Connecting engineers and manufacturers

Corentin Thiercelin Founder & CEO Directindustry.com Marseille, France In 2001, Corentin Thiercelin founded DirectIndustry.com, a “virtual exhibition” Web site that helps engineers find information on industrial equipment and components. Previously, Thiercelin founded AllAccess and Access Technology—a free quarterly journal distributed to the automation sector. He served as the head of research and development for quality-control machines in commercial agriculture for MAF, and he has also worked at ELM Leblanc in France on the development of industrial gas heaters. Thiercelin earned a degree in design and engineering at the National School of Advanced Design and Engineering (ENSAM) in Paris. Chief editor Rick Nelson recently exchanged e-mails with Thiercelin about the role of the Web in purchasing decisions. Corentin Thiercelin comments on long-term plans for DirectIndustry.com in the online continuation of this interview.

A: I was a research and development engineer in California from 1995 to 1997. My fellow engineers and I spent a lot of time chasing information from one source to another. I realized that there was a real need to centralize and rationalize it all. Burgeoning globalization meant this need would only get more urgent. The Internet seemed the perfect tool. I returned to France and teamed up with two other engineers to put my ideas into practice.

Q: How many exhibitors are represented on your site?

A: There are currently 5600 exhibitors online showing over 40,000 individual products—26% from American companies.

Q: Out of the 24 industrial sectors represented on the site, how important is test and measurement?

A: Very important, representing over 15% of all exhibitors. Four months ago, we had to split the category "Sensing and Measurement," which had been the first category on our home page in 2001, into "Sensors" and "Measuring Instruments," because it was getting too big. We knew that the basic idea of DirectIndustry would live or die with test and measurement, because it's a sector with constant innovation and thus a greater need to organize information.

Q: How many people visit your site, and how many are focused on test and measurement?

A: We've just passed 2.1 million unique visitors per month—16% from test and measurement. 30% of all visitors return at least once a month.

Q: Why do engineers need specialized industrial search engines—why not use search engines such as Google?

A: Google is an amazing tool, and anyone who says otherwise can't be taken seriously. But the Internet isn't standing still. Like all media before, it's evolving from general usage to usage that is more specialized. Google is so exhaustive that it can sometimes lack the order and logic necessary for professionals to compare products and brands effectively. As a search engine specialized for industry, DirectIndustry returns this order to the search, saving professionals time and headaches. The fact that 700,000 visitors access us directly at least once a month is ample proof of this need.

Q: Do you have any immediate plans for introducing new features?

A: Soon we will launch a virtual technical library containing 3000-plus PDF catalogs from manufacturers across the world.

Q: What makes your PDF feature different from such services on other sites?

A: It's true that lots of sites include PDF catalogs—nothing ground-breaking here. However, this is a good example of how we do things differently. Engineers aren't really looking for a whole catalog, or even a section of a catalog, but for a kernel of information buried somewhere within. On DirectIndustry you won't have to download anything. You can search a 400-page catalog by key word and find the right page in seconds. A tool bar allows you to print out the page, browse the surrounding pages, or send an e-mail request to the manufacturer. This demonstrates our principle of organizing information intuitively to engineers, for fast and effective research.

Q: Why do think your site is more helpful for engineers than other specialized search engines?

A: It's made by engineers for engineers. This means we never stray from certain guiding principles—keep it fast, keep it intuitive, and above all, keep it focused on the products.