable of generating a tangible return on investment. Topics such as data governance, information confidentiality, and cybersecurity are also key considerations in their decision-making process.
Our role is therefore not to promote AI for AI’s sake. We must help our customers identify the most relevant use cases, those that genuinely support their business objectives and generate measurable value.
What impact are these changes having on Percall Group PTC Partner teams?
They require us to learn continuously. Technologies evolve rapidly, customer expectations change, and new topics emerge on a regular basis.
In this context, continuous learning has become a major priority. Expertise is no longer based solely on experience accumulated over the years. It also depends on the ability to challenge oneself, discover new tools, and understand new practices.
It is this combination of experience, curiosity, and continuous learning that enables us to support our customers effectively throughout their transformation journeys.
If you had to summarize the mission of Percall Group PTC Partner to industrial companies in one sentence, what would it be?
I would say that our mission is to bridge the gap between technology and the operational realities of industrial organizations. Tools are important, but it is the understanding of business challenges, the trust built over time, and the expertise of our teams that ultimately turn innovation into concrete results for our customers.