This post was written by Biba Bedi, director corporate communications and client relations, Altair
Altair recently successfully concluded its 12^th annual partner summit, bringing together over 200 channel partners from EMEA, Americas and the Asia-Pacific. Held annually for over a decade, this year’s partner summit was held in the United Arab Emirate metropolis' Dubai – the glittering “jewel of the Middle East” with its modern architecture and dazzling lights on high-rise buildings, representing the epitome of urbanization. Given its central, strategic location, Dubai served as the ideally accessible location for attendees to fly in for the conference from across the globe.

Hosted and coordinated by Altair chief revenue officer Nelson Dias, the impactful 2-day event was held at the JW Marriott Marquis hotel overlooking the Dubai Canal, minutes away from the world’s tallest structure and building, the Burj Khalifa.

High-energy, informative, empowering sessions
Nelson set the tone for the high-energy event with his welcoming presentation. Themed Reach Higher, the summit offered over 45 sessions focused on Altair solutions. The rich informative sessions on Simulation-Driven Innovation™, cloud and platforms and enablement, machine learning/AI, electric vehicles/e-mobility, math & system modeling, EM, CFD, multiphysics, Altair® SmartWorks™ and data intelligence solutions and more were designed to empower and position partners for continued growth and to assist customers achieve their business goals.

Nelson Dias, chief revenue officer, Altair, welcoming delegates at the conference

In-depth technical workshops and Meet the Expert sessions provided platforms of learning with subject-matter experts emphasizing business planning, articulating customer value, sales positioning etc.
During a keynote session, Altair unveiled Altair SimLab sT, a turn-key solution for the mid-market, to the channel partners attending the partner summit.  Altair SimLab sT enables a broad community of designers and engineers to leverage Multiphysics simulation to confidently explore design proposals, drive innovation and accelerate product development.

Awards
A popular partner spotlight session covered the best of 2018 Partner sales wins presentations. 30 sales wins success stories were presented out of the 39 received from 26 partners across the Asia-Pacific, EMEA and the Americas.

The winners were:

• Abhishek Shukla, DesignTech, India, Asia-Pacific
• Anshuman Tripathy, CADCAST, ASEAN
• Xia Chengxing

Xiangyan (Guangzhou) Technology Ltd, Asia-Pacific

• In MyungKim, FusionTech, Asia-Pacific
• Antonio Ena, Idaero, EMEA
• Tyler Reid, GoEngineer, Americas

At an awards ceremony gala, Altair’s partners who had met or exceeded expectations received recognition for their hard work, taking home brand new iPhone prizes. Categories included outstanding sales performance, best sales partner, best sales hunter, outstanding partner, and outstanding sales performance.



Networking sessions provided excellent opportunities for socializing, discussions, and conversation with key people from Altair about individual growth plans and expectations, while enjoying culinary delights from around the world.

A spectacular conclusion to an unforgettable event
The final session of the partner summit was presented by Pavan Kumar, SVP, global indirect business, Altair, summarizing the learning and high points of the 2-day event. Following conference close, participants had the opportunity to relax and unwind at a desert safari featuring dune bashing, camel rides, dinner, music, dancing, and not to mention a spectacular sunset in the desert.


Partner Thoughts
“Really enjoyed the Altair partner conference, I thought the event was very well organized from start to finish and we were looked after by all the Altair staff. As a first-time attendee it was good to get a wider perspective on Altair's goals for the year, new products and also to see new implementation allowing closer relationship between partners and Altair that will hopefully benefit both over the coming year.” Tim Dukes, technical manager, Eng-IT
“For the Altair event …where presentations of software, meetings with technical developers, exchange of opinions, questions and much more are taking place. There is a desire for open confrontation, many good ideas, advice, sales strategies and an eye to the future, the electric world and its innovations. It seems clear, to be in the right place … what better place to represent this cannot be arrested: progress, in all its forms.”Giulia Lucenti, Spin Applicazioni Magnetiche s.r.l.
Altair’s highly-valued, extensive partner ecosystem continues to steadily grow, providing value to the foundation of our open-systems philosophy to maximize performance, interoperability and reliability of our products in any environment, delivering the most comprehensive set of solutions to market.
For more information on Altair’s channel partner program or to sign up, please visit https://www.altair.com/partners/