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
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.
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.
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