27-11-2025 | Posted by Principia
When you go to a public place, it’s increasingly “normal” to see children who, while still sucking on their dummy, have a digital device in their hands that they handle with ease. Our children use screens before they learn to write, but that doesn’t mean that, as they grow up, they understand digitalisation. They are digital natives, yes, but not necessarily organisational natives.
Because knowing how to use technology is not the same as knowing how to transform with it. Digitalising is not about knowing tools, but about changing the way we think, collaborate and make decisions; and that’s why we must continue teaching digitalisation even to those who have grown up with a mobile phone in their hand.
The real challenge is not learning how to use technology, but integrating it coherently and sustainably into the way we work.
Companies experience that same paradox: they invest in powerful solutions — PLM, ERP, collaborative platforms such as 3DEXPERIENCE — while neglecting non-technical training, only to realise that the key is not the software, but how people adopt it. Technology accelerates, but only when the organisation is prepared to move with it.
Seventy per cent of digital transformations fail due to a lack of internal alignment or resistance to change. At Principia, we see it every day: the digitalisation projects that succeed are not the biggest or the fastest, but the best supported.
According to Prosci, projects with structured change management are six times more likely to achieve their objectives, and companies that combine training, communication and technical support accelerate adoption by between 30% and 50%.
When digitalisation is planned and supported, the benefits are clear. Companies able to scale digital manufacturing manage to increase productivity by between 15% and 30% and reduce quality-related costs by between 10% and 20%, according to McKinsey.
In specific cases, the integration of PLM solutions and MODSIM environments has reduced design cycles by up to 40% (IBM/DELMIA case) and cut time-to-market by around 25% (CALOI, Dassault Systèmes case). These figures reflect not only improved efficiency but also increased confidence: teams that understand the purpose of the change and make it their own.
PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) is usually the cornerstone on which digital transformation is built, as it allows organisations to manage the entire product lifecycle — from design to after-sales service — connecting areas that previously worked in silos. And with the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, that vision expands: all teams work from a single source of data, in real time, with full traceability. Agility, coherence and innovation capacity are strengthened.
But technology alone does not transform. Without proper support, a PLM or a collaborative platform such as 3DEXPERIENCE can become a complex, underutilised system. With support, it becomes the heart of a digital company, where people understand its value and integrate it into the way they work.
Digitalisation does not begin with technology, but with people. At Principia, we understand support as a continuous process of learning, adaptation and improvement: being close to teams, helping them interpret change and get the most out of the tools is what turns an implementation into a true transformation.
Digitalising means teaching people to work differently. And perhaps that is why we continue teaching digitalisation to our children: because the important change doesn’t happen on the screen, but in how we learn to think with it.
