Exclusive interview with DS SolidWorks Corp.'s Asia Pacific VP, Ved Narayan

SolidWorks World 2010 took place during a quiet period when many CAD user events are seeing significant drops in attendance or are being migrated to online-only formats. And despite a difficult recession that brought an unprecedented decline in global per capita income, over 5,000 people have registered to SolidWorks World 2010 exceeding last year's 4,300. This only proved Dassault Syst鑝es SolidWorks Corp.'s commitment in making a difference. In an interview on the SolidWorks World 2010 show floor, Ved Narayan, Vice President Asia Pacific, Dassault Syst鑝es SolidWorks Corp. shared with International Metalworking News for Asia its experience during the toughest times in the history of the general market. He talked about the company's research efforts in Asia including Value Added Resellers in the region, and his secret to success. IMNA: Please tell us about DS SolidWorks' Value Added Resellers in Asia Pacific. VED: If you see in Asia Pacific, our product distribution and execution strategy is similar like everywhere else in the world. We basically have channels and Value Added Resellers (VARs) for mostly selling and supporting our products across various industries. For example in the Philippines, we have VARs who are selling our products there. Of course in any market there is one that has more potential than the other. Sometimes you can see the number of partners in certain territories is much more than for example in ASEAN, Singapore and Philippines. In China for instance, we have close to about 48 VARs because given the size of the country and industry, we need more capacity to do that. For Singapore, we have two, and in Thailand we have three partners right now. In Australia, we have two partners, each of them have about 70-80 employees. The biggest reseller for us is in Mainland China and Taiwan. IMNA: According to industry experts, China takes a large portion of the global distributors' revenue pie; do you see this changing in the future? VED: China given the size and population, the industry is growing. If you see the Eleventh Five-Year Plan of China, it is all about how they move from a manufacturing hub to a design base. So, I think the government does realise that cost is not sustainable. If you observe over the years, China has actually become one of the most expensive places from a level market perspective. So it is not sustainable. Someone can offer cheaper products than you. How slow or how fast they will be implemented will depend on the overall initiative. I believe China has the right plan in place; it's just a matter of execution. Trends will continue. I trust the market will continue. The region is sitting on a more than trillion dollars of foreign reserve. China can surpass multiple recessions by just spending the government's expendi ture. Even i f they spend al l that money, they will still ride out the recession. And government spending will create many, many demands. IMNA: Can you tell us about your research efforts in Asia? VED: The R&D overall is a global team for DS SolidWorks in general. There are six brands and the R&D people are all over U.S., UK and India. A small R&D in China focuses toward localisation and for China's specific requirements. Our India R&D centre, which is also part of the global R&D, is engaged in developing new products and new feature functionality. All works under the overall DS Company, thus we share resources. Let's say someone in UK is working on one of the products, and has certain skills that could be used in respective of the other brand under development. So it's fairly sizeable and general l y effective. But in Asia, it's only to India and China. IMNA: Everything in SolidWorks is all about R&D. How do you balance the passion in R&D? VED: You don't confine passion. Passion should alAir Max Shox 2018