“What you buy makes a difference but from whom you buy makes a bigger difference”

Most often, I talk about greatness of our product offerings in my blog articles. Such kind of blogs assist prospective customers in choosing the right product. But the same product can be procured in multiple ways, either directly from the developer or through a value-added reseller also called as VAR. In this blog article, I would emphasize on how prospective customer should select the right VAR while purchasing a Dassault Systemes or Siemens simulation product.

The first thing a customer needs to verify is whether VAR is supplying just the product or the complete solution. The difference between the two is the “value added services” associated with product usage.

“Without value added services, it’s not possible for a reseller to become a value-added reseller.” Please identify if you are doing business with just a reseller or a value-added reseller. Remember, simulation tools are not easy to use. There is a learning curve associated with these tools that can greatly impact the ROI and break-even timeline. The productivity of the user can be substantially enhanced if he is associated with a reseller who can provide whole bunch of services to shorten the learning curve and achieve break-even faster. Now let’s look at what type of services makes a difference in simulation space.

We are talking about software sales as well as consulting, training and support. Our software partners, Dassault Systemes, Siemens and Autodesk offer a bunch of certifications around these four components to distinguish between just “resellers” and “value added resellers.” Being certified means reseller has enough resources and knowledge to execute a given task of sales or service. Let’s talk about each component with respect to Simulation:

Software: To sell any DS SIMULIA product, the associated VAR should have “SIMULIA V6 design sight” certification as a minimum. There are further brand certifications available such as Mid-Market Articulate for product highlight and Mid-Market Demonstrate for product technical demonstration. To sell FEMAP product from Siemens, the VAR must have “FEMAP technical certification” as a minimum. All these certifications are associated with timed examinations.

Training: Training should be an integral part of simulation software sales. It gives users enough knowledge to use the software product in production environment. To offer technical training on any SIMULIA product, the VAR should have “finite element analysis with Abaqus specialist” certification as a minimum.

Support: Once users are in production environment, technical support is required on continuous basis. While many answers related to product usage are in documentation, it’s not a full source of information. Many queries are model specific that require attention of a dedicated support engineer. To offer technical support on any SIMULIA product, the VAR should have at-least one engineer who has “SIMULIA technical support specialist” certification.  This certification should be renewed every two years. It is associated with a lengthy and “hard to pass” support certification examination across all products of SIMULIA brand.

Consulting: Consulting service plays a big role when customer either does not have enough time or resources to execute projects in house in-spite of having software product. It happens during certain burst phases of demand. While there are no certification criteria for VAR’s related to consulting in simulation space, a dedicated consulting and delivery team is needed to offer the service when demand arises.

The above information should help you in ranking your VAR. Do you need to know our rank? Please contact us.