Autodesk Inc, a California-based software company, is banking on the competitive advantage of Asia-Pacific's fast-growing internet economy as it looks for further growth.
Even though Asia-Pacific is the smallest revenue contributor to the company, the region is the fastest-growing with lucrative opportunities, said Andrew Anagnost, Autodesk's senior vice-president and chief marketing officer.
Europe is Autodesk's biggest revenue-generating region, with the US in second place.
"But Asia-Pacific is the growth market of the future for us," Mr Anagnost said during a recent visit to the company's Bangkok operating unit.
Even 3D design is changing the world, he said, although he added that prohibitive costs pose critical challenges to the adoption of 3D software tools.
Autodesk is best known as the company behind AutoCAD, the ubiquitous design software used in architecture, manufacturing and construction.
The 3D CAD design software helps users formulate ideas, visualise concepts and simulate how designs will perform in the real world.
Patrick Williams, the company's senior vice-president for Asia-Pacific responsible for sales, said Asia is a demographically and developmentally diverse region, putting countries in different transitional phases.
The region further boasts a comparatively large percentage of younger age groups, providing favourable conditions for accelerated social and economic development.
Mr Williams said Thailand has experienced relatively higher growth than other countries in Southeast Asia by investing in industrial development, pushed by the government's initiatives towards the development of a digital economy and Thailand 4.0.
"Thailand is an important market for Autodesk, thanks to its robust manufacturing base, as a lot of suppliers have set up production facilities here," he said.
Education is a primary focus for Autodesk. The company provides students, teachers, academic institutions, non-profits and entrepreneurs worldwide free access to its software.
He said the company wants to help students move between 2D and 3D design environments to visualise, draw up and simulate ideas.
The company further provides support curriculum resources designed to help educators integrate Autodesk technology into the classroom through the use of interactive exercises, modular projects, video tutorials, and instructor lesson slides that focus on design concepts instead of software functionality.
Autodesk Thailand has signed a memorandum of understanding with the National Science and Technology Development Agency and the Ministry of Science and Technology to help advance Thailand's manufacturing competitiveness through industry-wide adoption of cutting edge 3D technologies and digital manufacturing capabilities.
Mr Williams said Thailand will need to adapt to the 21st century in order to help the country develop a value-added economy.
The requisite steps will further facilitate Thailand's change from a middle to high income country, helping its economy transform from one that operates on performance to one that progresses through innovation, he said.
One of the initiatives and mechanisms for the Thailand 4.0 shift involves the use of Industry 4.0 technology, which will ramp up the use of digital technologies in manufacturing.
Autodesk has been in the process of transitioning its business model from the standard way of selling software via perpetual licenses to a software as a service subscription model or demand via the cloud, as cloud computing is coming to the fore.
More than 200 million customers, including design professionals, engineers and architects, digital artists, students and hobbyists use Autodesk's software.
The company has nearly 9,000 employees worldwide.