“We Greatly Value Our Partner Community and Work Closely with Them in India”

“We Greatly Value Our Partner Community and Work Closely with Them in India”

Autodesk’s business model across all key global markets is through partner-led customer engagement. Autodesk has an omni-channel system for reselling of software that provides easier access to a broader portfolio of technology for business owners and enhance access to the best of 3D design software for Indian customers. But recently, the channel community alleged that the company is offering 20% discounts to the customers who are buying directly from their online store. The issue was also raised by FAIITA recently and had approached Autodesk to seek the clarification over this ongoing issue. Digital Terminal, being channel publication also contacted the company to know their stand on this issue.  Alok Sharma, Country Manager, Channels (India & SAARC), Autodesk, had interacted with Rajeev Ranjan, Editor, Digital Terminal (DT) and expressed his commitment for channel community. Read the excerpt below to know more about Autodesk commitment, plans and support for channel partners across India.

DT: What is your business model in India? How do you sell your solutions across all consumers verticals in India?  

Alok: In India, we have an e-store and sell via channel, which provides our customers great convenience and choice. India is one of the most successful markets for Autodesk in terms of synergy with the channel community to drive holistic business growth of the entire ecosystem. They continue to trust, thrive and grow with us, as we continue to scale new heights of business growth and momentum in India. We are confident that by working closely with our partner community we will be able to provide greater availability, accessibility and affordability of advanced design technology to our customers in India. We have democratized the adoption of design technologies with a highly effective and flexible subscription-only licensing model. Customers can choose from quarterly, or annual lengths when they purchase a subscription via their local reseller and partners. 

DT: Do you have any price control over the products sold in India?  

Alok: All our channel partners are independent and free to determine the retail prices at which they want to sell Autodesk software to their respective customers. Hence, reseller prices may vary and is also subject to currency fluctuation. We greatly value our partner community and work closely with them to drive adoption of 3D Design software in India.  Our customers are free to choose which partners they wish to work with and purchase from.

DT: Can you please brief about your entire channel ecosystem for Indian market?  

Alok: In India, we have 3 distributors, Redington India Ltd., TechData and ARK Infosolutions Pvt. Ltd. We also have 2 Platinum partners, MicroGenesis CADSoft Pvt. Ltd. and Capricot Technologies Pvt Ltd. We work closely with a strong and trusted network of channel partners to provide greater affordability, availability and accessibility to our best-in-class design technologies. Our channel ecosystem in India includes, 40+ partners (both VAD and VARs).  We work very closely with our distributors on business growth and are highly optimistic about the future of our business in India. Our partners continue to grow with us and we are excited about the future growth opportunities. In fact, sales from indirect channels have grown 30% worldwide Year-on-Year as per Q1 financial data released earlier this year. 

Our partner ecosystem continues to grow as we increase our footprint in India. Recently, we added 15 partners to our India channel ecosystem with Tech Data being the latest addition to our partner network.

DT: How do you assure to have all sort of resources and support available for channel partners?

Alok: Through trainings and resources to sales and technical teams of our partners, and access to Autodesk sales, and marketing resources and support, we help our partners to thrive and succeed in the era of cloud-based technologies. Our partners continue to grow and we are happy to add value to their business. Our goal is to drive greater adoption of Autodesk’s advanced and cutting-edge 3D Design technology among customers across different industry sectors – Manufacturing, Construction & Infrastructure, Media & Entertainment. The role of partners in achieving this goal is an absolute imperative.

DT: How do you push your partners in value chain? How do you take care of their overall business growth? 

Alok: In addition, our partner ecosystem is heavily invested in promoting adoption of Autodesk software.  For example, software Implementation services, software adoption programs to name a few are important revenue streams for our partners besides selling our products. Customers routinely reach out to our partner community for such services. Autodesk is also investing to help partners build services muscle. As recently as Aug 2019 alone, Five Autodesk partners have announced new services offering build with Autodesk products & technology. We also recently completed Five cities partner enablement workshops which was attended by more than 150+ partners, sales and technical resources.

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