SolidWorks Ken Clayton on customer, competition and future

IMNA: Can you give me an overview of how you perform your tasks?
Clayton: My job is to make sure that all of the things that are happening are in a consistent manner with a culture of respect and appreciation. My philosophy is that if I'm doing a good job with my team and helping them achieve their goals, then they're helping their resellers too. And the resellers' team are also achieving their objectives; therefore customers are going to get it. I want it to be in one of those scenarios where the customer feels like our product is easy to buy, easy to learn, and easy to own. Emerging markets in Asia is the most exciting happening, but it's also the most complex. And knowing where to invest and how to invest is something that I constantly challenge my staff. And I changed the structure of our organisation there to provide greater visibility to each of the unique natures of these cultures and of these opportunities. Yes it will help us be more profitable, I guess, but I don't think of it in those ways. I thought about it in terms of what are we doing to understand the opportunity in Indonesia and Vietnam. So much opportunity to those countries today in manufacturing, yet are we really able to be of any value? Let's give that more visibility so that we can understand because we are in a very unique position. We're a driven, dynamic, energetic sales organisation, but the highest priority is not what we do, but how we do it.
 
IMNA: Anyway, how are you faring? How is SolidWorks faring compared to your competitors?
Clayton: It's always a mysterious question for us. We're pretty transparent; we talked about what we accomplished. We know that our competitors measure success differently than we do. I look at our competition and I think in terms of each of them slightly differently.

And I respect what they've accomplished. Our commitments to our partners have never changed, and our commitments to our customers have never changed. So of all the things that I ever had, this is the easiest one to work at, it really is. You don't have to invent anything.

Just keep doing what you've been doing. Do it better than you've ever done it, and look for new ways to do it. The good news is I don't have to spend my time trying to fashion a special response to the moment based on our current strategy, because our strategy today is exactly what it was a year ago, and it will be the same about a year from now. I hope to expand that to more products. And I hope to carry this type of SolidWorks simple power to more industries. I want to make more friends. I want to see my staff have new opportunities - these are all positive things. But what I won't have to do during that time is apologise for something that we said we're going to do and we didn't do, or a product that failed, a new direction that we were going to go in that we stopped, or a broken partnership - so you know, we're doing great. We're profitable as an enterprise and autonomy in running our business. It's a good place to be, but we don't take it for granted. It's fun, but it's not easy. Working hard is what we do.

IMNA: Where does SolidWorks fit in the metalworking or in the machine tools?
Clayton: Machine tool is one industry where we've done very well with some OEM relationships in a few cases. And clearly we want to continue to do that, continue to be the OEM product underneath the systems that work best for those companies. SolidCAM is an absolutely fantastic partner who carries the same message to their customers. Their style of business and commitment to post-sales is extraordinary, and customers are very excited about it.

IMNA: Who are your customers in the 3D CAD?
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