Featured sales representative - ELKAN

Service minded and competent sales representatives have always been a key for us. Therefore we would like to acknowledge our sales representatives by giving you an insight on their work, beginning with one of our most dedicated partners, ELKAN from the Czech Republic.

ELKAN was established in 1991 as a company that provided computer technology and IT services on the Czech market. Its main customers since its establishment have been for example American Express and most of the Academy of Science institutes and universities in the Czech and Slovak Republic, e.g. the Czech Technical University and Charles University.

After a few years ELKANs focus shifted from hardware to distribution of Mathematica. Once he had established a Mathematica customer base Vaclav noted that his customers, especially from the industrial segment, had specific needs for something that would complement Mathematica in a similar fashion as Simulink worked for MATLAB. ELKAN already distributed MathCode, therefore it was natural for him to investigate MathModelica. “It was the modern concept of the Modelica language that first grabbed my attention”, he explains, “and I very soon realized that the concept of Modelica programming language and the whole MathModelica product is very modern and therefore very much desired among the young Czech and Slovak technical public”.

ELKANs’ philosophy is to work close to their customers, helping them not only to find the right software, but also installation of the software, providing support, consultancy and training. ELKANs’ customers can always rely on getting adequate help from skilled people.

Vaclav Zak, CEO of ELKAN, graduated from the Czech Technical University in Prague, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Department of Automation and Control Systems. He also has a computer science degree from the Electro-technical Faculty of the Czech Technical University in Prague.

After working for 12 years with telemetry control for pipelines, programming data collection systems, and managing technological operations in chemical and building engineering he took part in programming of a hotel reservation systems for one of the biggest Czech tourist agencies CEDOK.

He then co-founded ELKAN and they soon became a distributor of Mathematica for Czech and Slovak Republic and has been keeping this status ever since.