• Computer Aided Design company brings digital transformation to its software-based licensing
  
• Replaces home-grown system with Thales’ Sentinel solution providing scalable cloud-based licensing capability
  

Thales, a leader in critical information systems, cybersecurity, data protection and licensing, can today reveal that it has extended its decade long partnership with EPLAN, the Computer Aided Design (eCAD) company, to ensure on-demand license delivery and activation for all products. Part of its digital transformation strategy, this move brings EPLAN closer to its customer base, by ensuring that the product experience is individually tailored to each customer’s needs.

Founded in 1984, EPLAN develops electrical CAD software to help users with efficient engineering solutions to enhance their electrical design. With over 51,000 customers across various industries in 50 countries around the world, EPLAN was keen to modernize its business model to meet evolving customer needs. Now with Thales technology, the German headquartered organisation, can bring its electrical engineering solutions closer to customers, giving them greater choice and opening up more business opportunities.

Having decided to replace a home-grown system, EPLAN opted for Thales’ Sentinel solution. Sentinel RMS – and its scalable cloud-based licensing capability – will provide EPLAN with control and visibility into how its software applications are deployed and used.

With Sentinel EMS – deployed as a SaaS based license and entitlement management platform – EPLAN will benefit from being able to manage its digital catalogue, integrate with ERP/CRM and reduce the need for manual repetitive tasks. The EMS solution was configured to allow a customer to automatically download and activate the product, speeding up the previously time consuming process.

“Whilst we’ve always delivered the best CAD software solutions, we needed to upgrade our commercial work flow and customer experience?” said Dieter Pesch, senior vice president of product management and development at EPLAN. “Our customers are increasingly looking for more flexibility from our solutions, but also a much more straightforward payment structure, and we’ve now got this.” 

“Organisations today, more than ever, need to be able to license their software in a variety of ways, yet deliver their solutions with the velocity that customers have come to expect. This level of business agility is a core component of today’s digital transformation” said Shlomo Weiss, vice president software monetization products at Thales. “By implementing our solutions, EPLAN is responding to its customers by offering more choice, faster than before, without compromising its market leading position.”

About Thales

The people we all rely on to make the world go round – they rely on Thales. Our customers come to us with big ambitions: to make life better, to keep us safer. Combining a unique diversity of expertise, talents and cultures, our architects design and deliver extraordinary high technology solutions. Solutions that make tomorrow possible, today.  From the bottom of the oceans to the depth of space and cyberspace, we help our customers think smarter and act faster – mastering ever greater complexity and every decisive moment along the way. With 80,000 employees in 68 countries, Thales reported sales of €19 billion in 2018.

Press contacts

Thales, Media Relations Security 
Constance Arnoux
+33 (0)6 44 12 16 35
constance.arnoux@thalesgroup.com