Our emphasis is on our partner ecosystem

The company has rolled new benefits for SIs and is looking at expansion
aggressively

Brief us on your key business offerings and what are the key trends that
you see therein?

Siemens PLM Software provides a complete suite of software applications. By
delivering these applications on top of a single PLM platform, the software
provides companies with an integrated environment which connects users and
knowledge from all parts of the life-cycle. Our software product portfolio is
represented by four product brands namely NX, Tecnomatix, Teamcenter and
Velocity series. We see an ever increasing demand for our PLM offerings across
the companies.

The key trend is that customers have become more demanding and are
increasingly pushing requirements for faster turnaround times on quotes, orders
and design and support of unique products. We are managing an increasingly
complex design and development environment. The company also participates
effectively in global value chains (Global Innovation Networks) for logistics,
quality and costs.

Please share your estimates of market size and Siemens PLM position in the
same.

Most manufacturing companies have realized the importance of PLM to keep the
competition alive. Isolated applications are not cost effective. This has led to
increased interest and adoption of PLM applications, resulting in healthy growth
over last few years and we expect an accelerated growth in the coming years.
Siemens has a huge presence in the country as a market leading portfolio of
products and solutions. With a strong sales and support infrastructure, we have
established a strong leadership position in the country. Our integration with
the Siemens Industry Automation gave us the ability to build and offer a
platform, which integrates the design automation with manufacturing automation
systems. This will be of increased value to our customers and extend our
leadership position further.

Are there any new updates on the PLM partner program?

We are pioneers in the CAD/CAM industry in India since 20 years and have
helped in the increased adoption of these tools through an ecosystem built for
sales and support of these products. Our channel partners play an important part
in this ecosystem. They have an important role in the growth of the CAD/CAM
industry in India. Today a significant portion of our revenues are contributed
by our channel partners.

We are actively looking at strengthening our network of channel partners.
This will provide us with greater reach and capability to address customer
requirements in diverse geographies and industries. We look forward to leverage
their strengths in their respective markets, while equipping them with all the
knowledge and skills that are required in addressing the requirements of our
customers.

Siemens PLM partners enjoy benefits that meet or exceed the standards of the
best partner programs in the industry. With our industry-leading product
portfolio, our open business philosophy and our superior Solution Partner
Program, our channels have all the tools they need to dominate the PLM empowered
future in their markets. Siemens offers all the ingredients of a top partner
program.

What is your current channel base and which geographies would you like to
expand and why?

Ever since our inception we have invested heavily on our channel partners to
address the Indian market requirements. We have constantly expanded, enabled and
empowered our channel partners, thus strengthening our sales and support
infrastructure.

With the ever increasing demand across various geographies and industries, we
are actively soliciting partners who can benefit from our partner program, while
providing us with extended reach to markets. While recruiting channels we are
looking at some geographies that require expanded coverage because of the
potential they bear, as well as some industry segments that require special
acumen and knowledge to be able to do business with those industries.

We are also looking at expanding our System Integration partner network, to
help us address peculiar requirements of new and emerging market segments for
PLM solutions. While providing our SI partners with market leading portfolio of
products, access to globally adopted solution frameworks, we wish to leverage
their industry domain knowledge and relationships to address these new market
segments.

What are some of the up selling opportunities for your partners?

Today, leading CAD/CAM software providers are looking at additional capacity
in the sales and support personnel, serving the Indian market, to help address
the growing demand for such software solutions and services. Channels can
therefore seek a share in this growing market. Siemens PLM software ensures that
its channel partners are enabled and empowered with the right skills, knowledge
and authority to address market requirements properly. They are provided access
to all the resources and tools to support their customers effectively.

Sales of CAD/CAM software tools also provide a good platform to upgrade and
scale up one's ability to sell and support enterprise applications like PLM. The
natural progression of a customer's deployment from a CAD system to a PDM/PLM
system can be matched by a CAD reseller's capability to offer similar systems.

Are there any specific channel initiatives/programs to be taken this year?

We are constantly working towards enriching our channel partner program with
initiatives that drive new business and lowering the costs. These efforts
include helping our partners with higher than average margins,
performance-driven margin incentives, recurring maintenance margins, market
development funds combined with result-focused campaigns.

Your marketing strategies for 2010 and roadmap.

We are focusing on high level demand generation, brand awareness, marketing
programs. Along with this, we are increasingly enabling our channel partners to
plan and execute marketing initiatives, support them in demand generation
programs in markets they address. This not only helps in expanding our market
outreach ability, but also enables our channel partners to execute programs most
suitable for their markets, leveraging on the resources and support available
from Siemens PLM.

Revathi raghavan

revathir@cybermedia.co.in