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Our channel partners are very understanding

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DQC Bureau
New Update

Unknown to most, Dassault Systemes SolidWorks has over 35 partners in India,

across three different tiers. Ray believes these partners have the scope to tap

opportunities in India well and wants to grow them into even bigger partners

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What is your go-to-market strategy for India?



We have uniform sales and distribution models across the world. We have our

Business Transformation Channel, through which we deal directly with top 20

accounts across the world. Then we have the Value Channels, who are basically

our resellers selling and supporting our five products to the next level of

customers. We have about six of them in India. And finally, we have the

Professional Channel-they are basically exclusive resellers of SolidWorks

product range. We have about 24 of these in India.

Are you not planning to get more partners?



We believe that rather than having more partners, we must try and grow them

into bigger partners. So as of now, we are just focusing on our present channel

base. You will be surprised to know that compared to 4,300 delegates at our

annual conference last year, we got over 5,000 at this year's annual partners

meet.

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Please detail about your intention to come out with a cloud/SaaS model for

your products.



Cloud computing and SaaS-based solutions are powerful and growing

technologies. We decided on it three years ago, and have been working in the

background. We have learnt a lot from what others are doing in the market. So

our offering will be the latest and the most validated. We will have our own

clouds and we will also use the service of cloud operators. As far as cloud

licensing tariffs and policies are concerned, or the availability of

applications on the cloud is concerned, we are still working out the details.

But would there not be resistance to a cloud model?



The economics behind the cloud model is too strong for users to resist it

for long. Even many Japanese organizations, often considered as conservative,

are adopting cloud. For instance, Panasonic has shifted all its Lotus Notes

users around the world to the cloud model. Our customers will have the option of

cloud as well as desktop. Users will decide when they want to migrate to the

cloud.

Would your channel partners not resist the cloud model fearing dip in

revenues?



Resellers are prepared for it. They understand that entry barriers will

collapse, but at the same time they know that this model will give them access

to lots of new markets.

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What's new at SolidWorks at a time when markets are undergoing some

fundamental changes?



On the technology front, we are bringing significant changes in our

portfolio. We believe that sustainability is becoming a key consideration for

design engineers. Therefore, we are working on three fronts.

One, the database management on all the aspects of manufacturing is

important, and we are making that feature of our products much stronger.

Ibrahim Ahmad



ibrahima@cybermedia.co.in



The author was hosted at California by SolidWorks

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