"Evolution from 2D to 3D is a big focal point for us"

Vivek is bullish about the growth of 3D design applications in the country.
As Country Marketing Manager of UGS Corp, a global provider of product lifecycle
management (PLM) software and services, he mentioned having four distys across
the country to take the latest version of Solid Edge software to the market. It
has already introduced the product at 10 locations including Delhi, Mumbai,
Chennai and Hyderabad.

What is your distribution strategy in the country? How many distributors
do you have here?

We continue to work very closely with the channel and have a two tier
channel strategy for our products. We sell our products through four
distributors, based in four regions. They are: Pune-based Design Tech systems,
New Delhi-based I Built, Chennai-based Empower Consultancy and Kolkata-based
Raysult.

We have around 30 resellers working for us under these distributors. We make
a point to educate and train our partners when it comes to developing their
skillsets and helping them move up the value chain.  

The automotive and manufacturing segments are quite active when it comes
to 3D design capabilities. What segments are you targeting now?

With the help of the current enhancements, our product has the capability to
handle large assemblies. So, we are quite focused on the machinery segment.
There are a lot of companies already working on 2D applications. We are now
looking forward to educate our customers so that they can see the value behind
going towards 3D. 

A lot of customers feel that Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions
are quite expensive. How do you plan to tackle this barrier?

Yes, that's a big mindset barrier that we have when it comes to selling
our products. We have introduced several schemes for bundling our product to
present a good value proposition for customers. The price point has been slashed
to Rs one lakh. We are sure that this will further increase market adoption for
our products in this region.

As more organizations go for 3D adoption-ease of use becomes a big issue.
That is another area of focus for us and we have taken all the precautions to
make our product as easy to use as possible. 

What is the current focus of UGS? What kind of enhanced capabilities have
been incorporated in the new version of Solid Edge?

We believe that evolution from 2D to 3D presents a big opportunity for
organizations to increase their design capabilities. So 3D evolution is a big
focus area for us. We are engaged in educating our customers about the benefits
and overall value proposition about the same.

Solid Edge v17 continues to deliver on its design with Insight vision. It
helps customers evolve to 3D, by delivering new capabilities to optimize the
design of complex products in a hybrid 2D/3D environment.

It offers direct editing of models without editing the history tree. Solid
Edge's assembly support capability allows engineers to work on large volumes
of data and create complete digital mock-ups of large assemblies.

There is ease of adoption through Apprentice Mode and Feature Error
Assistant. The latter helps troubleshoot failures and warnings with descriptions
and corrective action. While, Apprentice Mode helps new users to easily navigate
the systems. 

Is the development center in Pune involved in developing Apprentice Mode
and Feature Error Assistant?

There is a team of about 300 software professionals working with our global
development efforts. The Pune team is primarily involved with product data
management efforts, so they would not have contributed much on these
enhancements. 

Why are you bullish about 3D adoption? What is going to drive the adoption
of 3D from the current 2D applications?

We believe in the capabilities that 3D design can undertake. It is the
natural way of upgrading their capabilities and we want to educate our customers
in this area.

Mid-market companies must evolve to a highly flexible and robust 3D digital
product development system to remain competitive. Solid Edge v17 is a powerful
combination of tools and processes that will enable manufacturers to make a
smooth transition to 3D, while showing cost savings too. New features help ease
the transition from 2D to 3D.

 ZIA ASKARI