Sales Strategy in CAE Industry with Case Study of Ansys Discovery
My boss turned to me and said one day, “Lower, as a CAE (Computer-Aided-Engineering) company, we achieved to build tons of successful add-on features over the year, but the problem is now as those features are sold in scattered, it is hard for sales to promote and to even drive sales growth.”
“You could look up how others packaged their software as sales strategy, sure you will learn a lot.” As I wandered through the net, figuring how I should make my report, “The Marketing Theory of 4Ps” in marketing 101 came to my mind, and here is what I then present:
Sales Strategy Case Study on Ansys Discovery
1. Product: Segments Users into 3 Levels of Demand for Analysis
2. Package: Show Customer the Route to Ultimate Collections
3. Place: Direct, Channel Partners, or “Online Store”
4. Price: Subscription Makes Product Looks More Accessible
Sales Strategy Case Study on Simulation Design Tool: Ansys Discovery
Ansys Discovery is a series of simulation software targeting product designers to fix design questions earlier in the design process of product making.
Product: Segments Users into 3 Levels of Demand for Analysis
Ansys initiatively separate analysis process for users into geometric design, real-time analyze, and higher level analyze. Segments target users into three levels of demand for analyzing process and provide each group a solution: Essentials, Standard, and Ultimate. These solutions are combined by three function units , SpaceClaim, Live, and AIM, that does analysis separated above.
Learn more from Ansys Discovery 2021 Review by Al Dean. (Pro Article!)
Package: Show Customer the Route to Ultimate Collections
As I went through 7 selling channels, products are packaged into 2 ways to sell, either by the different demand of analysis (similar to packaging up-sell): Essentials, Standard, and Ultimate, or by combining Standard with other products often bought together (similar to packaging cross-sell). These packages shows how up-sell and cross-sell could be initially bundled in packages for customers, pointing out what the ultimate buying collections is for customers when they first learn all the buying options.
Place: Direct, Channel Partners, or “Online Store”
In the past (even now), most of the software are sold by channel partners throughout countries, until the emerge of SaaS business model, which you could either download through websites online or use it directly online. For Ansys Discovery, now there are 3 place to find the product, direct sales, channel partners, and Ansys online store. Each place provides different price options and packages, but same business (pricing) model, subscription (or lease).
Price: Subscription Makes Product Looks More Accessible
I generated list price from 7 place I could find in the internet. When it comes to pricing on annul subscription, the price looks much more accessible than purchasing permanent license. In both package segments, price doubled when analysis process increase or bundled with other features. (In my opinion, I think price should set closer between Standard and Ultimate, making customer think that “Oh, I could get Ultimate version just to spent a little more!” to simulate sales) Compare price in different places, channel partner sells slightly cheaper than direct subscribing in Ansys Online Store, leaving advantage for channel partners to continue their business.
Well, I know the original 4P contains Promotion instead of Package, which promotion states how one let customer notice the product and simulate them to make buying decisions, I found it interesting that unlike selling B2C FMCG products, which B2B software customer’s decision journeys are way more longer, promotion usually are embedded in place and price strategy, making every steps of 4P chained closely together. Although, could fight that they still need advertisement or else, here I’d like you to forgive me to not dig into B2B marketing as this is a whole new section to discover.
Conclusion
For the task most software company are facing: add-on features are sold in scattered making it hard for sales to promote, product bundling appears to be a good solution. By correctly segment bundle users by using experience or users behavior, package products to sell with cross-up-sell concepts embedded, and price with strategy on package and place, we could tackle the problem by making initial moves to picking the right features for customer. However, every steps above demand deep knowledge of uses behavior (technical side and business side), makes it hard to go through a prudent procedure to come up with a successful sales strategy.
