The Met office was founded by the Vice Admiral Fitzroy in 1854. Fitzroy was inspired to build a company, which could predict and transfer weather information to prepare ships for the worst, or to tell them it was going to be smooth sailing. He was inspired by the death of a ship and its crew to a ravage storm out at sea.

The first headquarters was established in London in 1869 to 1910, Fitzroy sadly committed suicide in 1863 and did not get to see his idea expand to such lifesaving points.

The second headquarters was at Dunstable in Bedfordshire operating under the Board of Trade until1962 when they moved to Bracknell operating under the (MOD)RAF.

Their latest move was to Exeter in 2001 operating as a Government Agency, the move had to be spread over 3 years due to the size of the organisation.

How it operates.

The Secretary of State for defence owns the Met office. He is accountable to Parliament for the agency and decides the policy within which the agency operates by setting its objectives and targets. The Met offices main customers are the armed forces, and other core customers are the Civil Aviation Authority and DEFRA. Under government rules these organisations buy their data from the MET office and the MET office has to supply them at an agreed market rate.

Areas of work

The Met office has many sectors of work and these cover the following areas:

• Science (physics & chemistry)
• Geography
• Electronics
• Software engineering
• Trading
• Development
• Communications

The main sectors of engineering in the Met office are Software, telecommunications, and Electronic engineering.

For example the Met office needs different sensors for each type of weather reading, (wind, air pressure, humidity, temperature or rainfall). Because this is a very specialised market area there are not many company’s which could supply the different types of sensors needed, therefore the Met office produces some of its own to the appropriate accuracy. Software is also produced within the Met office. Software is one of the main engineering sectors because it is created to control the electronics through to the sensors; it can receive the information and produce graphs automatically.

Finance and business

The Met office has its own income so that it can prosper but is always under the control of the government who are its owner.

The Met office must finance itself and to do this it uses one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world to generate forecasts to customer’s exact requirements. Some examples of its customers are large supermarket chains, airlines, shipping companies and the general public where the service is paid for through the TV license. These are apart from the main core customers mentioned earlier.

A great advantage of the type of business the Met office runs is that it is a specialised area and there is very little competition, but this does not mean it can charge what it wants because it is governed by parliament.

The disadvantage of this type of business is that there has to be a lot of investment in land and equipment to gather the raw data but because the Met office began a long time ago there was a lot of land owned when it was directly under MOD control and the Met office kept it from back when it changed to an agency, so land is not a major problem. The equipment is a bigger problem because of time dating the technology and the Met office has to keep updating to satisfy the accuracy of their readings, but much of the equipment has been kept and is still used today such as in the weather radars, which have hardware from the 1970’s.

How many times in your career have you heard the boss say (usually through gritted teeth) "I don't care, just GET IT DONE"? When you control the processes and procedures that your business utilizes, you save the company time and money while increasing the company's conviction that they've hired the right person for the job: you. Business process management software helps you model a process that you believe may help your company, and decide if it's worth investigating further. Once you've decided on a process, utilize BPM software to set up a workflow and integrate all the technologies that you must accommodate, across a wide variety of systems, data bases, applications, and yes, even cranky people.

Pull real-time data from your BPM system and use it to conduct "what if" or "if this happens, then we" analysis. Time-phase the model, so that you can determine potential problems, bottlenecks, and areas of improvement. Utilize past data and determine what actions had the greatest impact on the company. Model similar actions based on real time data, and earn that trip to Hawaii for "most valuable suggestion"!

Business process management software today allows you flexibility, management control, accuracy, the ability to control costs and processes, and most importantly, gives you results. Though there is an initial cost investment for the software and as short learning curve, you can afford to invest in the software that puts you right where you want to be: firmly in control.

"Blame the developer" is always a good start, so my colleague got it in the ear first - how had he made such a monumental error? Not to be the victim of this management oversight, the developer produced the functional design document, highlighting the area where the problem was. Now, in full view of the senior project manager, my boss was shown how the requirement stated, ">=" and not "<=". Unperturbed, he continued. To me.

I had written and performed the test scripts, and passed the software as successful. Surely this was my fault? The gathering crowd turned its attention to me, whilst my boss queried how I could have possibly passed the software with such a glaring error. Flicking through the test scripts to the relevant page - I knew before this charade that I wasn't at fault, but playing on it allowed the situation to build a little - the resultant fall of this flailing coward would be much more satisfying if I could first offer him a glimmer of hope. "This is the one here, marked as "Pass"," - he was closing in on his kill - "it references the requirement here...".

The test scripts had obviously been written to the functional design specification, and where they had incorrectly specified ">=", the test scripts had correctly tested that ">=" was indeed true.

He was sunk, and he knew it; everyone who had crowded the desk knew it too, so did his boss who, head in hands, had retired to his desk. His final assault was not against anyone in particular - the rest of his team would have probably been impervious given the performance the senior management team had just seen - no, his final assault was against everyone's common sense:

"The version number on the software is 0.7 - it's not even been released and signed-off yet. If it's not Version 1.0, it's not ready. You're not pinning this on me", he yelped, just as the sign-off documents were returned to him by his manager with an emotion-free, "You'll probably need these back."

Last I heard, he was still working in Project Management.

Again I suggest that adding shopping cart will increase your store popularity in marketplaces. The tools will make your consumer feel enjoy while they are accessing your site. Such tools will lead them to the certain condition on which people know how they could buy the goods and how to pay for it. With such certain tools you have been increasing your online store fluidity to all of your audience.

At least four reasons why you should add this easy to install software :

1. Affordable

   The tools allow you to build top shelf online stores with a small monthly investment. But with a certain support you could get back the benefits soon.

2. Easy

   Anyone could install such ecommerce software.

3. Total Solution

   With all securely hosted the tool also provide free email services, design, and full fraud alerts

4. Customisable design

   Enjoy the design of the tool in any of you want without any restriction to do.

A business organisation often has to review its strategies and rate of progress against trends in the industry. In the light of this there is needed to have a rethinking on the mode of training, products and production processes, and machinery etc. The management team will look at management of its resources and the need for adequate upgrade in order to continue to yield more profits and remain relevant in the market. Of all resources available the human resources is generally accepted as the best of them all. We all know that it is the human resources that harness and utilise every other resource. Therefore an industry that wants to continuously remain competitive will strive to grow and sustain the human resources.

New Thinking in Training

The field of information and communication technology (ICT) has obviously changed mode of training, creating ease in knowledge acquisition, and depth of learning. The use of learning management system (LMS) is one of such outcome on the growth of ICT in education. The under listed tips will be helpful in determining the best options and practices when training team of a business organisation decides to employ training via Internet facilities. The ICT market is populated by so many application software for training and as such painstaking efforts are required for the human resources team to ensure the most suitable criteria for staff training needs are met.

1. The best first step from my list is for the training team of the human resources department to consider what mode of learning and the pedagogical approach most appropriate for its training programmes. A good appraisal of what learning entails matters under this consideration. It is about important decision to know if the training material will be available with or without tutor guidance. Socio-constructivism is a concept that suits a situation where department in an organisation that share roles and responsibilities could share training materials together derivable from documented experiences gained from daily routine activities. It is equally a practice that training specialists could design course materials for the training needs of the organisation to be delivered via the company's intranet . In this case learning approach could be by the staff interacting with the designed course materials and sharing information and knowledge according to course schedules within a community of practice. In a community of practice professionals of closely related knowledge areas learn together in a common environment . Whether the tutor teaches or not human development unit in charge of training must meet the needs of the organisation and individual staff career development objectives.
2. Having decided on training needs the next is whether the Learning Management System (LMS) on which the course will run have to be purchased or leased. Specialist e-tutors suggested that the company should not buy but lease and then decide later on commitment. LMS designer usually have wider criteria in mind while designing a LMS and as such it might not meet the best requirement for the training needs of an organisation. So the wise option is to lease one, use it for staff to practice and learn with it before the company decides if the it worth purchasing as her software. The company in alternative could seek the services of a software designer to make one for them according to their training criteria.

In any of the above consideration on LMS deciding for any LMS must be weighed against certain criteria which regardless of whether it is purchased or designed specially for the organisation must be guiding qualities it must meet to at least serve as a learning medium for the staff. The suggested criteria are listed thus:

1. Will there be the after sale/lease support?
2. What is the cost? Will it match needs?
3. Will it meet current and future requirements on training ?
4. How can it compare with other products in the IT market?
5. Will it support different learning modes? For example, can it be used as complement to face-to-face session or for 100% course offering.
6. Is it flexible and easily understood and use?

LMS design involves the combination of many learning tools which may include video, audio or text based communication. However, the discussion of the human development unit of a business organisation on features desired counts on the training programmes most suitable to achieve the set training objectives.

1. Take stock of your current role:

   You may be a Developer, Team lead or a Project Manager? Are you looking for a change in role? Hold on. Designations don't mean the same in different organizations. There was a Vice President, whom I know, with one person reporting into him in a small company!! If you are aspiring to be a subject matter expert, look at the skill inventory you possess today and to what an extent the new role will add to it. If you are a manager, compare the size of the team you are handling today and one you will handle in your new role. If you are responsible for business, compare the revenue/profit in your current role and the role you are aspiring for. This step helps to remove the clutter and look objectively into roles beyond the labels.

2. Job content is equally important:

   What are your current responsibilities? Are you looking for taking up higher or different responsibilities? It is quite common in some organizations where project managers are expected to code and architects are expected to manage deliverables of a team. Hence it is important to discuss and understand what you are getting into and not just assume your responsibilities going by the role or designations. A discussion on responsibilities and key result areas is a must before you take the plunge.

3. Money does matter:

   But before you compare the numbers take a close look at the pay structure. What is fixed and what varies i.e. bonuses, commissions, and performance pay? What does the variable depend on? Is it dependent on external factors like company performance, your division's performance etc or solely dependent on your performance? Secondly is the calculation objective? In the sense that is it a certain % of billing or orders you book? Or is it linked with the rating in your annual appraisal. If this is the case, you may have to understand how SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic & timely) your goals would be. It is advisable to ask for your goals before you come on board but it may not always be possible during the interview process. In such cases it is advisable to know the % pay out of the variable portion on an average. Also it is important to know the increment cycles and policies. Is it the company year end or one year from your joining when your next increment becomes due? Will you get a pro rated increment & bonus or full if you joining in the middle of a year? Are there any pre requisites for being eligible for certain perks e.g. minimum duration of employment with the company, being in a certain grade or above. A lot could reside between the lines here.

4. The road ahead is as important as the starting point:

   There is no fun in getting into a role where you could be for next ten years just because the there is no room to grow. For example if the next role in the ladder for a Project Manager is say a Program Manager. If you are getting in as a Project Manager it is important to know how many Project Managers report into a Program Manager. It may be worthwhile to look for job ads for a Program Manager in the new organization and see the criteria. It will give a fair idea about what it takes to reach there. Thus finding out the career path and the organization structure beforehand can be critical.

5. Gains come in many ways:

   Money is not everything you gain from an organization. The investments in developing skills of its employees often go unnoticed but play in important role in career progression. There are companies which divert this money to paying higher salaries. You may end up with contributing based on your knowledge and gaining nothing except the lessons learnt the hard way. Career progression in such organizations is an arduous path. It may be important to know facts like average no of training hours per employee beforehand.

Paying close attention to the above can avoid costly mistakes and help you to take informed decisions. Happy job hunting!!!

When implemented effectively, a CRM strategy results in greater employee, partner, and customer satisfaction and improved financial performance.

Oracle identifies the following components as central to any CRM initiative:

• Effective customer segmentation
• Integrated multichannel strategy
• Well-defined business processes
• The right skill sets and mindsets
• The right technology

Effective Customer Segmentation

Customer segmentation-the process of dividing a market into discrete customer groups that share similar characteristics-is a critical component of a CRM strategy. Customer segmentation allows an organization to understand which customers are most profitable and how to most effectively market to, sell to, and provide service to these customers. With this knowledge, a company can determine which investments will drive the greatest returns.

Segmentation begins with the development of the customer profile, which includes a rich description of the key characteristics of a specific customer, including both basic data (demographics, purchasing history, and so on) and information derived from analyzing the customer's life cycle process. The customer profile encodes, for example, observations about which offers appeal most to the customer, which channel(s) the customer prefers, which product attributes the customer values most, how much the customer has spent in the past and is likely to spend in the future, and other issues of strategic relevance.

By analyzing the customer life cycle process, organizations can pinpoint significant differences as well as significant similarities among customers. The job of segmentation is to sort out which differences and similarities are most important across all customers, and then to divide the customer base into groups based on the relevant distinctions. Effective segmentation is greatly aided by the power of CRM technology, which gives organizations the ability to capture and analyze large bodies of timely data and to discern significant correlations among customer attributes. In addition, CRM technology provides a single view of the customer across all company touch points. Having this holistic view is vital to segmentation efforts.

In the past, because organizations had no easy way to capture, consolidate, and analyze customer data, their segmentation strategies were limited and often based on criteria of little strategic value (such as geography). With CRM technology, on the other hand, organizations can segment customers according to far more complex and less obvious factors, such as channel preference, profitability, buying patterns, and other meaningful customer attributes.

Integrated Multichannel Strategy

For a CRM strategy to be successful, a company must offer its customers multiple ways of interacting with the organization. Companies today can no longer compete effectively with only one channel.

Not so long ago, most organizations had one primary distribution channel. For example, consumers could buy General Electric refrigerators any way they wanted-as long as it was through a GE retailer during store hours. Customers could order products from L.L. Bean any way they wanted-as long as it was over the phone to the call center. In this world of fixed, single-channel distribution, customer relationships were relatively straightforward.

Today, however, market forces and new technologies are dramatically changing traditional channel structures. Whether through the click of a mouse, a toll-free call, or a visit to a store down the street, today's customers can defect to a competitor with unprecedented ease. In this climate, a single channel simply cannot serve customers effectively. Complicating the marketplace even further, customers traverse channels in varied patterns-from the Web to the call center, back to the Web, and so on-while expecting to be recognized every step of the way in an ongoing dialogue with the organization.

As a result, organizations need a clearly stated, integrated, multichannel strategy that satisfies the following requirements:

• Aligns the right products to the right channels
• Balances customer needs and channel costs
• Enhances the customer experience

Aligning the Right Products to the Right Channels

Companies can use any number of channels to market to, sell to, and provide service to their customers. Options include field sales, retail outlets, call centers, resellers, the internet, and wireless platforms, to name just a few. In designing a channel system, a company must consider which channels are best equipped to support the company's products and services, meet the needs of specific customer segments, and support each stage of the buying cycle.

For example, one online pet store, no longer a going concern, learned quickly that selling 50-pound bags of dog food to an older demographic via the Web was not a sustainable strategy. The costs associated with shipping the 50-pound bags to consumers priced the product out of the market, and the low internet usage among the target audience further limited sales.

Balancing Customer Needs and Channel Costs

Channel investment decisions are based on understanding two things: what value a channel offers to customers and at what cost. Channels must be evaluated in terms of their value proposition to customers and their costs to the company. Additionally, channel investments must be made with a strategic objective in mind, such as growing market share for a particular product or increasing overall revenue. Many managers have too quickly decided that a lower-cost channel must be more profitable and, therefore, all products are driven through that channel.

However, cost alone is a limited method of assessing channel strategy. A more thorough analysis should answer the following questions:

• Will the lower-cost channel effectively deliver value to customers?
• What type and proportion of customers will migrate to the lower-cost channel?
• Will the order or deal size be affected?
• How much will it cost to educate customers?
• Will the more expensive channel still be needed to serve some customers?

Enhancing the Customer Experience

Traditionally, companies operated under the assumption that building the best product was the key to gaining market leadership. However, with increasing product "commoditization" and increasing demands on customers' time, companies are realizing that how they market to, sell to, and provide service to customers is just as important as what they sell. Customers demand the ability to conduct business with an organization on their own terms, and they do not want to have their time wasted by inefficient company processes.

To meet customers' increasing demands, companies must take a couple of key steps toward enhanced customer satisfaction. First, they must provide customers with self-service options. Customers should be able to visit a company's Web site at any time to check the status of a service request, reorder a product, or resolve a billing inquiry. Providing this type of service not only increases customer satisfaction, but also lowers a company's customer support costs.

Second, companies need to ensure a seamless experience for customers across all channels. For instance, if a customer is trying to place an order online and encounters difficulties, the customer should be able to call a customer service representative and pick up the transaction where it was left off on the Web. A customer-centric organization will have this capability, while an organization that is not customer-centric might ask the customer to begin the transaction over again with the phone representative, wasting the customer's time and the company's money.

Well-Defined Business Processes

Automating an ill-defined or inefficient business process will only accelerate the pace at which an organization achieves poor results. A CRM strategy, therefore, must focus on redesigning customer-facing processes based on the perspectives and needs of the customer.

Each of these processes needs to be examined-not in isolation, but in terms of the way they are linked to other processes. Consider just three processes that are often poorly defined in the development of a CRM strategy: lead management, call routing, and service-ticket tracking.

Managing Leads

Lead management is the process of generating and or identifying a lead, qualifying that lead, and converting the lead into a sale. Within a multichannel system, leads may come into an organization from any number of sources: field sales, the call center, field service, a partner organization, or the Web. Given this complexity, organizations must clearly determine which person or department is ultimately responsible for closing leads, because this determines how leads should be routed. The organization also needs to determine how to define a qualified lead. Without a clear definition, leads of poor quality will be routed to the people responsible for closing them, resulting in frustration and lost sales productivity.

Call Routing

Many businesses-especially those organized by line of business-have not defined routing processes that can readily direct inbound callers to the most appropriate response person. The negative results include delays, frustrated customers, and abandoned calls. Therefore, before implementing CRM technology, organizations need to define optimal routing processes. Ultimately, a customer should be able to call into any point in the organization-from the front desk and the call center to the technical services department-and be routed to the appropriate person without being disconnected.

Service-Ticket Tracking

It is imperative that companies have clear business rules for managing inbound service requests. These rules should define exactly how resources will be dispatched to fix a customer's problem and how status updates will be shared as the issue is being addressed. In many organizations, call center representatives are unable to track the progress of work being done by field technicians. This makes it impossible for them to keep customers apprised of a service-ticket's status. The processes for sharing service request information should be clearly defined before automating those processes with CRM technology.

The Right Skill Sets and Mindsets

Because a CRM strategy requires a company's various departments to work more closely together, it changes the dynamics of how people interact and how a company makes decisions. While CRM technology facilitates collaborative decision-making, this very virtue can create tension in fragmented organizations whose members take proprietary attitudes toward data ownership. Managing change is thus critical when implementing a CRM strategy.

The change management required by CRM entails the realigning of skill sets and mindsets. Teaching technical skills without changing attitudes will lead to poor user adoption-one of the recurrent hallmarks of failed implementations.

To support the culture change that CRM requires, many companies have found it necessary to realign their reward systems. This means, for example, that customer satisfaction scores and customer retention will carry more weight in the organization's compensation program than customer acquisition. In addition, the organization may have to reconfigure its commission scheme to support a multichannel strategy. At Cisco Systems, for example, salespeople receive commissions for repeat orders that come in over the Web or through the call center, because Cisco Systems wants its sales force to drive as much business as possible through these lower-cost channels.

The Right Technology

The right technology is the final linchpin in a CRM strategy because it enables an organization to track every customer interaction, regardless of where, when, or how the interaction occurs. The right technology will satisfy the criteria explained in the following sections.

Multichannel Support

A CRM solution must provide an integrated family of sales, marketing, and customer service software applications across all channels, including field sales and service, call centers, resellers, and the internet. This creates a closed-loop system for capturing, organizing, and leveraging detailed information about customers, prospects, and partners so that every customer-facing employee and process operates from the same comprehensive store of logically centralized data: The right hand always knows what the left hand is doing.

For example, a field sales representative can use a laptop to connect to the corporate customer database before making a customer call and find out that the customer had earlier that day logged onto the corporate Web site and spent 15 minutes viewing several recently posted pages detailing a new product offering. Armed with this information, the representative can review the latest positioning information about the new product and prepare a tailored presentation.

Additionally, a consolidated customer data source lets an organization determine the preferences and economics of customer segments. Supported by this knowledge, an organization can determine which marketing campaigns and offers to target to which specific customers, how to design new products and services to meet customers' additional or changing needs, how to best provide service and support, and how to reward and express appreciation to the organization's best customers.

Industry-Specific Functionality

Regardless of the amount of pre-built functionality a CRM application offers, enterprises typically develop supplemental functionality so that their CRM solution fits their unique business processes and needs. The degree to which they must do so, however, depends largely on the number of unique requirements they have and the amount of pre-built functionality an application offers. Accordingly, organizations should select applications that offer extensive pre-built functionality to support the business processes for their particular industry. By scrutinizing the pre-built functionality available in a vendor's offering, organizations can avoid needless costs associated with reinventing the wheel.

Scalability and Global Support

Many employees throughout an organization, including personnel in sales, marketing, customer service, and back-office functions, use CRM applications. In addition, increasingly large numbers of customers interact with these applications through online self-service channels. And, in the case of employee relationship management applications, the user base might include every member of the workforce. CRM applications, therefore, must be highly scalable and flexible enough to be delivered any way users prefer-in both hosted and on-premise versions, or in any combination.

In addition to scalability, CRM applications must also provide multilingual, multi-currency support as well as support for multiple time zones. With this support, global organizations can implement the applications in multiple languages while maintaining a single, unified repository of customer data across the different languages. This allows organizations, for example, to consolidate sales forecasting information across different global regions and to analyze data regardless of the language of the underlying customer interactions.

Flexible Deployment Options

Companies of all sizes utilize CRM technology to better meet the needs of their customers. As CRM initiatives expand across regions, functions, channels and markets, CRM vendors have introduced a variety of deployment options including web hosted, private hosted, on premise and combinations thereof. The selection of the correct deployment option is critical to the success of CRM within an organization. The table below provides some key insights to consider when selecting a deployment option including functionality, deployment time frame, available IT resources, budget and attitudes toward outsourcing.

Support for All Devices

Today's organizations take advantage of a broad range of information and communications devices, including desktop PCs, laptops, hand-held devices, and cell phones. A state-of-the-art CRM system must support all of these devices, whatever the underlying hardware and operating systems, and must work seamlessly across devices. For example, users of mobile devices (such as laptops and hand-held computers must be able to easily and effectively synchronize information stored locally on their device with the system's centralized database. Without this capability, mobile personnel will be out of sync with the rest of the organization, a situation that can significantly undermine sales effectiveness.

Typing a business letter is something that everyone should learn in high school. I know I did quite a few, and we learned how to format them and how to go about getting our point across. The way you will go about typing a business letter will depend on what you want to happen or what you need. That is why the Internet is such a great thing. If you look, you can find examples of almost any type of business letter that you can use as a guide if you don?t know what you are doing.

Typing a business letter has become easier than ever thanks to word processor programs like Word or Word Perfect. For the most part, you can start typing a business letter and the software will pick up on this and help you with the standard format for that type of letter. This will mean that you will have everything in the write place, though it won?t help you know how to word the letter. That will be up to you. These programs will also help you format any other type of letter or document you may be trying to produce.

If you are truly having a hard time typing a business letter, you can find people who can do it for you, for a fee. They will know how to type up the letter in the perfect format, and they can also help you with the wording. If you need refund and are n?ot getting one, they can help you with typing a business letter that will demand they pay up. If you want to compliment someone on a product that has improved your life, they can help you draft such a letter as well. Just remember that the most important thing about typing any business letter is to make sure it is free of errors and is signed and dated correctly. If you have typos or poor grammar, you won?t be taken as seriously.

When I mention 3D design I am not referring to all the areas 3D work is involved, instead I concentrated this essay on product design, as a 3D artist I find the process of creating a simple product then creating a 3D model fascinating. 3D design can be anything from a simple mug to a massive beach side condo the possibilities are endless. For this essay I have looked into what packages can be used to create these models, what qualifications might be needed in this area of work, companies that create 3D product design for a living and what they look for in an employee. I will also look at the difference between CAD and 3D packages and deadlines.

CAD and 3D

In the product design community there are two ways you can go you have your CAD (Computer Aided Design) or your 3D software. The big difference is the use of these programs from a personal point I can not use a CAD program they are not to my taste, they are for more of your graphic design student. Now on the other had you have your 3D software packages such as Maya, these are simple to use and can be used for games and animations so your not limited to set tools.

Qualifications:

To become a 3D product or concept designer there are many qualifications you can achieve to enter this line of work, though not always are these necessary. In any industry some companies will only hire the people who have qualifications to back up there skills however some will hire you depending on how good your work is and if you can deliver what the company asks of you to.

There are courses that specialise in this area of work such as the Swansea Institute of higher education who run a BA Hons course for Product design or Doncaster College Animation and Game art FDA.

Qualifications that are related to this area are 3D design, Animation, Game, CAD and Product design, though saying this people who are skilled in areas such as Graphics and Illustration are sometimes hired then are trained in the package they will use.

Qualifications are not everything, if you know the package a certain company is using and you have a good show reel of work then the company may hire you for your skills.

Packages

There are so many different 3D software packages available on the market with big name brands such as MAYA or 3DS MAX, however there are some smaller brands as MILKSHAKE.

Most of the design companies will use a major brand product as these have better features, Nova Design are a leading product design company which use MAYA as their main 3D software.

Garmin International use a CAD program created by Solid Works, this allowed them to design some of there GPS systems before they began development on them.

DGF Design is a leading product design company they have created many concept cars for Ferrari, they use Discreets 3DS MAX as their main 3D software.

As you can tell to enter this industry you must be willing to change the software you are used to using, there are so many different packages out there so it becomes a simple matter of adapting to your environment.

Companies

There are hundreds of companies all over the world that create 3D concept or product design. Not to mention the hundreds of other companies that hire freelance or have their own team working on their own product or concept design.

I will now look at a few different companies that do product design or create software packages that you will use in this area of work.

Alias now I know Alias create Maya and other products however Alias do have a staff that have been used to create products. Alias is one of the biggest 3D companies on the market in today’s age, many other companies use their state of the art software not just for product design but for many other areas of 3D work.

Discreet is another leading 3D software company they are the proud owners of 3DS max, this software is also used in many different areas of 3D work.

Lightwave 3D, these are a smaller company than the ones above but have got a good fan base of followers, their program is a simple to use software, it can be used in all areas of 3D work, it is created by the company Newtek.

Solid works are a leading company on the CAD side of the 3D world; they have created loads of different CAD packages that are used separately or together to create product design.

Nova Design is a company that have spent the last 17 years in the product design area, they work with Maya software and mainly create electronic product design, and they are a rather small based company.

What do they expect

Like most companies no matter what industry you find yourself in there are certain personal traits that are expected. These are such things as being able to work in a team small or large, time management so that you can use the time you have wisely, good communicational skills no employee wants some one who can not verbally or physically talk to clients or present their work. Punctuality is another important trait no one wants to hire some one who is never on time. However in this line of work there are other important considerations to take into account, you must have a good knowledge of 3D or CAD packages, good computer skills, the ability to concept your work either 2D or 3D. Understanding your client’s needs, this can be over looked some people will listen to a client but not take into account what they are actually asking for, the ability to work to a strict deadline you don’t have much time to work and you have to be able to adjust to long hours.

Deadlines

This business is a cut throat industry, deadlines are on a tight schedule sometimes you may be given two months or more to create a 3D product at other times you may have a week, it all depends on what the client wants as that’s your main concern. If you cant work to these deadlines not only do you loose money and time you also loose your reputation as no doubt people will hear about your deadline misses. Time in this industry is short you must be able to meet all the deadlines set and most of all with a good quality piece of work at the end of it, it’s no good meeting the deadline with a dreadful piece of work.

Conclusion

The 3D product design world is split up into two main sections CAD and 3D software packages, depending on the software you are trained in, will determine the work you will be doing for different companies. Time in this industry is short and working at a fast pace while keeping a high standard of work is very important. Companies look for people with the right skills for the job while checking that they can work as a team member and communicate efficiently. To make ago of it in this area you must be 110% dedicated to this area of work or it will swallow you up and spit you out.

Research Reference