SPECIAL ISSUE
The much-awaited State of the Mart Survey tells you what your peers are planning for 2015. Page 16
ChannelWorld STRATEGIC INSIGHTS FOR SOLUTION PROVIDERS | COVER PRICE Rs.50
The Internet of Things will be extremely vital for the digital India initiative.
VENDORS
SMAC has to be an integral part of a channel player’s strategy.
ALOK OHRIE, DELL
We believe that IoE will be the market’s biggest disruptor.
r business fo d u lo c o G advantage. Software-defined networking is here to stay.
In 2015, retaining IT talent will be a major challenge for partners. Mobility will boost the collaboration and video conferencing market.
TALKING
2015
A 360-degree view of 2015, with opinions from all of the IT industry’s major stakeholders. >>Page 14 The 3rd platform will take off in India in 2015.
JANUARY 2015 VOL. 8, ISSUE 10
ANIL BHASIN, PALO ALTO NETWORKS ANIL VALLURI, NETAPP ARUN PARAMESWARAN, VMWARE ASHISH DHAWAN, JUNIPER NETWORKS DEBJANI GHOSH, INTEL DINESH MALKANI, CISCO JAGDISH MAHAPATRA, MCAFEE KARAN BAJWA, MICROSOFT
The next year will see a paradigm shift from an ‘enduser’ focus to a ‘user-first’ approach.
NEELAM DHAWAN, HP PARAG ARORA, CITRIX PRIYADARSHI MOHAPATRA, AVAYA RAJESH JANEY, EMC RAMSUNDER PAPINENI, FIREEYE
The development of digital infrastructure will be a key growth driver in 2015.
Analytics will be a nel goldmine for chan partners in 2015.
RAVI CHAUHAN, SAP SANJAY ROHATGI, SYMANTEC SUNIL GUPTA, NETMAGIC
ANALYSTS
on of The proliferati ill impact w s e n o h p rt a sm bile enterprise mo . 015 strategies in 2
AKHILESH TUTEJA, KPMG JAIDEEP MEHTA, IDC KARTHIK ANANTH, ZINNOV PARTHA IYENGAR, GARTNER SIVARAMA KRISHNAN, PWC VIKRAM SEHGAL, FORRESTER
CHANNELWORLD.IN Talking 2015_.indd 2
12/23/2014 3:04:36 PM
n EDITOR’S NOTE
Vijay Ramachandran
Help Simplify IT
A
LITTLE OVER a year ago, conversations that I’d
been having with a host of CIOs pointed to a new trend emerging. A trend, substantiated by research by CIO India (a sister publication of ChannelWorld). India Inc. was beginning to see a surge in a hybridfirst model emerging across enterprises, big and small. The latest data from The State of the CIO Study indicates that this trend, this trickle, has turned into a raging torrent, with 45 percent of Indian mid-to-large enterprises choosing a hybrid strategy. These companies and their CIOs believe that doing so provides them with better performance, higher control, lower cost, and improved reliability and security. On the face of it, the hybrid model seems purposebuilt for today’s business demands of efficiency, agility, and speed. But, go beneath the surface of this directional shift in Indian enterprise IT and all isn’t as it seems—CIO magazine’s research also reveals that the key factor for Indian enterprises going hybrid is the rising level of complexity within the app and infra stacks. So where does complexity come from? Without doubt legacy applications and infrastructure contribute to it. However, that’s not the only reason for it. Over the past few years, application portfolios have grown as has data volume;
applications and their underlying infrastructure have become more tightly coupled; the app and infra environment have both become even more heterogeneous than before. Siloes seem to dominate enterprise IT. Add in legacy stacks that require integration, the need to deal with multiple technology providers, inadequate internal skillsets, and complexity and the consequent points of failure just multiply. Enterprise IT is always a work in progress, but this makes it look like a long haul. And, I haven’t even started on the management nightmare that mul-
n Indian enterprises are struggling to keep their IT environments in order. Can you help?
tiple consoles bring with it. Would standardizing on a specific vendor’s boxes across compute, storage, networking, and security help? To an extent for sure, but which IT team would be willing to put all of its eggs in a single basket? That they would rather put up with multiple consoles than “compromise” business continuity is a telling statement. CIOs, in trying to avoid this, would have few options than to move some workloads to the public cloud, while keeping the more critical ones within the perimeter. CIO research squares with this, given that the top workloads moving to the public cloud are mail and messaging, CRM, externallyfacing web-apps, collaboration, and conferencing. Increased complexity isn’t inherently bad. But when complexity gets in the way of business de-
livery; when it means an increased cost of doing business, when it leads to opportunity loss—one has to figure a better way of dealing with the madness. Now for the sting in the tale. CIO research also uncovered that 17 percent of all enterprises have had such lousy experiences in pursuing a hybrid strategy with the public cloud that they have or are in the process of reverse migrating workloads back to their premises! And, their lies the opportunity for solution providers. Not a tiny window, nor a slim door, mind you. But a prospect that covers the whole gamut of enterprise technology. For, Indian enterprises need help managing their datacenters and applications. They need help in adding modern front-ends to legacy systems. They need help in migrating out of legacy environments to a more cloud-based, analytics-enabled, sociallyempowered, mobilecentered ecosystem. They need help in baking in security not bolting it on as an afterthought. They need help in building roadmaps that allow them to periodically retire technologies. Are you up to the challenge? Vijay Ramachandran is the Editor-in-Chief of ChannelWorld. Contact him at vijay_ramachandran@ idgindia.com
JANUARY 2015
INDIAN CHANNELWORLD
3
Inside
INDIAN CHANNELWORLD n JANUARY 2015
SPECIAL REPORT
FORECAST
2015
The four pillars of enterprise IT: Channel partners, CIOs, solution providers, and analysts, get together to give you a glimpse of what IT in 2015 will look like. Read on to find out. >>>Page 14
BETTING ON SMAC
BETTER DAYS AHEAD
2015 will be the year of SMAC. Channel partners see the opportunity and are aligning themselves to it.
Indian CIOs say 2015 will be better than last year. Here’s what 2015 looks like from your customers’ point of view.
BUSINESS DIRECTIONS
STRATEGIC INSIGHTS
Top solution providers reveal their technology roadmap and channel strategy for the next 12 months.
India’s most respected analyst firms unveil trends and predict the opportunities and challenges of 2015.
PARTNERS >>>
VENDORS >>>
Page 16
Page 22
CIOs >>>Page 20
ANALYSTS >>>Page 56
FOR BREAKING NEWS, GO TO CHANNELWORLD.IN
Inside
■ NEWS ANALYSIS
12 Competition is Stealing Your Talent | As the talent war heats up, poaching tech
INDIAN CHANNELWORLD n JANUARY 2015
CHANNELWORLD Geetha Building, 49, 3rd Cross, Mission Road, Bangalore - 560 027, India
CHANNELWORLD.IN
Publisher, President & CEO Louis D’Mello
■ NEWS DIGEST
n EDITORIAL
09 Intel’s IoT Vision Goes Beyond Chips |
Intel is bringing all its assets to bear on IoT, a hot topic,
professionals is becoming common. Here’s how it’s done and how to stop it.
■ OPINION especially for big chip makers. Intel sees its low-power chips being used in sensors, wearables, and other hardware and software devices. 10 Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday Addresses Server Flaws | Internet Explorer and Exchange
Server top the list of Microsoft programs that need
03 Editorial: Indian enterprises are struggling to keep their IT environments in order. Vijay Ramachandran asks if you can help. 66 PlainSpeak: Hope played a role in helping organizations get through 2014. But 2015 will demand a new strategy, says Yogesh Gupta.
■ FOCAL POINT
IT Spending on an Upswing in 2015 62
IT BUDGET | As purse strings loosen up,
CIOs blend innovation into the IT budgets of 2015. But security and cost containment remain top priorities.
Editor-in-Chief Vijay Ramachandran Executive Editor Yogesh Gupta Deputy Editor Sunil Shah Features Editor Shardha Subramanian Assistant Editors Radhika Nallayam, Shantheri Mallaya Principal Correspondents Aritra Sarkhel, Shubhra Rishi Video Editors Kshitish B.S., Vasu Arjun Lead Designers Suresh Nair, Vikas Kapoor, Anindya Biswas Senior Designer Unnikrishnan A.V., Laaljith C.K. Trainee Journalists Bhavika Bhuwalka, Ishan Bhattacharya, Madhav Mohan, Mayukh Mukherjee, Sejuti Das, Vaishnavi J. Desai n SALES
& MARKETING
President Sales & Marketing Sudhir Kamath Vice President Sales Sudhir Argula General Manager Marketing Siddharth Singh General Manager Sales Jaideep M. Manager Key Accounts Sakshee Bagri Manager Sales Support Nadira Hyder Senior Marketing Associates Arjun Punchappady Benjamin Jeevanraj, Cleanne Carol Serrao, Margaret Sunitha Dcosta Lead Designers Anindya Biswas, Jithesh C.C. Designers Vinoth P, Vivekanandan Management Trainee Aditya D. Sawant, Bhavya Mishra, Brijesh Saxena, Chitiz Gupta, Deepali Patel, Deepinder Singh, Eshant Oguri, Mayur R. Shah, R. Venkat Raman n OPERATIONS
to be patched by IT administrators, now that the company has rolled out its latest round of “Patch Tuesday” security fixes.
Vice President HR & Operations Rupesh Sreedharan Financial Controller Sivaramakrishnan T.P. CIO Pavan Mehra Senior Manager Operations: Ajay Adhikari, Pooja Chhabra Senior Manager Accounts Sasi Kumar V. Senior Manager Operations T.K. Karunakaran Manager Operations Dinesh P. Executive Assistant to the CEO Tharuna Paul Manager Credit Control Prachi Gupta Assistant Manager Accounts Poornima n OFFICES
ADVERTISERS’ INDEX Cisco Systems India Pvt. Ltd . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . BC Epson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Grass Roots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IBC HP- PSG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IFC Redignton India Ltd . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
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News
WHAT’S WITHIN
PAGE 10: Microsoft and Accenture Launch New Hybrid Cloud PAGE 10: Patch Tuesday To Fix Explorer and Exchange Flaws PAGE 11: Juniper Introduces Open Compute Switch, Junos OS PAGE 12: Poaching Tech Talent is Becoming Commonplace
F I N D M O R E A R T I C L E S AT CHANNELWORLD.IN
INTERNET OF THINGS
Intel’s IoT Vision Goes Beyond Chips
I
NTEL IS bringing all its
assets to bear on the IoT, a hot topic for nearly all IT vendors but one that’s especially critical to big chip makers. While Intel would like to see its low-power chips used in sensors, wearables, and other hardware that will ship in huge numbers if the industry’s IoT dreams come true, it also has software, security, and infrastructure to add to the mix. In the short run, those may matter more than the silicon itself. At an event in San Francisco, the company
announced what it calls the Intel IoT Platform, a combination of hardware, software and partnerships designed to help its customers quickly churn out complete systems. Intel also introduced its latest IoT gateway design, plus security and management capabilities that will be part of that platform. “It really is an end-to-end play,” said Doug Fisher, vice president and general manager of the Intel Software and Services Group. A key part of Intel’s strategy for IoT is its gateway
reference designs, which can collect data from sensors and other IoT devices at the edge of a network and process and translate that data. The gateways can even turn machines that have never been networked into connected devices, translating older proprietary protocols into usable streams of data on IP networks. Intel introduced the Wind River Edge Management System, a technology stack for cloud-based control of IoT operations. It also rolled out a new generation of the Intel IoT Gateway with the Wind River software, which will allow enterprises to quickly deploy gateways and manage them for as long as they are in use. The company also laid out a list of partners for building and deploying IoT systems in various industries. Those partners include Accenture, Capgemini, SAP, Dell, and Japan’s NTT Data. While Intel may someday ship millions more chips thanks to IoT, depending on how it fares against rivals using the ARM architecture, its end-to-end set of technologies doesn’t really exclude chips from other vendors, Gartner Analyst Mark Hung said. In other words, Intel’s datacenter and security assets can play a role in deployments.
JANUARY 2015
—Stephen Lawson INDIAN CHANNELWORLD
9
PARTNERSHIP
Fortinet Joins HP’s Partner Program Fortinet has announced its collaboration with HP’s AllianceOne Partner program. As enterprises and service providers look to effectively deploy security in their datacenters, leveraging the benefits of SDN and NFV, this partnership lays the foundation for Fortinet to deliver pre-integrated SDNoptimized security solutions
to enhance HP’s SDN security portfolio. These solutions are designed to extend the agility and operational benefits of SDN solutions, delivered from physical or virtual FortiGate security appliances, enabling customers to reduce opex, strengthen security, and derive more value from their investments in HP SDN and Fortinet Security. As enterprises and service providers move towards SDN architectures, security becomes a logical intrinsic datacenter element. -Team ChannelWorld
-
CLOUD
Microsoft, Accenture Launch Hybrid Cloud
T
O HELP organiza-
hybrid cloud architecture, tions better orgain which some computing nize their cloud asresources are managed in sets, Microsoft and house and others are run integration firm Accenture within a public cloud, an have released a package Accenture survey of its cusdesigned to make it easy tomers found. to integrate in-house IT Most hybrid cloud deoperations with Microsoft ployments today tend to be Azure cloud services. fragmented, with different The package is technologies bedesigned to “help ing used for difenterprises more ferent workloads, the amount Avanade easily move into Daugherty said. generates in global sales, with the help cloud technoloThe idea behind of more than gies,” said Paul the Accenture 22,000 employees. Daugherty, AcHybrid Cloud Socenture’s chief lution is to unify technology officer. “Our all the resources within the large enterprise clients same management frametell us the hybrid cloud work. It unifies Microsoft is where they need to be. Azure with Accenture’s They need the combination own set of tools for managof private and public.” ing hybrid clouds. IT services provider Ava“What customers are nade, a Microsoft-Accenasking for is the ability ture joint venture, will offer to move to a hybrid cloud the new package, called the where they don’t have to Accenture Hybrid Cloud do the integration pieces,” Solution for Azure. said Susan Hauser, MicroAbout 75 percent of all soft’s corporate vice presibusinesses have expressed dent for the enterprise and the desire to move to a partner group. Avanade is
$2 bn
“providing customers with a cloud service along with a professional services and implementation.” Avanade is marketing the Accenture Hybrid Cloud Solution to large businesses, what Hauser called the Fortrune 2000. It can be used both to modernize IT infrastructure as well as for quickly building new customer-facing apps. The two companies have been working on this package for over a year, according to Daugherty. “The CIO needs an integrated view of their cloud assets across the business,” Daugherty said. “They have a lot of cloud things going on. Can they understand where all the workloads are? Are they sure their departments are leveraging the right cloud resources? Those are the types of answers we are providing with our integrated view.” Avanade launched in 2000 to provide Microsoft consultancy and integration services to organizations. With more than 22,000 employees, the company generates over $2 billion (about Rs 12,000 crore) in global sales. —Joab Jackson
SECURITY
Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday Addresses Server Flaws Internet Explorer and Exchange Server top the list of Microsoft programs needing to be patched by IT administrators this month, now that the company has rolled out its latest round of “Patch Tuesday” security fixes. Overall, Microsoft has issued seven security bulletins, including three that are critical, cover10
ing security vulnerabilities found in Windows (both the server and desktop editions), Office, Exchange Server, SharePoint Server, and Internet Explorer. “The first bulletins administrators should look at are those that make remote code execution (RCE) possible,” said Wolfgang Kandek, chief technol-
INDIAN CHANNELWORLD JANUARY 2015
Security Fix: Explorer and Exchange top flawed servers’ list.
ogy officer for IT security firm Qualys. These patches fix the vulnerabilities in the software that allows an attacker to command from across a network.
Short Takes Blue Coat Systems, a
Thoma Bravo company, announced Michael Fey as its president and chief operating officer. Fey brings operational and GTM expertise that will drive revenue growth and extend the reach of Blue Coat in the market. He will report to Blue Coat CEO Greg Clark. Zebra Technologies has
announced new strategic appointments across Asia-Pacific in a move to bolster its leadership in the region. Among the appointees are Rod Rodericks who will function as the vice president and general manager for APAC, and Ryan Goh, the vice president of sales for APAC. Samsung Electronics
was considering moving out J.K. Shin, the current co-CEO who heads its mobile division, in an annual reshuffle. But he will continue in his job, as the South Korean company has decided to continue with a three CEO structure adopted last year.
Microsoft is not alone in fending off potential RCE attacks. Adobe also issued two critical patches Tuesday covering RCE vulnerabilities in its Adobe Flash, Reader and Acrobat software packages. Users of Chrome and Explorer have their versions of Flash updated automatically. Administrators who allow users to access Microsoft Exchange e-mail through a Web client should make a priority of testing and installing the Microsoft MS14-075 patches. -Joab Jackson
PERIPHERALS
Juniper Introduces New Project Switch
J
UNIPER NETWORKS
has introduced Juniper Networks OCX1100, the first switch to combine Open Compute Project (OCP) hardware design with a carrier-class network operating system, Junos OS. The new switch, which will be available the first quarter of 2015, provides customers who build large and massive scale datacenters with an open, costeffective, disaggregated switching platform. Large cloud builders, such as Web 2.0 and webhosting companies, are seeking ways to more efficiently build datacenter networks at scale to support tens to hundreds of thousands of servers. While the largest, massive-scale cloud operators have solved this need with solutions created internally, or white box switches, these options are challenging for many companies due to the level of resources required to develop, install, and support solutions. Combining Junos OS with OCP submitted hardware delivers a unique solution that removes the burden of support, installation, and maintenance from cloud providers while promising an open source hardware design. Mike Marcellin, senior vice president, strategy and marketing, Juniper Networks, said, “The introduction of the OCX1100 is an example of Juniper Networks not only embrac-
ing the disruption brought on by emerging cloud technologies, but also moving the industry forward by providing the largest cloud providers with a viable option to create cost-effective and reliable datacenters.” Juniper Networks OCX1100 will provide large cloud providers with proven software and open source network hardware that is much easier to deploy, integrate and support. OCX1100 runs an optimized version of Junos which delivers the features required for deployment in L3 networks. Martin Casado, senior vice president and general manager, Network and
Security Business Unit, VMware, said, “The rise of cloud and massive datacenters presents an opportunity to change enterprise business models.” Juniper is working with Alpha Networks, an original device manufacturer (ODM), on the hardware design, which has been submitted to the OCP for review. The design is awaiting approval.
Around
TheWorld Apple to Open New Tech Center in Japan
Apple will open a technology development center just outside of Tokyo, which will bring it closer to suppliers. “We’re excited to expand our operations in Japan with a new technical development center in Yokohama which will create dozens of new jobs,” Apple spokesman Takashi Takebayashi said. He wouldn’t say why Apple is building the facility but said it is not an R&D center. The research center could open as early as next spring in Minato Mirai district. -Tim Hornyak JANUARY 2015
Google, Facebook’s Hunger for Servers Drives a New Market
NSA Spy Program Targets Mobile Networks Worldwide
The NSA has conducted a covert campaign to intercept internal communications of operators and trade groups in order to infiltrate mobile networks worldwide, according to the latest revelations from documents supplied by Edward Snowden. The U.S. National Security Agency ran two undisclosed operations. The operations closely monitored the GSM Association, maintained a list of 1,201 email targets, or selectors used to intercept internal company communications, and gathered information about network security flaws. -Marc Ferranti INDIAN CHANNELWORLD
Harrison Chang, president, Alpha Networks, said, “We are honored to work with Juniper Networks to provide the hardware that will underpin Juniper’s Open Compute Project-based switching solution. The OCX1100 has all the benefits of an OCP-compliant hardware design combined with a hardened Junos operating system.” —Team ChannelWorld
11
The increasing need for real-time analytics has helped buoy server sales to enterprises, but most of the growth during Q3 came from Web giants like Google and Facebook that are building their own hardware. This year hasn’t been easy for the big server vendors. Server shipments grew by just 1 percent and revenue by 1.7 percent in the Q3, according to research company Gartner. -Mikael Ricknäs
n NEWS ANALYSIS
Competition is
Stealing Your IT Talent
As the talent war heats up, poaching tech professionals is becoming common. Here’s how it’s done and how to stop it. By Sharon Florentine
12
S
AVVY COMPANIES
that care for who they hire are shopping for talent in what is arguably the best place to find it—their competition. Similarly, one of the best places for your competitors to find great talent is within the walls of your company. If your best and brightest have been jumping ship to work for your biggest rival, it’s important to know how they’re being recruited, why they are being targeted and what you can do to stop it. Here’s how your competitors may be poaching your talent.
INDIAN CHANNELWORLD JANUARY 2015
THEY’RE USING PROFESSIONAL TACTICS Savvy companies know that the best talent is often already employed—with their competitors. Hiring a professional search firm— or if that’s not financially feasible, copying their subtle approach—can lure away even the most content employees. As an Inc. Magazine article points out, targeting successful talent and then making contact via social networks like Facebook or LinkedIn, or at professional networking events, conferences or industry events with the promise of a “great opportunity” can pique their
interest and entice them to consider a move.
THEY’RE POACHABLE OR SWITCH TOOLS One of the biggest challenges for hiring managers and recruiters is finding passive candidates, says Tom Leung, founder and CEO of anonymous career matchmaking service Poachable. “Passive job finding—and searching for passive candidates—has a lot of interest for both candidates and for hiring managers and recruiters. As the economy rebounds and the technology market booms it remains difficult to match potential candidates with key open positions,” Leung says. Employees and candidates are demanding higher pay from potential employers while, at the same time, STEM jobs are taking twice as long to fill as non-STEM jobs. “When we asked hiring managers and recruiters what their biggest challenge was, they told us their weak spot was luring great talent that was already employed. Everybody seems to be doing a decent job of blasting out job postings, targeting active candidates, interviewing them, but this passive recruiting is where people get stuck,” Leung says. Passive candidates are already employed and aren’t necessarily unhappy, Leung says, but if the right opportunity came up, they would consider making a move. That’s where tools like Lueng’s Poachable and the new Switch solution come in. “These folks might want to make a move, but they’re too busy to check the job boards every day, and they’re content where they are. What we do is
help them discover what types of better, more fulfilling jobs are out there by asking them what ‘dream job’ would be tempting enough for them to move, and we help them find that,” Leung says.
OFFER COMPETITIVE BENEFITS AND PERKS Flexible work schedules, job-sharing, opportunities to work remotely, subsidized child and elder care, employee-paid healthcare packages, on-site gym facilities, and a masseuse and unlimited vacation time are all important if you want to attract talented IT professionals. “Companies that acknowledge and accommodate the fact that their talent has a life separate from work tend to have more engaged, loyal and productive employees, says Dice.com’s President Shravan Goli. A March 2014 study from Dice.com surveyed tech pros and found benefits and perks like flexibility, free food, and the ability to work with cutting-edge technology were key drivers of their decision to take a new position. “With approximately 2.9 percent unemployment rate in the IT industry, companies must get creative to attract and keep their top talent. Perks and benefits are one way they are looking beyond compensation,” Goli says.
OFFERING BETTER MONETARY INCENTIVES Your talent is one of your business’ greatest assets, and if you’re not doing everything you can to ensure they stay happy, especially where compensation is concerned, you could lose them—and be at a
5 Biggest Mistakes of IT Hiring Managers
A
s IT hiring ramps up, job market experts are predicting a tech talent shortage. And certainly among the hot skill sets you can expect to see some sort of talent war. Here’s a look at five of the most common mistakes that hiring managers make, according to recruiters. Making a Bad First Impression Job candidates know to put their best foot forward, but companies in hiring mode can forget to do the same, Michael Morell, co-founder of tech recruiter Riviera Partners, says. Creating a recruitment-friendly atmosphere is the job of the whole company, he adds. “People very much underestimate how important a compelling company culture is to the overall hiring process,” Morell says. Posting an Inaccurate Job Description Writing a job post seems like a basic, but candidates have shown up for interviews only to hear about a completely different job from the one for which they’d applied, according to Felix Fermin, recruiting manager at Mondo. The causes can vary—in some cases, the hiring manager fails to communicate the job properly to the recruiter, and in others, the human resources organization posts competitive disadvantage, according to the U.S. Business Administration. “All companies have valued employees—those they can’t afford to lose because of their skill, experience, and commitment to their work. One way you can help them resist the temptation to stray is to show that you are invested in their
a description based just on a generic job title. Inadequately Preparing for Interview Day For most people, interviewing job candidates is just one more item on an already over-committed to-do list, and it can easily slides down in priority. But when that happens, it shows, recruiters say. According to Matthew Ripaldi, senior vice-president at Modis, a global provider of IT staffing services, candidates report waiting in the lobby for 30 minutes, and when someone finally greets them, there is confusion over who they are, which position they’re interviewing for, which conference room is available and even where the hiring manager is. “That whole experience says a lot about the company,” Ripaldi says. The interview team should also be in alignment, with clearly defined roles as to who owns which pieces of the interview, such as technology capabilities and cultural fit. Failing the Enthusiasm Test Hiring is a two-way street, Morell says, that involves not just evaluating candidates but also selling them on the job. “Companies fail to realize they have to be in sell mode,” he says. One candidate recently turned future,” according to data from the SBA. The SBA advises giving these employees one-on-one time with management, discussing their professional goals and their importance, and sharing the company’s vision for continued growth as well as the employee’s role in that growth. In addition, the SBA says,
down a job with a high-paying offer because there was no sense of excitement. “No one got him fired up,” he says. “You need to tell the candidate why it’s a great place to work. Sure, it matters how much you pay or what the job title is, but candidates don’t want to work in a place if they’re not fired up by the team, the product, the vision or purpose.” Taking Too Long to Make a Decision Even just a few months ago, companies may have had the luxury of waiting before pulling the trigger on a job offer, but no more, Ripaldi says. “We have hiring managers who tell candidates they’re a good fit and that they’ll reach out to the recruiter ‘tomorrow,’ and then there’s a time delay, and they lose the candidate because of it,” he says. Fermin says he’s seen a narrowing in the hiring window, as well. Whereas companies might be accustomed to having a week to complete phone-screenings and face-to-face interviews, he advises them to compress those activities into two or three days, if possible. “When you stagger these activities over a week, by the time you interview the candidate you want, he could have two other offers, and then you’re competing with that.” -Mary Brandel offering meaningful pay increases, a generous bonus structure and/or compensation like “long-term incentive plans tied to the overall success of the business, not just individual performance, can also send a clear message to your employees that they have a recognized and valuable role to play in your business as a whole.”
JANUARY 2015
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TALKING
2015 A 360-degree view of 2015, with opinions from all of the IT industry’s major stakeholders including vendors, CIOs, analysts and your own peers. By Team ChannelWorld
CHANNEL SPEAK Go-to-Market Strategies Introduce new technologies like cloud, mobility, big data/analytics to existing customers
25% Offer more services on a recurring revenue model
21% Position as a technology consultant
9% Cross-sell/ Up-sell technologies
The State of the Mart Survey reveals what partners are betting on in 2015—and their execution strategies.
28% 16%
The average amount of business channel partners expect to come from SMAC in 2015.
PAGE
16
Top solution providers reveal their technology roadmaps and channel strategies for the next 12 months.
VENDOR SPEAK
PAGE
22 ALOK OHRIE Dell
ANIL BHASIN Palo Alto Networks
ANIL VALLURI NetApp
DEBJANI GHOSH Intel
DINESH MALKANI Cisco
JAGDISH MAHAPATRA McAfee
PRIYADARSHI MOHAPATRA, Avaya
RAJESH JANEY EMC
RAMSUNDER PAPINENI, FireEye
ARUN PARAMESWARAN VMware
ASHISH DHAWAN Juniper Networks
KARAN BAJWA Microsoft
RAVI CHAUHAN SAP
NEELAM DHAWAN HP
SANJAY ROHATGI Symantec
Indian CIOs believe 2015 will be a better year than the last one. What that means for you.
2015 Will Be a Good Year 42% 48%
From my industry’s perspective From the perspective of my team’s ability to meet goals
ANALYST SPEAK
58%
14%
SUNIL GUPTA Netmagic
CIO SPEAK
CIOs: Better Days Ahead From my business’ perspective
PARAG ARORA Citrix
PAGE
20
The average increase in IT budgets of Indian enterprises in 2015, according to CIO estimates.
India’s most respected analysts unveil trends and predict the opportunities and challenges of 2015.
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n STATE OF THE MARKET 2015
Betting Big On SMAC
ChannelWorld State of the Mart Survey shows that in 2015 partners will bet on SMAC technologies. A peek into what 2015 will look like through the voice of the solution provider.
State of the Channel: W
28%
The average amount channel partners expect their company revenues to grow in 2015.
TEAM CHANNELWORLD
A
S INDIA moves from traditional
ways of doing IT to the 3rd platform consisting of social, mobile, analytics, and cloud (SMAC), 2015 will definitely reward partners who will drive innovation and strategy in these areas. With the 3rd platform gradually penetrating the Indian market in 2014, the year ahead will witness a completely new ecosystem. In order to grab this opportunity, channel partners are going all out to ensure their presence in areas like business intelligence and analytics, big data, mobility, private cloudbased solutions, SDN, social and more. Going by the trends of 2014, these revelations are, however, not surprising. The sixth edition of the much-awaited ChannelWorld State of the Mart (SOTM) survey revealed that as much as 33 percent of respondents are willing to be present in the domain of business intelligence (BI) and analytics, and 30 percent feel that big data is where they should be. Mobility is another big bet among partners, say the survey findings. The SOTM survey revealed that the partner ecosystem expects IT spends to be more towards mobility, security, hybrid cloud-based solutions, BI and analytics, and social, among others. The survey also revealed that 28 percent
of respondents will put more effort in introducing new technologies such as cloud computing, mobility, big data, and analytics to existing customers. Even though it is not surprising that 38 percent of partners feel that the government sector will increase its IT spend in 2015, what is interesting is that, for the first time, the survey showed that e-commerce is another area where partners expect significant IT investments to take place. Owing to these new trends, investments in IT and associated ensuing go-tomarket strategies will take a new turn. Businesses will now be mandated to align their objectives, offerings, strategies, and plans in keeping with this shift. Also, with the advent of new technologies comes a different set of challenges. The survey findings pointed out that partners will definitely turn to vendors to help them address these challenges. As much as 36 percent of partners feel that in 2015, there will be pressure on margins and that they will need more sales leads. Retaining talent will also remain an issue. In a nutshell, 2015 is likely to witness shifts, transformations, and, hopefully, more smiles and growth and opportunities for the partner community.
As much as 36 percent of partners feel that in 2015, there will be pressure on margins and that they will need more sales leads.
16
INDIAN CHANNELWORLD JANUARY 2015
Top 5 Partner Challenges in 2015 36% Pressure on margins
14% Attracting and retaining talent
12% Growing revenues
12% Adding new customers
11% Expanding customer base
Expectations From Vendors in 2015 42% Better margins
18% Generating sales leads
10% Improved implementation and technical support
10% Support for marketing and brand building activities
2015: WHAT CHANNEL PARTNERS EXPECT
el: What 2015 Looks Like Partner Business Environment in 2015 Easy
Can’t say
6%
3
11%
26% Very Challenging
55% Neutral
Challenging
We expect technology companies to help us grow, ensure better margins and a more robust vendorchannel alliance. Pawan Khurana, CEO, QuantM
Channel Risk Appetite in 2015 Low
Watch the full Interview: http://bit.ly/13mND6H
Very low 1%
4%
11%
Very high
39% 45% Neutral
18%
The average amount channel partners expect their company’s net profits to grow in 2015.
High
16%
The average amount of business channel partners expect to come from SMAC in 2015.
Skillset gaps are increasing due to the introduction of new technologies like cloud computing, and mobility. Training and incentives will help retain talent. Shirish Anjaria, CMD, Dynacons Systems & Solutions
Watch the full Interview: http://bit.ly/1HdWlkR
JANUARY 2015
INDIAN CHANNELWORLD
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n STATE OF THE MARKET 2015
Go-To-Market Plan 2015 Go-to-Market Strategies
Betting on the Government Partners voted on which sector’s IT spend would rise in 2015.
28% Introduce new technologies like cloud, mobility, big data/ analytics to existing customers
25%
38% Government
14%
Offer more services on a recurring revenue model
E-commerce
21%
11%
Position as a technology consultant
BFSI
9%
9%
Cross-sell/ Up-sell technologies
Manufacturing (includes Auto, Pharma, FMCG)
8%
9%
Focus to drive business from key accounts
Services (includes Tourism, Education, Logistics)
5%
9%
Geographical expansion, in and out of India
Infrastructure & Utilities (Real Estate, Oil & Gas, Power)
4%
6%
Lower TCO and maximize ROI on customer investments
Retail
HOW CHANNEL PARTNERS ARE PREPARING FOR 2015
Expected Revenue Growth By Company Size Company size
We are hiring new talent and specialized teams for security, data warehousing, and MDM, and are introducing them into existing customer accounts.
Absorbing technologies like cloud computing is a major challenge for most traditional system integrators. We primarily offer opex-based models to our customers.
Murtuza Sutarwala, Director,
Ajay Sawant, MD, Orient
Swan Solutions & Services
Watch the full Interview: http://bit.ly/1CcgoC6
18
INDIAN CHANNELWORLD JANUARY 2015
Technologies
Watch the full Interview:http://bit.ly/1v3BdHv
% of Growth
Rs 10 crore and less
31%
Rs 10-25 crore
26%
Rs 25-50 crore
15%
Rs 50-100 crore
15%
Rs 100 crore and above
12%
27%
The average amount of business channel partners expect from new customers in 2015.
Tech Roadmap In 2015, Partners Plan to Be Present In: 33% Business Intelligence & Analytics
30% Big Data
29% Mobility
28% Private Cloud-based Solutions
24% SDN/SDDC/SDS
22% Security
21% Business Application Software
21% Hybrid Cloud-based Solutions
20% Networking
20% Public Cloud-based Solutions
20% Virtualization
19% 15% Workstations (including servers)
15% 15% UC and Collaboration
ENTERPRISE IT PLANS
What Partners Are Betting On The top eight areas that partners say they will see an increase in IT spends.
Mobility Security Hybrid Cloud-based Solutions Business Intelligence & Analytics Social Media Big Data Software-defined Networking/ Datacenter/ Storage
Sunny Sharma,
Private Cloud-based Solutions
What Partners Are Betting Against
I believe that by the end of next year, most companies in India will have a cloud interface—led by the public cloud. Founder and CEO, Foetron
Watch the full Interview: http://bit.ly/1GCoaFa
The top five areas that partners say they will see a decrease in IT spends.
Workstations (desktops, laptops, servers, thin clients)
Storage
Social Media
ALIGNING WITH
Networking Storage Virtualization UC and Collaboration
THE STATE OF THE MART 2015 SURVEY The State of the Mart Survey was administered online by ChannelWorld, over four weeks in November and December 2014. Over 170 Indian partner organizations participated. Over 50 percent of respondents were systems integrators, 33 percent were resellers and value-added resellers, 14 percent were distributors and value added distributors and 6 percent were independent software vendors. The survey also had partners from a range of sizes. Just over 30 percent of respondents represented partner organizations less than Rs 10 crore, 26 percent from organizations with revenues between Rs 10 and Rs 25 crore, another 26 percent from organizations with revenues between Rs 25 and Rs 50 crore, 15 percent from organizations with revenues between Rs 50 and Rs 100 crore, and 12 percent from organizations with revenues from Rs 100 crore and above. All responses were gathered using a secure server with all individual data kept confidential. The degree of error is +/- 6.9 percent at a 90 percent confidence level. All responses were gathered using a secure server with all individual data kept confidential. The degree of error is +/- 6.9 percent at a 90 percent confidence level.
Indian organizations are depending on analytics and mobility to create competitive advantage. We are bullish on these technologies. Anoop Pai Dhunghat, CMD, Galaxy Office Automation
Watch the full Interview: http://bit.ly/1DTM3tM
JANUARY 2015
INDIAN CHANNELWORLD
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n CIO PERSPECTIVE
CIOs: Better
Days Ahead Research shows that Indian CIOs believe 2015 will be a better year than the last one. Here’s a peek at what 2015 looks like from your customer’s point of view. TEAM CHANNELWORLD
I
appreciate the good days without having had a taste of the bad ones. That’s especially true for the IT industry. As the New Year rolls around, IT leaders are finding it difficult to hide their optimism—which, for a long time, had lurked behind a veil of skepticism— around their expectations from the technology and business world. Today, there’s a growing hint of optimism, it’s faint but unmistakable. The business landscape is changing, and so is the expectation from IT. According to CIO research (CIO is a sister publication to ChannelWorld), 42 percent of Indian CIOs say 2015 will be a good year from a business perspective. And 48 percent say it will be a good year from their industry’s perspectives. But perhaps, more interestingly, for the partner community is that CIOs say they expect a 14 percent growth in their IT budgets in the next year. This is expected to improve the scope for innovation in IT. The survey pointed out that 20
T’S HARD to
CIOs will continue to invest in SMAC technologies, with 50 percent of Indian CIOs saying they will invest in analytics. That’s up from 27 percent last year. Over 40 percent of CIOs are looking to implementing hybrid clouds next year as compared to 21 percent in 2014. Similarly, social and mobile will also see greater investments. One-sixth of IT leaders will source 31 to 40 percent of their IT requirements from technology providers, which presents a huge opportunity for channel partners and technology vendors. According to State of the CIO 2014, in 2015, 40 percent of CIOs said they plann to invest in systems that would help their companies engage with customers and business partners. To do that, a third of CIOs agree they would need to increase IT capacity and resources in order to drive business innovation. So yes, the heavy clouds of skepticism are finally parting and things are looking up. Welcome to a new year.
INDIAN CHANNELWORLD JANUARY 2015
14%
The average increase in IT budgets of Indian enterprises in 2015, according to CIO estimates.
CIOs: 2015 Will Be a Good Year 42% From my business’ perspective
48% From my industry’s perspective
58% From my team’s ability to meet goals
Top Three IT Management Initiatives in 2015 For CIOs 40% Investing in systems to engage with customers or business partners
34% Improving business processes
34% Increasing IT capacity/resources to drive business innovation
Top 3 IT Dept Challenges 47% Inadequate in-house skillsets in areas like cloud computing, virtualization, mobility, BI & analytics, and security
43% Delayed decisions from business
39% Funding new IT projects
A majority of CIOs are planning to outsource between 31-40% of their IT in 2015, compared to 21-30% in 2014.
What CIOs Expect in 2015 Top 10 Enterprise IT Investment Areas 51% Mobile/wireless
50% Analytics (not reporting)
46%
BI/Analytics Projects for 2015 Mobile BI projects lead the way among the list BI/analytics projects CIOs expect to complete during 2015. Mobile BI
Reporting (using BI tools)
44%
Collaborative BI
Social media technologies
Advanced analytics (predictive/statistical analysis, etc.)
42% Data visualization
Advanced data visualization capabilities
42%
Social media/social network analysis
Collaboration tools
Software-as-a-service/cloud computingbased BI/analytics
41% Business process management
40%
In-memory BI/analytics
Content/document management
Embedded BI
40%
Exception management
Cloud computing (hybrid)
Analysis of big data, particularly unstructured/non-relational data
34% In-memory analytics
Top 5 Areas with the Least Investment Augmented Reality
83%
3D Printing
82%
Software Defined Everything (SDX)
71%
Total Outsourcing
70%
Machine-to-Machine Communications (M2M)
64%
Top 5 Enterprise Mobility Drivers
Increase employee effectiveness and efficiency Improve customer relations (customer loyalty, brand loyalty) Reduce cost of doing business and increase efficiency
The Rise of the Public Cloud
Workforce becoming increasingly mobile
The number of Indian CIOs using or planning to use the public cloud is growing.
Redesign business processes
60
51%
50
42%
40
37%
37%
30 20 10
14% March 2013 Private Cloud
17% Oct 2013
16% June 2014
18% Nov 2014
82%
Of CIOs say commitment to quality is a factor in their decision to select an outsourcing partner.
Public Cloud JANUARY 2015
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n COVER STORY
| BUSINESS DIRECTIONS
P h o t o g r a p h b y D E LT R I M E D I A
Building Capabilities for a Digital Tomorrow ALOK OHRIE President and Managing Director, Dell India, on the company’s investments to build end-to-end solutions and delivery capabilities for a digital world. 22
INDIAN CHANNELWORLD JANUARY 2015
O
VER THE last year, we have focused on increasing
awareness of our end-to-end solutions’ capabilities, strengthening our customer relationships, and growing the business by redefining our go-tomarket approach. Our goal is to create greater customer value and grow the most profitable parts of our business. Channels contribute a significant amount to our overall revenue and our aim is to keep growing the channel and outpacing the market.
As a company, we have been increasing investments in R&D, market coverage, customer experience, and sales. Our strategy remains 100 percent focused on our customers’ business needs. Dell has invested significantly in building end-to-end solutions and delivery capabilities for the Indian market. Today, we are the world’s fastest growing large integrated IT company and India is the fastest-growing market for Dell. Our key priorities for the India market in 2015 would be to continue our profitable growth, continue driving client solutions, enhancing capabilities for end-to-end solutions, and accelerate our go-to-market strategy.
A GOLDMINE FOR CHANNELS IT decision makers globally are seeing the importance of the major industry trends: cloud, big data, mobility, and security. Dell is positioned very strongly to actively seek opportunities and support our customers in all these areas. From a market opportunity perspective, we are very excited about the government’s Digital India initiative that has the potential to transform India into a digitally empowered society and a knowledge economy. Our expertise and capabilities in most areas related to the Digital India program have been globally acclaimed and we expect to work closely with the government during its implementation. Software-defined datacenter will see massive adoption in 2015 and beyond. The reason for increase in demand for SDDC is its ability to drive better or higher efficiency. It is also the right approach in the direction of cloud adoption. Desktop virtualization is definitely making a lot of commercial sense with obvious advantages of it being a highly secure environment and reducing the cost of operations. The next important trend is with regard to the modernization of applications. Customers are looking for help to enable their legacy applications in a new environment. It essentially means that customers want these applications to be a lot more agile, a lot more robust, and to be easily available on mobile devices.
Technologies for Next-gen Enterprises Hyperscale Computing: Businesses are paying attention to the flexibility and efficiency that Web companies build into their datacenters. These are constructed to scale along the demands of specific front-end applications, and technology leaders are wondering if a similar approach to IT might be achievable for their businesses. Software-defined Applications: Software-defined networking, storage, and datacenters are increasing in popularity. These technologies will have the ability to support digital businesses. A software-defined environment simplifies IT through open standards, and makes it more responsive to shifting requirements and policy-based automation. Scalable, Open, and Flexible Solutions: With the rapid growth of datacenters and data storage, the supporting IT infrastructure must be able to scale as businesses grow. Businesses are aware of the need for long-term IT solutions that support their vision of growth, save costs, and simplify deployment. in new and exciting ways, all within financial constraints. Typically, customers must choose between a variety of system architectures, including best-of-breed hardware and current converged infrastructure, as the base of their datacenter operations. We have our strongest ever product and services portfolio. We also acquired significant new skills and capabilities, reorganized our operations, optimized our global supply chain—all to provide solutions with the best value, ease of use, and flexibility. Dell is now a customerinspired, end-to-end solutions provider that has evolved from a PC manufacturer to a true IT solutions partner, offering a differentiated view of the enterprise. For new projects, more and more datacenters will have a converged infrastructure approach where the operational silos that now exist for servers, storage and networking functions will give way to a unified architecture. The next-generation Dell PowerEdge FX architecture with one common modular and scalable platform with servers, storage, and networking integrated, helps customers better manage, scale, and budget for infrastructure to meet business needs.
Today, we are the world’s fastest-growing, large, integrated, IT company and India is the fastest-growing market for Dell.
THE AGE OF CONVERGED INFRASTRUCTURE Today’s datacenter is evolving rapidly and businesses are now under pressure to support existing application requirements while using IT
JANUARY 2015
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Ph o t o g r a p h by FOTO C O R P
A Protective Layer for Next-gen Networks 24
INDIAN CHANNELWORLD JANUARY 2015
ANIL BHASIN Managing Director, Palo Alto Networks India, says new threats weaken an organization’s network but advanced security tools can change that.
P
ALO ALTO’S priority for the Indian market is
to sustain growth and expand client base. In a strategic market like India, we have hired over 15 sales and pre-sales professionals in the last 18 months to accelerate our growth through a consultative solution-selling approach. This rapid expansion demonstrates our commitment to our customers and partners in the India and SAARC region. We currently have a customer base of approximately 200 companies in India across all verticals. In addition
Our next-gen firewall, threat intelligence cloud, and advanced endpoint protection eliminates the need for point technologies. to the continued acceleration of new customer acquisitions, the size of commitments from our customers is growing, which is underscoring our momentum in the market and the power of our platform at a steady pace. BFSI, ITeS, telecom, the public sector, defense, and manufacturing are some of the verticals that are on our agenda for this fiscal. We are expecting more use of technology in critical infrastructure environments such as utilities and transportation.
IMPORTANCE OF CYBER SECURITY
advanced endpoint protection solution. We have ambitious and aggressive plans for security, with our newest addition of advanced endpoint protection solution, Cyvera. We also have WildFire, the market’s only advanced persistent threat detection and prevention offering. In the fourth quarter, we added a record number of paid customers, with a total paid base of over 3,000. This made us one of the largest APT solution providers by customer count in the market. We are also extending our leadership in security services for private, hybrid, and the public cloud following our partnership with VMware and are also launching the virtual firewall series. The VM-series can detect and prevent known and unknown cyber threats before they compromise an organization’s VDC and allow them to choose a public, private, or hybrid deployment architecture. Our next-generation platform approach provides seamless security in datacenter-virtualized environments. Attackers are getting more sophisticated with their attacks, by getting into the datacenter through an insider.
Given the rate of sophisticated attacks witnessed by Indian organizations in the last 12 months, cyber security has rapidly become a boardroom discussion. The same urgency is mirrored in the enterprises of the West. Therefore, many organizations are now reassessing their existing cyber security readiness and architectures. Some measures that can help are transitioning from a detect-and-remediate security posture to a detect-and-prevent security posture, from legacy systems to next-gen security platforms, and securing the enterprise. Major road block reAdvanced Persistent Threats (APT): garding this for CIOs, CIWith more sophisticated attacks, SOs, and other CXOs is getmore sophisticated solutions are required. ting the kind of budget and Organizations are adopting fully-automated attention that is required platforms to quickly respond to new global to handle a challenge of an threats and eliminate the need for expensive unknown scale. While semanual processes. curity is thought of strategically, its implementation Bring Your Own Device (BYOD): Alis still very tactical. though it is a good thing that BYOD is a growing trend, there needs to be a shift in the THE NEW SECURITY way organizations think about BYOD and its PLATFORM risks. More organizations have begun to invest We’ve built an archiin security solutions that cover them on the tecture that eliminates endpoint, network, and cloud. the need for expensive, manual processes, and improves organizations’ Internet of Things (IoT): With more and ability to quickly respond more everyday devices coming online, to new global threats. Palo we expect to see many more such examples in Alto offers a complete 2015. This trend should be taken seriously by enterprise security platorganizations, as it inevitably opens up new form comprising a nextthreat vectors that need to be protected to generation firewall, threat ensure the protection of assets. intelligence cloud, and an
Megatrends in 2015
THE CHANNEL ROADMAP As a channel-centric company, we will continue to invest in our NextWave partner program to ensure our partners and endcustomers receive a greater value. To date, we have more than 150 channel partners across the country, a global technical assistance center in Chennai, and also a return material authorization replacement in Bangalore, Mumbai, and Delhi. We want to work with channel partners who are strategically aligned to our goals and reward them accordingly. JANUARY 2015
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n COVER STORY
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P h o t o g r a p h b y D E LT R I M E D I A
Surging Ahead with Hybrid Cloud ANIL VALLURI President, NetApp, India and SAARC, says, in 2015, enterprise platforms will start encompassing hybrid cloud architectures. 26
INDIAN CHANNELWORLD JANUARY 2015
G
IVEN THE government’s
focus on digital India and building 100 smart cities, the coming year will see a significant growth in data across verticals in the Indian market. Enterprises are grappling with the surge in data and are looking for ways to manage and mine this data for valuable information and intelligence. We see more and more businesses moving their applications to the hybrid cloud environment and with increased security also evaluating the data being stored,
backed up, and retrieved in a cost-effective manner. The year 2015 will find enterprise platforms beginning to encompass hybrid cloud architectures. As CIOs realize the technology benefits of the hybrid cloud, it will become more important for organizations to figure out how to serve their internal and external customers with agility and cost efficiencies.
THE BIG OPPORTUNITIES Companies in India are realizing that high data volumes need storage systems that can scale as data grows. We are witnessing the movement of businesses from traditional data storage systems to a hybrid cloud environment. Software-defined datacenters are one of the emerging trends within the industry. Also, as per a report by NASSCOM on datacenters, India is emerging as the fastest growing datacenter services market in the Asia Pacific region. The Indian IT infrastructure market (comprising servers, storage, and network equipment) reached USD 2.2 billion (about Rs 12,000 crore) in 2012, and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 8.5 percent over four years. Growth is being driven by ongoing datacenter consolidation and modernization. Traditional verticals like BFSI, telecom, and IT/ITeS are observing rapid data growth. The vision of the government at the center to digitize citizen records and use the cloud to deliver citizen services will only add to the data volume. To keep pace with this change, legacy applications will need to be rewritten in some cases, to take advantage of the storage innovation. Modern applications will factor in the availability of hardware and related software innovation that companies such as NetApp bring to the market. FlexPod, a joint offering from Cisco and NetApp for service providers and enterprises, will see strong traction in the coming year. We have offerings for different platforms and applications such as Microsoft, SAP, VMware, and Citrix that come pre-validated for cloud computing, HPC, datacenter consolidation, and big data.
Storage Trends in 2015 Converged infrastructure: It will gain momentum enabling integration of open and scalable systems that will enable business outcome. Customers looking for scalable storage and zero downtime will boost the market for clustered storage adoption as well. Flash: As customers try to optimize IT performance while balancing cost and agility in their datacenters, new metrics for flash will be of great help and flash adoption will increase. With a number of IT trends resulting in the transformation of today’s datacenters, the use of flash storage will play an important role. Customized Storage Solutions: Companies are exploring architectures that will help them ‘scale out’. NetApp has the clustered Data ONTAP operating system. NetApp FAS8000 unified storage systems are feature-rich scale-out storage systems with superior flexibility to simplify complex upgrades as IT needs change.
to be one of the biggest drivers of technology adoption and a building block to a harmonious IT infrastructure in 2015. A technology roadmap will emerge. Hybrid clouds will become the dominant vision for IT, big data will evolve and drive the need for clustered storage and converged infrastructure, and hybrid cloud will gain momentum. As CIOs realize the technology benefits of the hybrid cloud, it will become more important for organizations to figure out how and where the hybrid cloud will save them money. That’s where NetApp Data Fabric—a technology architecture for the hybrid cloud—plays a big role. Only NetApp enables enterprises to embrace the hybrid cloud on their terms and build a hybrid cloud strategy that works today and into the future to increase efficiency, improve IT responsiveness, and accelerate innovation. The adoption of VDI, flash, and hybrid cloud will see increased traction. If done right, cloud computing, has the potential to actually replace, and not just augment, legacy environments while adding value and increasing agility.
Cloud computing, has the potential to actually replace, and not just augment, legacy environments, thereby adding value.
THE ADVENT OF HYBRID CLOUD The nexus of social media, cloud computing, analytics, and mobility (SMAC) will continue
JANUARY 2015
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n COVER STORY
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P h o t o g r a p h b y D E LT R I M E D I A
The Path to a Software Defined Enterprise 28
INDIAN CHANNELWORLD JANUARY 2015
ARUN PARAMESWARAN Managing Director, VMware India, says 2015 will be the year of software-defined datacenter.
E
ARLY LAST year, our CEO, Pat Gelsinger, an-
nounced three key priorities for VMware to focus on globally: Software-defined datacenter, the hybrid cloud, and end-user computing. These still continue to be our priorities. Giving SDDC importance is the first step to carving out a path towards the software-defined enterprise. The priorities, specific to India, include growing our business in the government and defense segment, end-user computing, and doing business with SMBs outside of metro cities, while continuing to deepen our engagements with existing customers.
We are investing in the partner ecosystem and enabling our channels to enhance SDDC offerings. They are excited about this colossal opportunity. We expect our partners to play a much bigger role in this New Year as we continue to invest in the ecosystem. We’ve made some important changes in how we engage with our partners to help bring in more transparency, and have also introduced additional incentives to help them drive in more business from the SMB segment.
MORE OPPORTUNITIES, FEWER ROADBLOCKS
differentiate them in the market. We will continue to focus on enabling them with the skills and know-how to sell our solutions. For VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure), bandwidth is still a challenge as we cannot be assured of its consistency and reliability.
CLOUD, SDDC, AND MORE
Charting a path from today till 2020, enterThere is a big opportunity for our virtualization prises in India will leverage IT outcomes to business as the industry transits from the aging drive business benefits and increase efficiency, RISC/UNIX-based servers to the newer and control, and agility while transitioning to the more advanced x86-based architecture. Just as mobile cloud era. server virtualization changed the paradigm for Contrary to all the hype around the public server operations and management, we expect cloud, estimates show that in 2020 over 70 network virtualization to change the paradigm percent of infrastructure spends will still be for network operations and management in on-premise. It’s also clear that a hybrid model India. IDC predicted is the future and that that the ITeS and BFSI customers will be sectors will drive the looking for vendors demand for VDI in Inthat can provide a dia over the next few consistent environyears. These sectors are ment and consistent good examples where management tools data management, storacross their private The Software-defined Datacenter: It is age, and security are of and public clouds. a proven model for running highly agile, utmost importance and VMware is well flexible, scalable, and secure datacenters. We VDI can play a key role positioned to help believe that the power of software, decoupled in managing data efcustomers with this from hardware, is the way forward, whether ficiently and providing transition. Our ena customer is building a new datacenter or flexibility to employees. terprise focus and updating an existing datacenter. In today’s liquid—or strong foothold— disruptive—business with our hybrid offerenvironment, the deing vCloud Air—and Hyper-converged Infrastructure: Hypermands on IT are growthe strength of our converged infrastructure appliances help ing rapidly. To compete partner model—the customers streamline the deployment and in this environment, offering vCloud Air scale-out of software-defined IT infrastrucbusiness leaders must Network—differentiture at the speed of business. Through our be confident of IT being ates us in the market partners, we bring the simplicity of consumer able to deliver and being and enables us to appliances to enterprise infrastructure. able to partner with the provide unmatched business. It should conservice. Enterprise Mobility: As next-generation fidently deliver without We expect to see mobile solutions are unlocking new levcompromise. We rely on many more customels of workforce productivity, they will introour partner ecosystem ers move towards duce new ways to connect and build relationfor our success in the SDDC in 2015. We ships with customers. AirWatch by VMware market. It is crucial that are investing in the offers the industry’s broadest, most respected the ecosystem invests partner ecosystem portfolio for enterprise mobility management in their people and and enabling our and security. processes, and build channels to enhance competencies that will SDDC offerings.
Big Trends for Channels
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Ph o t o g r a p h by FOTO C O R P
Embracing the Brave New World of SDN ASHISH DHAWAN Managing Director, India and SAARC, Juniper Networks, talks about the company’s well-etched roadmap to ride the SDN wave. 30
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I
NDIA IS one
of the world’s fastest growing mobile markets and will remain so till 2020. Indian service providers (SPs) are investing heavily in 4G. The network is shaping India’s future as organizations want to differentiate and grow internationally through smart services. Juniper is uniquely placed to support this large-scale connectivity and build a ‘network that knows’. We are delivering success with this strategy and winning with customers globally and in India. We play a vital role in helping
them not only lower capex to build networks but also opex required to manage them. Our India R&D center has a history of over a decade which plays a key role in every product we ship.
Top Trends in 2015
OPPORTUNITIES AND ROADBLOCKS
Big Data and Networking: IoT’s generating a lot of data. There’s a need to analyze this data and the network infrastructure to make sense of it. Demand for data scientists will reach a fever pitch as solution providers and firms rethink the way they build a network infrastructure to handle the onslaught of data.
In India, we are witnessing huge growth in Internet penetration (26 percent YoY) and smartphone adoption. Frost & Sullivan predicts that there will be 80 billion connected devices by 2020, while investors and tech giants are ramping up their offerings in the IoT space. The world is moving to a place where there will be five billon connected people. The cloud will enable everything-as-a-service in an application-driven economy. The wide adoption of cloud, connected devices, mobile computing, and big data applications has a profound impact on IT and network infrastructure. Customer challenges are changing with regard to security, particularly in the enterprise. Customers must now secure a mix of traditional, virtualized, cloud, and hybrid infrastructure.
Privacy Clouds Will Be Built: Firms outside the usual high-tech fields will rely on the cloud. The rise of mobile payments, spawning connected devices and the accompanied security considerations will transform verticals in newer ways to deliver their products and services to customers. Smart Cities Demand Smart Networks: Rapid urbanization and dwindling resources is pushing governments to build smart cities. The Indian government’s announcement of $1.2 billion (about Rs 6,000 crore) investment in smart cities will create opportunities for tech companies to grow in the region and that needs to be underpinned by intelligent networks.
FOCUS ON E-TAILERS, BFSI, ITES E-tailers: There is a change in consumer behavior with online purchases going to the roof. We are witnessing a huge traffic growth because of this and that is our focus area. We see many new firms emerging in that area as trend-setters. BFSI: As per the RBI guidelines, there is a need for chief security officers in banking and insurance firms. We are leveraging security in a more proactive manner rather than the traditional firewalls and anti-virus. Other traditional enterprises: IT /ITeS is one of the fastest moving models in India. We are building large scale campuses with basic wired and wireless connectivity, including a security framework to ensure multi-tenancy across private and public cloud-based datacenters.
partners to focus on winning opportunities. We have many partner programs such as Premium Partner Enablement (PPE), and Professional Services Marketplace to take our channel strategy ahead.
SDN IS THE FUTURE SDN is the biggest change in the networking world with an increased appetite for deployment, compared to last year. Juniper has started to release aspects of our portfolio that allow our customers to make long-term investments today to support their SDN journey when they are ready. SDN (coupled with analytics) provides the agility to provision demanded services before they’re asked for rather than waiting until customers ask. Juniper has new software and hardware to help SPs build high-IQ networks and cloud environments in their SDN portfolios. Imagine what the next evolution of the network could deliver if it could inherently eliminate complexity for end-users and operators, and adapt on the fly to deliver experiences based on user preferences. Juniper delivers that optimized, automated, high-IQ network which allows realtime customization.
Our enhanced portfolio allows our customers to make long-term investments today to support their SDN journey.
EMPOWERING THE CHANNELS We continue to invest deeply in our partner base and distribution to maximize the opportunity for Juniper and our partners in the APAC region. Many enterprises moving towards a hybrid-IT model present an interesting opportunity for partners to sell into this new model. Investment has also been made in our inside sales teams who are opportunityled and work across our broad spectrum of
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Taking the Digital India Story Forward 32
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DEBJANI GHOSH VP-Sales and Marketing Group and MD, South Asia, Intel, is banking on innovative technology to make the Digital India dream a reality.
T
HE DIGITAL India
vision calls out the need for empowering citizens with technology. Several changes are anticipated. The Internet of Things will go beyond being a hype to being the change driver in our society. The year 2015 will be a year of collaboration, strategic partnerships, and end-to-end solution providers, who can make IoT relevant and real for India, which is Intel’s strength.
Together with our end-to-end solutions and our key system integrators, we are building an ecosystem to deliver the best, secured, computing solutions. It will then be important for the local ecosystem to evolve in a way that will focus on delivering end-to-end solutions in local languages. Intel has been at the forefront of simplifying the computing experience. We will increase collaboration with the local ecosystem to innovate on the Intel architecture to enable citizens to truly empower themselves with technology. Intel has a set of versatile processors to redefine the server, storage, and networking infrastructure found in datacenters. These processors will enable the rapid delivery of services for high performance computing, cloud, and enterprise segments, and offer compelling new opportunities for various sectors in a secure manner.
IOT AND CLOUD: BIG OPPORTUNITY FOR CHANNELS
As we begin realizing the Digital India vision, we will see an increase in the number of smart and connected devices across the spectrum. With 1.9 billion smart phones, 26 apps per smartphone, 20 daily transactions with datacenters per application and one trillion daily datacenter transactions, Intel Powered datacenters will grow to be the critical dependency point. In India, Intel Xeon Phi will accelerate innovation, and will focus on the growth of HPC application beyond R&D and power critical verticals like weather forecasting and education. We are also working closely with local cloud service providers to accelerate SMBs’ cloud INTEL’S NEW OFFERINGS adoption through Intel Cloud Builder Program. Innovation is the core of our business. Our inWith our ultra-low-power and affordable novations for India will focus on collaborating Quark processors, and a bevy of recent softwith the government and industry in realizing ware and hardware acquisitions, Intel is well the Digital India vision placed to lead the IoT that will accelerate market now. growth and improve In India, IoT will the economy of the be the key enabler to nation. New devices intensify our efforts that create the world towards digital transof wireless combined formation. with real sense of techTogether with our nology and smart user end-to-end solutions Provide End-to-end Solutions: Intel’s interfaces will excite based on the Intel arstrength lies in delivering smart and seconsumers and enchitecture and our key cure end-to-end solutions and managed datahance their experience. system integrators, we centers with big data analytics capabilities. In Integrated computare building an ecosys2015 and beyond, Intel will continue to levering solutions like the tem to deliver the best age these strengths to be a partner of choice sensing platform-led and secured computand trusted advisor to the government. health devices and ing solutions. speech recognition This will bring us solutions will resolve closer to fulfilling the Enhance Digital Skills: We will acceleratcritical issues in the Digital India vision, be ing digital literacy through our digital healthcare, education, it computing devices, skills for India program to impact five million and government serpublic distribution citizens by the end of 2015 and also build digivices segment. Intel’s systems, smart surveiltal capacity in the first 1,000 panchayats that strength lies in delivlance systems or the receive broadband under NOFN. ering unmatched techneed to create a strong nology innovation and back-end to manage Foster Innovation: We will foster locally rallying ecosystems tothe volume of data relevant technology innovation that will wards a common goal, generated. build solutions for India through our ‘Intel and we will continue Intel will grow to be Innovate for India challenge.’ This challenge to use these strengths a trusted technology will create solutions that are relevant for in 2015 in realizing the advisor and solution India. It is an imperative, if we want pervasive Digital India vision. provider for new-age technology adoption in the country. living in India.
Intel’s Plans for 2015
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P h o t o g r a p h b y D E LT R I M E D I A
A Network for the Internet of Everything DINESH MALKANI President, India and SAARC, Cisco, talks about IoT and the significant technology transitions in the networking world. 34
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HE YEAR 2014
has been a headline year for Cisco regarding technology and business innovation. With the Internet of Everything, and our innovations across segments and architectures, we have deepened our ability to drive demand and create new markets. With our partners, we have strengthened our focus on three things: Partner profitability, partnership commitment, and partner enablement. As reported in our fourth quarter and the overall earnings call for fiscal year 2014, India operations grew at
a healthy 18 percent for the company. In 2015, from a business perspective we see networking, security, datacenter, cloud computing, SP mobility, SP video, and the Internet of Things leading our growth in India. As technology adoption continues to grow in tier-I and -II cities, we expect the SMB segment to continue growing at a good pace and to tap that opportunity, we continue to invest in our partner ecosystem to enable them to offer a mix of solutions and strategies to end users.
Opportunities for Cisco in 2015 The Internet of Everything: The digitization of companies and the country will be powered by the Internet of Everything. We are at an inflection point with IoE and the network will play a role in all forms of IT and communication. There is a huge play for Cisco and our partners to deliver these solutions and solve business problems for our customers.
TECHNOLOGY MEGATRENDS FOR 2015 IoT, cloud, and mobility are the three clear megatrends for 2015. Companies embracing the Internet of Everything (IoE) can capture the value at stake in areas like customer experience, innovation, supply chain, employee productivity, and asset utilization. In three years, two-thirds of all datacenter traffic will be from the cloud. Cisco Intercloud Fabric allows businesses to build hybrid clouds that allow existing datacenters to extend to the public cloud according to their needs, and with consistent network and security policies. And all of it is being done in association with partners who will have a major role to play, from consulting to actually helping businesses migrate to the cloud. We are deeply focused on accelerating our move away from selling boxes and standalone solutions to selling architectures solutions; and we are enabling our partners to do the same because we believe that is the best way we can help drive business outcomes for our customers and help our partners grow at the same time.
IOE IS A HUGE PLAY FOR CHANNELS
Smart City Project: The Digital India initiative envisions a key role for IT to power country transformations, and for that, Cisco can deliver technology to the masses in areas including healthcare, education, physical security, and smart cities. We see our partners playing a pivotal role in helping us tap this great opportunity. Customized Solutions: The Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) has garnered over 36,000 customers worldwide and in the x86 Blade Server we were ranked second in the last quarter in India. The UCS business is growing at over 30 percent with over 3,600 channel partners on board globally. ambitious 100 smart cities plan, we see a big role for all stakeholders within our solutions ecosystem. While we will continue partnering with large system integrators, we are also looking to build competencies for some of our smaller partners to help them understand and deploy IoT solutions. We anticipate a huge demand for deployment of physical safety systems, and in order to tap that we are already building a complete ecosystem. In fact, we have identified a set of eight to 10 partners who would focus solely on this business. The networking industry is going through one of the most significant technology transitions in recent history—perhaps since the introduction of Ethernet and IP. Today with ACI, we are bringing programmability and automation to networking on a scale well beyond what competitors define as SDN. Most customers are no longer interested in piecing together disparate infrastructure from different vendors or buying standalone technology. Worldwide, Cisco now has over 1,000 customers for our Nexus 9000 switching platform. ď Ž
We will continue to invest heavily in IoT and the cloud technology. At the same time, we will also help our partner ecosystem grow.
We have held or grown our market share in seven of the eight categories we track. This includes L2-L3 switching, WLAN, IP telephony, video/TP, SP routing, network security, and enterprise routing. We will continue to invest heavily in IoT and the cloud and we will not only develop innovative solutions, but also help our partner ecosystem grow and enable capitalization on market opportunities. A key segment for growth in the IoT segment will be the smart cities project with adoption starting in a multitude of areas like physical security, utilities, and transportation. With the government announcing an
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The Right Arsenal to Combat New A Threats
JAGDISH MAHAPATRA
Managing Director, McAfee, India and SAARC, part of Intel Security, says the company is armed with new solutions to beat sophisticated threats. S A LEADER in the security space, McAfee is
creating real-time situational awareness for security and is helping to build the next-gen SOCs for the government and enterprises. Aiming to grow faster than the market, we are focused on emerging technologies like Advanced Threat Defense and Next Generation Firewall. We are engaging with industry forums to deepen the relevance of security among CEOs and CIOs. The biggest opportunities for us in 2015 will come from the policy and regulatory environment and the SMB sector.
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The winds of change in cloud, mobility, and virtualization will make datacenters undergo a fundamental transformation in 2015. Security, by its very nature, is a behind-thescenes technology. McAfee works closely with its partners in India to raise awareness and educate our customers in this regard. As a result, in 2014, we have seen significant success in terms of adoption.
TECHNOLOGY TRENDS FOR CHANNELS
is the only security solution that can effectively stop Advanced Evasion Techniques (AETs). AETs are used by well-resourced, motivated hackers to execute APT and targeted attacks. In 2014, McAfee integrated the NGFW into the Security Connected Architecture to provide intelligent, comprehensive, uniform, real-time, layered protection to any enterprise from endpoint, network, and out to the cloud. More mobile devices that are likely to suffer attacks and ransomware will evolve its methods of propagation, encryption, and the targets it seeks. High-level connectivity creates unprecedented security challenges in data privacy, safety, governance, and trust. At McAfee we will continue to work our way around issues and design security around SMAC, instead of addressing it as an afterthought.
Cyber espionage attacks will continue to increase in frequency as long-term players will become stealthier information gatherers, while newcomers to cyber-attack capabilities will look for ways to steal information and disrupt adversaries. Unless security controls are built in the architectures from the beginning, the rush to deploy IoT devices at scale will outpace the priorities of security and privacy. This rush and the increasing value of data gathered, processed, and shared by these devices will draw the first notable IoT paradigm attacks in 2015. SECURING THE DATACENTER Data privacy will continue to be a hot topic The traditional enterprise datacenter was aimed as governments and businesses continue to at delivering quality service reliably, securely, grapple with what is and economically to authorized access to support the corporate inconsistently defined mission. However, personal information. winds of change in the The challenge context of cloud, mobilwould ensure partner ity, and virtualization readiness and capacwill make datacenters ity building to be able undergo a fundamento address these on tal transformation in Banking: With the RBI issuing new banka priority basis and 2015. The next-gen ing licenses, as well as allowing post strengthen professiondatacenters require offices to function as full service banks, the al services at McAfee a proactive, strategic segment has suddenly expanded, creating the to offer training and approach to dramatineed for technology infrastructure to be set up advisory services to cally improve service from the start rather than as an afterthought. enterprises. delivery while reducing risk and improving Public Sector: The government’s Digital THE BIG compliance. India vision is likely to expand the nature DIFFERENTIATOR Security controls of citizen services offered, digitizing much of In response to the will be more effective our lives. While this opens up a Pandora’s box changing threat landif they are designed in terms of citizen cyber-safety, we are keen to scape and customer as a part of the archibe involved in securing the future of India. needs, McAfee acquired tecture, optimized for StoneSoft in 2013 to exeach modular compoSMB: This constituency is largely driven pand its network secunent; servers, storage, by the need for cost-effective solutions rity product line. With data, and network, and we believe that our Security Connected real-time data feeds united by a common offering will provide this sector with a much from McAfee Global policy environment. needed one-stop-shop solution that reduces the Threat Intelligence, Replace physical trust hassle while enhancing its security posture. McAfee Next Generaboundaries with setion Firewall (NGFW) cure trust zones.
Top Sectors in 2015
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Gamechangers of the Future: Mobile and Cloud KARAN BAJWA Managing Director, Microsoft India, says, in 2015, organizations will adopt a mobile-first and cloud-first strategy to get ahead of competition. 38
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ICROSOFT HAS more than 10,000 partners in
India and each one of them is part of our cloud GTM strategy. The availability of Azure and Office 365 through the Open Licensing Program enables partners to participate directly in the deployment of cloud services in the country. Azure services through local datacenters will help in embracing newer business models, especially with local hosting. It will also open up new markets and opportunities with new sectors opening up for the cloud.
Azure is also opening up significant opportunities for thousands of ISVs in India, with the option of building and hosting applications locally in India, which will improve latency.
OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES The biggest opportunity for us in 2015 is to unlock the potential of public cloud services by leveraging our local cloud datacenters. This will help us address the needs of BFSI, government, and state-owned enterprises among others, enabling newer business models in the country. Cloud adoption by SMBs and government initiatives like Digital India and smart cities are the other big opportunities. Our network of over 10,000 partners in India helps SMBs access enterprise-grade cloud solutions, while helping them reduce capex cost. The first hurdle in the way of mass adoption of cloud computing, however, is the lack of awareness of SMBs and large enterprises. The challenge is their perception of cloud computing, its impact on business, and security management. Also, the government needs to define a clear policy on the usage of public cloud. Currently, we see that the government, public sector, state-owned enterprises, and financial companies are hesitant to adopt public cloud.
THE WAY AHEAD TO THE CLOUD Organizations in the SMBs sector will adopt cloud computing. IoT will also accelerate the adoption of cloud computing in 2015. With Microsoft Cloud being available from India datacenters, many new industry and usage segments will be able to leverage the scalability, flexibility, and openness of the public cloud infrastructure. SMBs are evolving and adopting technology faster to compete in the global market, by investing in devices for anytime, anywhere connectivity and are enhancing their online presence to explore new markets. At Microsoft, we are reinventing productivity by rethinking the way we make technology, not simply producing more technology. The cloud is vital for the future, as it supports and enables the three technologies that will transform business: Social media, mobile devices, and data analytics. Through our f lexible cloud offerings, we can deliver public, private, and hybrid clouds, which
Key Projects in 2015 Pradhan Mantri Jan Yojna: This scheme will increase the number of brick-and-mortar banks and create a network of banking representatives across the country. Banks can draw on Microsoft’s strength in cloud technology to help reduce their capex, build scale, and accommodate growth in banking operations, with proper security. Digital India and Smart Cities: Microsoft has always played the role of a promoter in the use of IT to secure a rightful place for disadvantaged socio-economic groups, ensuring better governance, delivery of improved citizen services, and better cities of the future. Microsoft has a multi-domain partner ecosystem, comprising leading infrastructure and IT solutions providers, to create the required solutions and skills. Make in India: The Make in India initiative envisions a new industrial revolution by transforming India into a global manufacturing hub. Microsoft will continue to innovate, utilizing our expertise, experience, and partner network, to deliver better productivity and platforms for customers.
protect data sources enabling privacy and security.
IOT AND MOBILITY Like I said, 2015 will also see IoT gaining momentum. With Microsoft Azure IoT services, organizations can monitor assets to improve efficiency and operational performance, enable innovation, and get the most value from advanced data analytics. We will also focus on tools that empower social productivity. We are enabling real time global collaboration with Office365 to have more seamless and spontaneous ways with solutions like Delve, GroupMe, and Qik. Our CityNext smart city solutions will enable the government to have an open, two-way dialogue with citizens and better understand their needs. We are now moving towards intelligent analytical tools that understand the context in order to anticipate and prioritize, such as Cortana on Windows Phone. We live in a mobile-first, cloud-first world where devices outnumber people and create more data than is consumed, and we need to move away from allowing time and geographical constraints to dictate what we can do in a truly mobile world where people are at the center, not devices. ď Ž
Our network of over 10,000 partners in India helps SMBs access enterprise-grade cloud solutions and reduce capex.
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Blueprint for 2015: SDN and Cloud Computing NEELAM DHAWAN VP and General Manager, Enterprise Group and Country MD, HP India, on why a combination of cloud computing and SDN will dominate 2015. 40
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L
OOKING BACK at FY 2014, the Indian economy is
now better poised for growth. Research reports have given us an indication that opportunities for technology will be in foundational areas of governance, citizen services, infrastructure, banking and payment solutions, power, and telecom. Big Data Economy: In an era of increased proliferation of devices at the workplace and home, and exploding data volumes, the potential to harness this data and derive meaningful information has never been better. Advanced
analytics to make the most of the structured and unstructured data, will be a priority for CIOs. Cloud: The driving forces behind cloud computing continues to remain: Time to value, simplicity, and improvement in efficiency. The challenge for IT organizations is to control the transition to hybrid environments that combine private cloud services, public cloud services, and traditional IT. Smart Cities: Based on initiatives by the government to promote smart cities, India will start seeing an entire ecosystem being created around smart cities: Alignment of technology vendors, application developers, and citizens.
CUSTOMER-CHANNEL ENGAGEMENT HP is focused on solving today’s most challenging problems and helping customers steer through the dynamic IT landscape. Today, enterprise channel partners are seeking new ways to wrap service offerings around hardware solutions, as this will increase long-term customer engagement and profitability, and we are working with the partner community to aid them in this journey. A key focus area for us at HP, from a channel engagement perspective, is while we have a substantial presence in metros, we are keen to increase our penetration in tier III/IV cities across India in 2015. Today, the role of a CIO has evolved to impact business outcomes for the organization. Partners will play a big role in integrating technology to better utilize business budgets, as they understand the existing infrastructure of the customer and therefore can help the customer in this transformation journey. From a market perspective, there is a positive business sentiment in the country today and this will continue in 2015 as well. Building a robust technology roadmap is on every CIO’s agenda and technologies such as the cloud, mobility, security, and big data are fast gaining momentum in the Indian business landscape.
Innovative Tech From HP’s Stable HP’s Software-defined Datacenter solution: HP is the first to offer a complete, open SDN hardware and software solution, providing a single point of control for the entire network. HP has launched HP StoreOnce VSA Software-defined Storage Solution accelerating the convergence of servers and storage. HP Servers: HP Apollo family of High Performance Computing systems recently launched HP Apollo 6000 and HP Apollo 8000. HP expanded its Compute Portfolio with new platforms designed to run the most demanding mission-critical workloads on x86 architectures with higher levels of performance, scalability, availability, and efficiency. Helion: HP announced the commercial availability of HP Helion OpenStack and the HP Helion Development Platform, enabling organizations to build, consume, and manage open, hybrid cloud environments. HP also introduced its first optimized solution for HP Helion, HP Helion Content Depot. three years ago, built around delivering open, hybrid cloud solutions to help organizations build, manage, and consume workloads based on their specific requirements and needs. HP Helion addresses those customer needs and extends HP’s cloud offerings, providing a portfolio of products and services that make it easy for organizations to build, manage, and consume workloads in a hybrid IT environment. HP OpenNFV Program is a comprehensive Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) solution to help the telecommunications industry respond to market demands and accelerate innovation, allowing them to launch new services faster, easier, and with less expense, through the virtualization of telecommunications network. HP recently also announced new cloudmanaged, SDN-enabled, unified, wired and wireless network solutions that help customers to increase the agility of their network while simplifying its management. We also offer a training portfolio: HP ExpertOne, this enables partners to specialize in networking solutions that best align to their IT priorities or partner revenue objectives.
About 70 percent of our business is conducted through the channel. A strong alignment and continuous dialogue with them is crucial.
CLOUD-SDN ROADMAP With the increased use of mobile devices, cloud computing, big data, and rich media applications in the workplace, network architecture is growing more complex and network traffic is increasing the need for networks to scale and support more devices. In 2015, we will continue to build on the HP cloud and networking portfolios. HP Helion extended HP’s core cloud strategy, set in place over
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P h o t o g r a p h b y D E LT R I M E D I A
Paradigm Shift: End-User to User-First PARAG ARORA Area Vice President and India Head, India Sub-continent, Citrix, says new technologies will force organizations to take a user-first approach in 2015. 42
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The year 2015 will be a banner year for the Indian enterprise market. As new technologies foray into the IT landscape, enterprise computing will also undergo a huge change. Banking on these changes, Citrix has priorities lined up for the India market: A User-first Approach: One of the most important changes in the enterprise computing landscape would be a user-first approach. Earlier, the user was considered to be at the bottom of the IT food chain, but now he is taking the center-stage to drive new changes in IT delivery.
To give you an example, previously, devices and IT services were selected by companies for their employees without their consent. Now, several companies encourage their employees to select their work devices as well as IT services. Interestingly, emerging technologies for workspace are all designed to meet the needs of users and extremely stringent on offering superior user experience. Hence the emerging world moves from the ‘end- user’ paradigm to ‘user-first’! The Emergence of Cloud: Most of the workspace innovation will leverage the convergence of cloud and mobile computing, which is on the rise in India. In the near term, many companies will adopt cloud services, where the main advantage is content synchronization and application portability across devices. As a result, many existing enterprise solutions will revamp their offerings to provide access to the cloud. The Rise of Mobility: Mobility will play a key role. Enterprises have realized the potential of mobility as a business-enabler. The mobility-transformed business will gain benefits than the traditional ones. The impact of mobility will help move projects forward, close deals, serve customers, and collaborate with colleagues and partners whenever, wherever, without having to worry about the technical details.
STRATEGY FOR CHANNELS The year 2015, will be all about putting the userfirst. Enterprises are realizing the need to push past outdated models of computing that are solely focused on the datacenter. ‘Computing everywhere’ is becoming the norm, and users are expecting anytime, anywhere, and secure access to their data. Designing Secure Apps: In 2015, we will see a change in the way applications are developed. Security will be integrated at the design stage rather than as an add-on, after thought. Applications will become security and context-aware. Work-life Device Balance: BYOD will gain further momentum. A recent Citrix survey showed that SMBs use three to four devices in their personal and work life each. There’s likely to be an overlap of devices, so functionality and consistency are paramount for business and lifestyle productivity.
Opportunities for Channels in 2015
Mobility: The mobility-transformed business goes beyond business mobility. It’s not just about being able to move a draft e-mail from your phone to your tablet but being able to collaborate on projects, perform complex data transformations, and create a multitude of features without having to stop and think which devices and applications you’ll need and how you’ll access them. This idea fuels an infinite number of possibilities for enterprise mobility, one that Citrix will continue to innovate and drive. Data Security and Privacy: Information sharing will continue to grow across industries. This translates to higher threats of security breaches which could lead to confidential personal and financial data leaks. This is a key opportunity for Citrix since enterprises will be on the lookout for a solution with optimum security features. Digital India: Citrix views this as a key opportunity which could enable us to extend beyond tailored solutions for specific enterprises and integrate mobility at a national level.
VERTICAL AGENDA
BFSI: The banking sector which has undergone a tremendous transformation since the mid-80’s when the Reserve Bank implemented automation in banking to improve customer service, book keeping, MIS, and productivity. Over the years, banks embarked on tech-driven programs to service customers effectively. Ratnakar Bank and SVC Bank are examples of successful deployment of Citrix solutions leading to increased productivity. IT/ITES: ITeS is another key market segment where users are the most strategic asset for the business. Keeping them motivated and productive will be an interesting ongoing challenge. Mobility and virtualization technologies will be leveraged to create next-gen work places to support these type of businesses. Manufacturing: Enterprise mobility technology is being adopted in this industry to increase employee efficiency and productivity on the shop floor. In the near future, mobile workspaces, transforming businesses with solutions such as virtualization, networking and cloud services technologies will empower people to work better.
Mobility will play a key role in 2015. Enterprises have realized the potential of mobility as a business-enabler.
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Moving Towards An Outcome I Based World
PRIYADARSHI MOHAPATRA Managing Director, India and SAARC, Avaya, on how IT is transitioning from a keep-the-lights-on role to one that enables customers to deliver results. the middle of a dramatic transformation brought on by the convergence and mutual reinforcement of four mega technology trends: Social, mobility, cloud, and analytics. These are transforming the way people and businesses relate to, and use technology. Businesses, today, expect seamless networking and flexibility of use. They want a simple anytime, anywhere experience at both home and workplace. Our fabric networking solutions will support engagement by making everything
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NDIA IS in
Our strategic focus next year, will be on service organizations that are tasked to deliver outcomes to customers. flow smoothly. In 2015, we will continue to work closely with our partners to build profitable and successful businesses, and we will enable them to go to the market with exciting, new IP Office launches that will truly engage the mid-market segment in India. A strategic focus next year, will be on our services organization that is tasked to deliver outcomes to customers. This is along with the private cloud service which is a full opex model. Avaya Private Cloud Services is one of our fastest growing businesses in Avaya and materializes the appetite for private cloud solutions. With three million ports under management, we are among the largest managed services providers worldwide and we intend to drive that in India in 2015.
services we bring, the ease of management, and the integration of our solutions, the quality of the mobility experience we offer, our value proposition in transforming their experience, and of course, the speed and efficiency with which we deliver. When we approach customers and partners with this combination, we truly become the leading end-to-end communications solutions provider in India.
CONVERGENCE STORY FOR CHANNELS
We see convergence of UC/CC happening today for having a competitive edge in delivering beyond customers’ expectations. We’ve learned that our partners need to ask their customers two key questions: Do they have the application layer that enables us to exceed customers’ TRANSFORMATION ACROSS VERTICALS expectations, and do they have the network This technology transformation is taking agility and flexibility that allows us to deliver place across verticals, regardless of size. applications at a 99.99 percent business contiWhat sets us apart in the market is our abilnuity? We are helping Indian customers with ity to effortlessly customize our solutions to our business engagement solutions, fabricbusiness needs. based networks, and We are noticing a Avaya Private Cloud shift towards outcomeServices. based IT. Sometimes, Our partners, are, this is referred to as and will continue IaaS, and it summarizbeing strategic in enes what our customers abling this converwant: Outcomes. gence. India is moving In other words, they from on-premise to the Videoconferencing: In 2014, Avaya’s don’t care where their cloud, from hardware videoconferencing business grew more equipment sits, who to software, from voice than 600 percent across India, China, Rusmanages it, or which to multi-modal comsia, the Middle East, and Africa. In the next technology is used, as munication, from infew years, mobility solutions will lead. long as tools are being ventory and packaged provided to help them software to publish Deeper Engagement: When businesses run their businesses. and subscribe, from will integrate videoconferencing, not Avaya Private Cloud desktop to mobility, only as a team engagement solution, but Services helps serve and from client server also as one of the most critical solutions that just that, from the flexto grid. enable businesses, today, to deliver an omniibility of cloud-based In simple terms, channel-based customer experience, we solutions to the close India, today, requires would have gone truly mobile. integration into customcommunication, colers’ business processes. laboration, and qualWe are focused on ity experiences. It is Embrace the Cloud: Moving applicavalue-selling instead of important to connect tions to the cloud will continue to be a cut-throat approach. people and enriching a strong technology driver, whether it’s Our customers engage relationships between contact centers, unified communications, or with us because of the customers, team memvideo-as-a-service. expertise and advisory bers, and companies.
Top Trends in 2015
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Journey to the Third Platform RAJESH JANEY President, EMC, India and SAARC, says that flash storage will accelerate the growth of the third platform. 46
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HE INDIAN economy is undergoing an interesting
phase of change and there is positive momentum because of the new government which has set a positive tone for a lot of reforms in future. The technology environment is changing dramatically. The impact of the mega trends (social, mobile, analytics, and cloud) has changed the expectations of consumers and end-users who increasingly want to interact online, anytime and from anywhere, making IT more strategic than ever before. Organizations are moving to the cloud, with 76
percent now agreeing that combining public and private cloud can improve security and agility. In this scenario, EMC’s focus is to tap the burgeoning market, especially sectors such as BFSI, telecom, and manufacturing. Our key priority is to help our customers accelerate their journey to the third platform through Flash, EHC, and existing products such VMAX and VNX.
Big Breaks in 2015 The Third Platform: Emergence of SMAC is practically defining the way we work and live today. EMC India is focused on helping customers build the right cloud strategy. We are working closely with service providers to identify the requirements of customers and suggesting a solution that gives them the best business benefit.
THE FLASH STORAGE ERA Flash is a revolutionary technology with a capability to disrupt and change the way traditional storage is architected. It is reshaping the capabilities of storage arrays, performance expectations and end-to-end deployment of applications. IDC estimates that the all-flash array market will grow to $1.2 billion (about Rs 7,200 crore) in revenue by 2015 and is being embraced by Indian companies across sectors. It will be a definite game changer in 2015. EMC is the only vendor with a full breadth of solutions—hybrid arrays, all-flash arrays, serverflash caching—and hence, this segment holds huge promise. We believe XtremIO is the fastest-growing allflash array and storage array in history. VMAX is the industry’s first series of all-flash arrays available in the market with open-enterprise data service platforms. It enables the BFSI and telecom sectors to embed storage infrastructure services such as cloud access, data mobility, and data protection directly to their arrays.
HYBRID CLOUD, DATA LAKES, AND CONVERGED INFRASTRUCTURE
Technology Innovation: This is a huge opportunity for all technology vendors who can now lead with innovation in their products and services. At EMC, we refreshed our entire product line in the last one year to enable customers to take advantage of the third platform. Enabling Digital India: EMC, through academic alliance, has trained over 1,85,000 students to prepare them for opportunities. The program has evolved from courses on simple storage to courses which help them excel in the field of cloud architecture, datacenter virtualization, and deployment models.
Converged infrastructure will account for nearly 20 percent of the total IT spend by 2020. According to Gartner, EMC is the leader in converged infrastructure with Vblock and the leader in reference architecture-based integrated infrastructure with VSPEX.
LAUNCH OF BUSINESS PARTNER PROGRAM Big data and analytics are key priorities for customers today. Clearly, this is an emerging opportunity for partners. In order to equip our partners with the latest opportunities, we have designed a new Business Partner Program (BPP). The BPP provides business partners with options, support, and resources to succeed in the current marketplace while also adapting to and thriving in the next generation of IT. The BPP looks at three key attributes of technology vendor programs: Choice and flexibility to match their engagement in our program with their evolving go-to-market strategies, solutions, and services opportunities embedded within the program to make it easier to grow their businesses and access to next-generation IT (third platform) through EMC’s federation of businesses.
Our key priority is to help our customers accelerate their journey to the third platform through Flash, EHC, and existing products.
Hybrid cloud is now a reality in the Indian tech scenario. EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud Solution, delivering hardware, software, and services from EMC and VMware enables IT-asa-service (ITaaS) in 28 days. EMC is also partnering with Netmagic and Sungard Availability Services to target customers in manufacturing, healthcare, retail, BFSI, and IT/ITeS sectors. Data lakes offer a comprehensive, self-service, big data and analytics platform that enables enterprises to make faster, accurate, and data driven decisions for business. Data lakes will be one of the major focus points of IT companies in the coming years, and EMC, with its partnership with Pivotal will explore this venture.
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RAMSUNDER PAPINENI Regional Director, India and SAARC, FireEye, on the paradigm shift in today’s threat landscape and how organizations can combat new threats.
I
N 2014, more and more organizations in India
started to recognize the reality of the new threat landscape and that APTs are a serious concern. Going forward, in 2015, we are going to build on the inroads we have made to offer solutions to a wider breadth of customers. Our key priority next year is to continue conversations with CIOs and CISOs to help them understand the paradigm shift in the threat landscape and help them protect their organizations from cyber threats.
Organizations are no longer looking at APT as a standalone product to plug gaps, but as a fundamentally new way to think about security. FireEye is well positioned with products and services to deliver this new model of defense. FireEye network and e-mail appliances sit behind all other conventional security measures. Attacks detected by FireEye in these tests have bypassed all of an organization’s other security layers. We’re taking a fundamentally different approach that not only looks for known threats but also identifies and blocks new threats in real time. In our business, it’s not just about deploying a product but also providing resources to customers to help detect breaches.
tier model. Our approach is to establish a focused, high-engagement, and hands-on relationship to help our partners build consultative capabilities in the areas of security. In addition, we have a few select alliance partners such as consulting firms.
SECURING SMAC STACK
In a landscape where threats are constantly evolving and increasing in sophistication, analytics plays a very important role in building intelligence into the security system. FireEye Threat Intelligence draws on our proprietary access to MORE OPPORTUNITIES, Intel data and analytics to equip security teams SPECIALIZED PARTNERS with the context required to help effectively idenGiven the breadth of attacks across multiple tify, block, and respond to advanced threat actors. industry sectors, the total addressable market To address cyber threats, FireEye Mobile Threat has expanded significantly. Organizations are Prevention offers real-time visibility of threats no longer looking at advanced threat protection on mobile devices, displays play-by-play analysis as a standalone product to plug gaps, but as a of suspicious apps, provides an index of prefundamentally new way to think about security. analyzed apps, and generates threat assessments This opens up opportunities for us across the for custom apps. platform to protect multiple vectors and provide Cloud is a huge opportunity for us, espeservices across end-point, e-mail, web, file, and cially as more enterprises are looking to lemobile security. verage this trend to bolster their security. For There is a need to protection against build new capabilities e-mail threats, FireEye and skillsets to modernE-mail Threat Prevenize defenses, especially tion Cloud is a SaaS in the areas of breach offering that combats detection and incident against today’s adresponse. We are workvanced e-mail attacks ing closely with our and provides antiSecurity-as-a-Service: This trend will be partners to make these spam and anti-virus commonplace in 2015. Channels should services available to our protection. In many focus on delivering managed security services customers, and we need breaches, comproand fill in the gaps for organizations that can’t more people with the mised datacenters are run their own security operations. skills and knowledge to used in attacks against bridge that gap. new targets. These In India, we are foattacks are disruptCloud Delivery Model: Organizations are cused on working with a ing business, stealing a little cautious about cloud due to sefew specialized partners, priceless customer curity reasons. But many CIOs and CISOs are ensuring that they are data, intellectual propbalancing security with the cost and technolable to build capabilities erty, and damaging ogy advantages with the new delivery model and scale up to take on reputations. of the cloud. this highly specialized The FireEye solutask. Our strategy is to tion protects the core Mobile Devices: In 2014 we saw a drasengage with a few partcomponents of the datatic rise in the number of threats targeting ners in-depth, and so center including content mobile devices. Organizations need to quickly far we have been very repositories, Web and extend their defenses to mobile devices and successful in being wellapplication servers, and ensure they’re ready for the multi-vector atrepresented across the common file shares from tacks that will start via a mobile attack. country through a twoadvanced attacks.
Security Prospects
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P h o t o g r a p h b y D E LT R I M E D I A
The Power of Two: Cloud and Analytics RAVI CHAUHAN Managing Director, India and Subcontinent, SAP, on becoming a cloud company powered by HANA. 50
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UR MISSION for 2015 is to continue our efforts in
making every customer a best-run business. With over 5,600 customers in India, SAP has been at the forefront of driving the enterprise software market in India and has witnessed a significant growth across all industries. Our core competency lies in not only delivering solutions and services that help customers succeed in the current environment, but also in providing innovations that anticipate the challenges, opportunities, and
changes of the future. Additionally, our success stems from the ability to nurture, educate, and grow an ecosystem that meets customer needs, particularly in the small and medium-sized business (SMB) environment. We are progressing at an incredible pace and evolving our strategy to become a cloud company that is powered by HANA. We will transition our consumption model to the cloud where we can deliver end-to-end solutions and own the business outcomes for customers. We will also offer applications and analytics running on the SAP HANA platform, and all of this will be available in the cloud-deployment model, in addition to the on-premise-deployment model.
ACROSS VERTICALS AND MICRO VERTICALS Over the last few decades, there has been a tremendous change in India and the way it is perceived globally. With more and more people willing to take the entrepreneurial plunge and the overall rise in IT spending by Indian firms, most companies are expanding their businesses beyond traditional boundaries. Recently, we announced our partnership with International Cricket Council as its exclusive analytics and cloud partner for the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015. Through this partnership, you will see SAP utilize its HANA platform to power numerous live match experiences across ICC’s network of websites to enhance the experience of fans and the media with real-time data, statistics, and performance. We are closely working with organizations in the healthcare sector to provide them capabilities for patient engagement, patient administration and billing, and clinical care delivery. Care collaboration providers need to make better decisions while managing costs through analysis and control of business operations. The manufacturing sector has also seen a rapid growth in terms of ERP adoption. We have seen a lot of demand from verticals like consumer products, retail, telecom, supply chain, utilities, and BFSI. SAP has solutions for 26 verticals and many micro verticals within those verticals.
Three Best Practices for 2015 Emphasize on the Cloud: Information solutions will go on to the next level and become platform-agnostic. There will, therefore, be increased emphasis on cloud technologies. This, in turn, is forcing customers to demand more open standards from the industry which will help customers better consume cloud applications. Bring in Contemporary Tech: To stay competitive on a global platform, Indian companies will need business analytics, data streamlining, and decision-making processes to be on-the-ball. Technologies like SAP HANA are available anytime, anywhere, and on any device. Be Mobile-friendly: A country where mobile penetration outweighs Internet connectivity, solutions will need to be available on mobile devices to help organizations perform better. With SAP’s continued investments in mobility, a much larger audience can benefit from technology. tive technologies to handle big data becoming mainstream and more affordable, companies have started putting the necessary infrastructure for it in place. Data needs to be collated, processed, analyzed, and made available in a timely manner to users who require it to make better decisions. Owing to the advances in technology today, this is possible through various means: In-memory technology processes millions of rows of data in seconds. Analytics software not only delivers highlyvisual results in a userfriendly format, but also makes it accessible to more people instead of a handful of data analysts. Mobile technology allows information to be instantly available on mobile devices anytime, anywhere. SMAC will be a leading disruptor of the business-technology ecosystem over the next few years and will create innumerable business opportunities for enterprises in 2015. Smarter and faster decisions deliver services and solutions to those who need it on a real-time basis. We expect to see a convergence of all the SMAC technologies in 2015. Social, mobile, and analytics will become an integral part of every cloud application with a consumer-grade user interface. ď Ž
We expect social, mobile, and analytics to become an integral part of every cloud application with a consumer-grade user interface in 2015.
THE RISE OF BIG DATA In 2015, big data will further deepen its position in the priority list of CEOs. With innova-
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Envisaging a Holistic Security Strategy 52
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SANJAY ROHATGI President–Sales, Symantec India, says the company has a set of holistic solutions in place to secure organizations from security threats.
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N THE last few years, the advent of cloud has seen
many Indian organizations consciously align its pace with the digital revolution. As more and more enterprises embrace digital, it will further augment the growth of data—giving rise to the need for efficient data protection and data analysis. The year 2014 saw several new threats, vulnerabilities and data breaches such as Heartbleed and Shellshock keeping businesses and security organizations on their toes. Going forward, the security risks
We will resolve issues regarding information protection and strengthen organizations’ security armor, making them self-sufficient. are only going to intensify as new technologies center security allows organizations to secure enter the enterprise ecosystem. their physical and virtual servers. Datacenter In terms of tech trends, emerging technolosecurity architectures will evolve to build out gies such as the cloud, mobility and IoT will software-defined datacenters. continue to become disruptive forces that are Information protection now plays a pivotal radically changing the technology landscape. role due to the amount of critical data, volume In 2011, there were some nine billion connected of endpoints, and the vastness of operations devices. Today, research reports predict that in companies across verticals. As a security by 2020, the number will have soared to 24 bilvendor, Symantec touches the entire lifecycle lion, and IoT will connect machines and devices of data to keep it protected from where it’s such that they function as smart systems. Gokept, to who has access to it and finally how ing forward, billions of devices will need to be it’s guarded. authenticated, secured, and managed, and their Symantec’s crown jewel is that we operate data will be collected and analyzed. the world’s largest civilian cyber intelligence As infrastructure becomes more complex threat network making our products smarter. and information is dispersed across devices, applications, and location such as physical, virVISION FOR CHANNEL PARTNERS tual, and cloud, attackers have new avenues and Symantec manages and secures an organizagaps to exploit organition’s data within zational data. Currently, and outside of the many businesses don’t network, and plays have holistic IT security an important role practices and technoloin emerging techgies to deal with a new nologies such as the set of challenges. cloud, mobility and Symantec, as a seInternet of Things. curity vendor, is deThey will continue to IoT: IoT will become a major trend, contermined to resolve be our key focus arnecting machines and devices together issues faced by Indian eas in 2015 as well. into functioning as intelligent systems. Bilorganizations towards New trends will lions of devices will need to be authenticated, information protection have channel partsecured, and managed, and their data will be and strengthen their ners focus on the ecocollected and analyzed. security armor, making system as they work them self-sufficient. with organizations to Mobility: In the information security and customize solutions management space, mobile will become SECURING DATA that suit customers’ an even more attractive target for cybercrimiLIFECYCLE need and work tonals, compromising privacy through mobile Symantec is a leader in wards integration and applications. Therefore, security, managemanaging and securing implementation of ment, and analytics are areas where we can an organization’s data these solutions. bring a lot of value. within and outside of We are positive the network. It plays an that this step will important role in each of provide each business Datacenter: Agility in the datacenter the SMAC technologies the flexibility and will become the new IT mantra for CIOs and that will continue to focus to drive growth as more data is expected to be hosted in the be the key focus areas in and will help us in cloud. With its datacenter security offerings, 2015 as well. enabling our partSymantec provides comprehensive and strinAs the world moves ner ecosystem in a gent set of security controls for the server toward software demore structured way environment to help meet an organization’s fined everything (SDE), by bringing in our security and compliance requirements. datacenter security will competency-based witness an uptake. Dataframework.
Big Trends for 2015
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Hybrid Cloud in 2015: Reaching for the Stars SUNIL GUPTA Executive Director and President, Netmagic, an NTT Communications company, expects the hybrid cloud to be the biggest gainer in 2015. 54
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N 2015, we
will see a need for business enterprises to ‘do more with less’, and therefore they will be keen to adopt agile approaches to integration. A significant share of the budget for integration projects will be spent on infrastructure modernization, including adoption of new trends like mobility, IoT, big data, and cloud platforms. As more and more applications become cloud-ready, we will see the consumption model change for mediumsized enterprises: From build to source, and from capex
to the cloud. In India, there is a thrust toward the adoption of IaaS, SaaS, and PaaS. Fuelling this rapid adoption of cloud to move secondary and non-core applications is the surge in demand for computing resources for agility, deploying BYOD solutions, and the integration of social media into businesses. Security will also occupy the center-stage and will be a priority for most organizations. The increasingly complicated security landscape is expected to prompt multi-layer security strategies and adoption of a proactive risk management strategy. Security is the largest roadblock to rapid adoption of the cloud. A lack of cloud-friendly software licensing will affect cloud adoption, and investments made in legacy systems will be an inhibitor for customers to fully leverage hardware-based architecture. The key verticals for us in the coming year are e-commerce, media and entertainment, emerging banks, insurance, and manufacturing.
2015’s Big Opportunities Hybrid Cloud Adoption: Hybrid cloud will be adopted in a major way by enterprise customers to address their infrastructure need that can support all of their workloads, yet provide agility and elasticity of a public cloud. Security Services: There will be an expansion of security services in advanced areas like Web application firewall (WAF), DDoS protection and response to security incidents, especially for Internetcentric customers like e-commerce, and online traders. Emerging Trends: Growing adoption of trends such as big data is compounded by data growth across enterprises. In order to cater to this growth, on-demand storage is emerging as another major opportunity.
TECHNOLOGY MEGATRENDS OF 2015 Mobility, cloud, social, security, and big data will continue to drive sustainable business growth in 2015 and will require stronger IT and business collaboration. Business enterprises need mobility for their people to become more productive in a dynamic world. They need the agility and elasticity of cloud for on-demand services. Business enterprises also need social to understand the sentiments of their customer base and connect with them on a more direct level. Enterprises need big data for predictive analysis to guide their decisions and validate their assumptions. This requirement will transcend geographical boundaries and the best way for enterprises to tap into this opportunity is through a strong channel network. Additionally, and most importantly, hybrid cloud will be the biggest gainer in 2015 and beyond. In fact, more and more medium and largesized organizations are discovering that a hybrid approach provides a near-perfect combination of cost, performance, and scalability.
phenomenal since then. Looking at the overall cloud market, 70 percent of it is private cloud today, while 30 percent is public cloud. In India, security concerns mainly drove companies to opt for the private cloud model rather than going for public cloud. However, now that these concerns have been dealt with, organizations are moving to the public cloud, giving rise to an increasing use of hybrid cloud deployments. According to the report Cloud Computing in Asia Pacific: The Annual Cloud Maturity Index, 50 percent of Indian companies prefer hybrid clouds, especially in the BFSI, telecommunications, and healthcare verticals. Willingness of businesses to adopt hybrid clouds indicated that they could federate out to public cloud service providers as an extension of their private cloud network, and move essential workloads between public and private clouds, working around various data privacy concerns. Organizations in India, essentially, perceive the cloud as an agent of change rather than just an enabler. The beauty of the hybrid cloud is that it can be tailored according to business needs. ď Ž
Organizations are discovering that a hybrid approach provides a perfect combination of cost, performance, and scalability.
ADOPTION OF HYBRID CLOUD Adoption of cloud in India started with a private cloud model and the growth has been
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The Dawn of the Digital Age
The development of digital infrastructure will be a key growth driver for technology and solution providers. AKHILESH TUTEJA
D
IGITAL INFRASTRUCTURE is expected to
create significant opportunities for technology providers and their channel partners, both directly and indirectly. ICT players will play a major role in digital infrastructure development and rollout which will lead to facilities like broadband highways, steady connectivity throughout the country, and Wi-Fi zones. The government is also expected to undertake significant e-governance initiatives and it is expected that these will fuel growth for organizations engaged in software, services, and operations/ maintenance. Another sector that is likely to see a phenomenal growth will be consumer IT, comprising smart devices, services, and solutions. Consumer IT is also expected to see significant traction in the near future. There will also be a significant, indirect opportunity across verticals, where non-traditional players will provide support to digitize and innovate service delivery models. The proliferation of smart devices and their deployment in a digitallyconnected infrastructure will create opportunities for all kinds of players
in the Internet of Things arena, as they look to leverage cloud and mobile technologies. Enterprise channel partners will see a major role for themselves in the implementation and integration of applications and solutions across digital infrastructures. While both traditional and SMAC portfolios will hold relevance, a significant amount of growth potential exists in mobility and cloud technologies underpinned by security. Obviously, providers need to continue to develop their capabilities in their respective verticals as domain-specific solutions are more likely to succeed. Since a digital infrastructure promises endto-end convergence, alliances among ecosystem players will have a key role in preparing service providers to offer holistic solutions. Digital India is a $17-billion (about Rs 107,100 crore) project and is prone to facing significant execution risks like delays in infrastructure roll out. Wrong decisions and choice of incorrect design can result in long-term sustainability challenges. The other big threat is around security and privacy. A digital infrastructure is bound to increase vulnerability. ď Ž
Akhilesh Tuteja heads the IT advisory practice for KPMG in India. In addition, he is the national head of the technology and BPM sector for the firm. He has been a part of a couple of advisory committees in the Reserve Bank of India and has helped in developing frameworks and approaches for effective risk management.
Since a digital infrastructure promises end-to-end convergence, alliances among ecosystem players will be key.
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Moving to the
Third Platform Cloud and mobility are the two technologies that will fuel the rapid adoption of the third platform in India. JAIDEEP MEHTA
I
T HAS been
about two years since organizations started to explore the real benefits that third platform technologies could unlock for them. 2015 is finally expected to be a year of widespread adoption of the third platform: Social, mobile, cloud, and big data. IDC has also started to include the Internet of Things in the third platform owing to its exponential growth. In IDC’s enterprise mobility survey of 2014-2015, as much as 40 percent of respondents said that enterprise mobility is one of their top three technology initiatives for the coming year. A vast majority of companies have started moving applications like e-mail onto the cloud and are gradually looking to migrate mission-critical apps too. From an India perspective, cloud and mobility are the technologies that will fuel the adoption of the third platform. Many companies, especially SMEs, are leveraging the cloud platforms which is almost their first weave of IT adoption. So, the most popular form of cloud is software-as-a-service (SaaS). Small, home-grown, legacy applications
are now migrating to packaged applications which are being served through the cloud. As much as 70 percent of the cloud market is SaaS-based. As for mobility, sales teams are now being equipped with mobile platforms to drive sales productivity. Field service automation has also become very popular. The channel ecosystem can be divided into two parts: System integrators and the rest of the world. System integrators are equipping themselves at a very rapid rate to get onto the cloud and get to the people who can deploy mobility. They are concerned about acquiring the right skill sets. This leaves the rest of the channels with a problem to solve. Traditional people like distributors will struggle with the new technologies and have a lot of transformation to do to become viable partners for enterprises as they get on the third-platform bandwagon. Medium and small-sized system integrators should re-skill in no time to bring on third platform capabilities because this is what their customers are going to need as early as six to 12 months from now.
System integrators should re-skill to harness third platform capabilities as those will be in demand 12 months from now.
JAIDEEP MEHTA is managing director at IDC, India and South Asia. He joined the company in early 2011 to set up IDC’s wholly-owned subsidiary operations in India, and subsequently in South Asia. He is a thought leader, advisor to CEOs, and an international conference speaker. Prior to his current role, he was based in London, and worked at Gartner for over five years where he was regional vice president-Sales Operations and Business Development, EMEA. A graduate from Shriram College of Commerce, Delhi University, Jaideep completed his MBA from IIM-Bangalore, and the Manchester Business School, UK.
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Enhancing Digital
User-Experience How digital transformation is impacting the way companies engage with their customers. KARTHIK ANANTH
D
IGITAL TRANSFORMATION is no longer a
catchphrase for enterprises. Among other emerging technologies, one of the key trends that has become the biggest driver for the increasing digital appetite of businesses is the adoption of mobile phones by end consumers in India. As a result, the way users interface with enterprises has also changed. Consumers, today, are not just discovering products online but are also buying them. Their interactions have become mobile-first. This is forcing enterprises to transform. They need to deliver a uniform customer experience across all areas: Offline stores, mobile phones, tablets, PCs, and kiosks. This trend isn’t just impacting customer experience but also the way enterprises engage with their employees as well as partners. Therefore, in order to improve their digital dialogue with customers, organizations need to devise a robust IT strategy. The primary objective of this IT strategy should be to increase focus on customers. Enterprises must aim for a uniform customer experience across all facets of business. Focus equally on busi-
ness model transformation to make everything happen. Organizations, at the same time, must not take the security aspect lightly. With the increasing shift towards online and the customer experience being digital, it is important that organizations ensure security and privacy, and customers are comfortable in engaging with them online. However, with the proliferation of mobile devices, as data becomes more omnipresent, organizations must look at creating channels which will help them gather intelligent data on their customers from sources such as mobile apps or other social platforms. The objective of Indian enterprises should be to put in place a plan to capture client data across all touch points. The growth of digital transformation also brings an opportunity for solution providers and system integrators to help enterprise and small business customers expedite their digital journey. To tap into these opportunities, it is extremely critical that solution providers have the domain expertise to help clients. If solution providers don’t understand the client’s business, they won’t be able to advise them on the impact of digital disruption.
If solution providers don’t understand their client’s business, they won’t be able to advise them on digital disruption.
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KARTHIK ANANTH is Director at Zinnov Consulting. He currently leads the marketing initiatives at Zinnov and also actively helps deliver multiple initiatives run by the organization. His responsibilities include handling brand strategy and development, creating thought leadership platforms through PR, managing social media and online marketing, and working with global teams. He is a dynamic leader with a blend of excellent business development skills, strong business delivery capabilities and has consistently contributed to the growth of the research agency.
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n STRATEGIC INSIGHTS
Fostering New Relationships
In order to adopt a digital business strategy, channel partners need to establish relationships with LoBs. PARTHA IYENGAR
D
IGITAL BUSINESS, today,
is more about business and less about digital. As a result, the driver for many digital business initiatives arises out of business units. For most companies, IT is perceived to be the one that runs business units and does not possess the wherewithal for digital business initiatives. Hence, there’s a sense of urgency around adopting a digital business strategy that prompts CEOs to accelerate the process of individual departments adopting relevant technologies to drive digital business initiatives—independent of IT. Because of this growing trend, the onus lies on the technology providers of 2015 to transform a reasonable part of their sales force (for some, as much as 50 percent) and sell it to businessbuying centers. However, India has a unique challenge in this regard, because we are culturally not a sales and marketing-driven country. We do not produce enough sales people with the requisite soft skills to support the above requirements. Going forward, revamping the sales approach by creating a skill base with the help of
technology programs is the singlebiggest need, and a challenge, for technology providers. Technology providers’ focus in 2015 should be to ensure that the relationship they have traditionally built with CIOs does not go waste. In order to do that, the first step is to identify the credibility a CIO has within an enterprise. If his credibility with the business is low, hitching the channel’s future to the CIO is a big mistake. Channel partners must also look at building separate inroads and relationships with business leaders, independent of the CIO. If the CIO has high credibility within the enterprise, the channel should actually use him/her to establish relationships with business stakeholders directly. In case the CIO has reasonable credibility with the business, but is not seen as a strong business leader, channel partners should use the relationship with the CIO and IT as a bridge to articulate the business value their own efforts have delivered to various business stakeholders and then use that as the ice-breaker to start establishing relationships with business leaders.
Channel partners must look at building different inroads and relationships with business leaders, independent of the CIO.
PARTHA IYENGAR is vice president and a distinguished research analyst at Gartner’s CIO research, service, and operational technology management team. He is also country manager-Research, India, and is responsible for managing India’s research agenda. His research interests include strategies pertaining to CIOs, their direct reports, service management and sourcing issues, and the emerging areas of ITOT integration management. In addition, he covers business and IT strategy, the business value of IT, IT measurements, CIO leadership issues, and the changing role of the CIO in a globalized world.
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n STRATEGIC INSIGHTS
Beating
the Bad Guys Organizations will need to turn inwards to establish robust information security strategies. SIVARAMA KRISHNAN
W
ITH THE prolif-
eration of smart devices, organizations in India have become particularly vulnerable. They need to be cognizant of the various vectors and means that threat actors deploy to exploit vulnerabilities. Importantly, organizations will need to move beyond perimeter security and look at pre-emption strategies in the form of behavioral monitoring and analytics. With the rise in IP traffic and data growing at a rapid speed, networks are being threatened like never before. The new threat landscape has taken many shapes and definitions. The weakest link in the security apparatus is an employee with access to organizational systems through his own device. These threats are commonly attached with the concept of Bring Your Own Device. Hence in 2015, organizations will need to turn as much inwards as they look outwards to establish robust information security strategies. India is emerging as a significant market for security services and products as organizations across various verticals are now investing in building a robust security posture.
India as a country is also emerging as a vital market for sourcing security skills. OEMs, in particular, will find opportunities in areas like supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), telecommunications, biometrics, and mobility. Security products and services are linked around these new-age areas, and are only expected to become further prevalent in 2015. Systems integrators and enterprise channel partners, on the other hand, will see good business potential from the security domain. They will have a big role to play as the market for implementation and customization services at the customer end grows. Also, the need for engaging with a talented pool of security professionals and experts will develop into a key opportunity for them. A flexible and contextually aware security strategy, ably supported by investments in three core areas—technologies, processes, and people—will alone create bulwarks for meeting the security menace in the coming year. The focus of CIOs and CISOs needs to shift from transactional or incident-driven security to operational or internalized, everyday security.
The focus needs to shift from transactional or incident-driven security to operational or internalized, everyday security.
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SIVARAMA KRISHNAN is executive director at PwC’s Consulting Practice. He joined the firm in 1994 and became a partner in 2006. With over 18 years of experience, Krishnan’s focus is on financial services, e-governance, IT security, and telecom. He advises organizations in matters related to business strategy, IT strategy, regulatory compliance, risk management, process improvement, product development, ERP and application selection, project and program management, vendor evaluation, and bid process management.
n STRATEGIC INSIGHTS
Going Truly Mobile
India is embracing mobile faster than mature economies. Here’s what it needs to watch out for to do it well. VIKRAM SEHGAL
F
ORRESTER HAS predicted
that in 2015 smart phones will enter the mass market, with more than 36 percent of adults across Asia-Pacific owning these devices. In other parts of the world, marketing teams tend to lead mobile initiatives, but in Asia-Pacific, CIOs will leading—or are at least trying to. Setting up the right structures, teams, capabilities, and practices to guide, improve, and develop compelling mobile services will be critical to becoming a true digital business. Despite poor 3G networks and low smartphone penetration, India is embracing mobile at a faster rate than mature economies. Mobile will remain small in terms of spending, but will command a growing portion of marketing’s focus. CIOs must work with other executives to establish an office of the chief mobility officer or a mobilesteering committee to implement an enterprise-wide mobile strategy. This team will coordinate business and tech investments under a designfor-mobile-first mantra, which delivers profitable growth with stickier offerings, moves faster along the mobile learning curve, aggregates
mobile project budgets to fund engagement tech, and grows from an IT group focused on record systems to a business technology group focused on engagement systems. Other trends around mobile in Asia Pacific is that businesses in will further embrace mobile messaging for customer engagement. Another trend is that organizations will have too many mobile strategies. Forrester’s surveys have shown a challenge companies face when developing a great mobile strategy is having too many mobile strategies. These strategies all drive different customer outcomes— meaning that the customer does not have a consistent experience. Finally, there will be a need to partner to get access to compelling content. Implementing an effective mobile strategy requires an understanding of location and context—a person using an app from bed on a cold winter morning could have a different need than someone using the same app on the bus on the way to a movie. Companies leading the mobile mind shift in Asia Pacific will focus more on establishing partnerships to make their content more compelling and useful.
One of the biggest challenges companies face when developing a great mobile strategy is having too many mobile strategies.
VIKRAM SEHGAL is vice president and research director at Forrester Research. He leads the forecast team, which is responsible for producing all forecasts within M&S research. He focuses on consumer commerce segments including retail, travel, and financial services. He is keenly involved in understanding the evolution of consumers’ online behavior and technology adoption. Sehgal did his MBA from Virginia Tech and acquired a bachelor’s degree in commerce from N.M. College, Mumbai, India.
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Focal Point EVERYTHING ABOUT IT BUDGET
IT Spending
on an Upswing As purse strings loosen up, CIOs blend innovation into the IT budgets of 2015. But security and cost containment remain top priorities. By Stacy Collett
I
T’S IT budgeting time
for 2015—and Barr Snyderwine is reaching for the stars. “I’m going to present over 20 percent in increased IT spending” to the executive team, says the CIO at Hargrove Inc., a trade show and event services company in Lanham, Maryland. “I’m go62
ing to present everything I think we should be doing.” On his wish list? Mobile technologies that will make it easier to access floor plans and information from the trade show floor. Those technologies will have to be integrated with internal workflow systems “so it’s a little harder [and more ex-
INDIAN CHANNELWORLD JANUARY 2015
pensive] to roll those out,” Snyderwine explains. He’s also throwing in some “teasers,” such as a request for 100 Microsoft Surface tablets. “Those are fabulous devices, but a little pricey. We deal with a lot of graphics, so to put them on tablets at show sites, blow them up, see them and [manipulate] them—that could be a really killer app for us,” Snyderwine says. He admits that the use case for such a splurge “isn’t there yet,” but he figures “it’s worth putting out there.” When it comes to new technology, business leaders don’t know what they don’t know, he says. Therefore, its part of his innovation strategy to make all parts of the organization aware of new technologies that can improve business processes and bring in new customers. And why not? With the economy slowly improving, IT leaders are more optimistic that corporate purse strings will loosen up in 2015, and they’re eager to bring new technologies into the fold in addition to just keeping the lights on. Computerworld’s annual Forecast survey of IT executives shows that IT budgets are indeed continuing to make a nice recovery. Some 43 percent of the 194 respondents said that they expect their IT budgets to increase. That’s up from 36 percent in last year’s study. This year’s average anticipated uptick is 13.1 percent, and overall, the expected changes in IT budgets reported by all respondents averages out to 4.3 percent. IT is expected to again kick up spending on security tools, customer-facing technologies and information exchange/collaboration technologies that comprise
the so-called SMAC stack— social and mobile tools, analytic systems and cloud computing. Meanwhile, it’s likely that hardware spending will continue to drop and services budgets will continue to rise. Here’s a look at what IT leaders say is on tap for 2015.
SECURITY High-profile security breaches at Home Depot, Target, Michaels and myriad other companies— along with the explosion of mobile technologies—have propelled security spending to the top of the IT priority list for 2015. Nearly half (46 percent) of the IT leaders who responded to our poll said that they will invest more next year in access control, intrusion prevention, identity management, and virus and malware protection. “Whenever there are these high-profile incidents, it does tend to drive IT security spending even more quickly than it already was,” Stephen Minton, an analyst with the IDC Global Technology and Industry Research Organization, says. Security spending has been a constant growth area for the past decade—rising at double-digit rates every year, he adds. Balancing security and agility are top spending priorities for next year at Georgetown University in Washington. That’s a tall order considering the IT department endured a 5 percent spending cut in 2014 and will see no new funds next year. But by squeezing out IT efficiencies and centralizing some functions, the department was able to free up several million dollars for new projects. “We get roughly 45 million hits against our net-
work on a yearly basis,” CIO Lisa Davis says. “We know that we’re a target—in terms of higher education and being on an unclassified network—so we have to be very diligent in how we’re managing [security]. But at the same time, we want to bring agility and have the freedom and openness that we want to support our academic and research environments.” So Davis says that she’s focusing a portion of her budget on a more proactive security posture that inves in a FireEye threat prevention platform that will “allow us to be responsive to security threats on our network so that we really understand what’s going on.”
CLOUD COMPUTING Companies continue to move away from big infra-
software suite and Dropbox’s file hosting service. “I want to be the IT guy who’s out of the IT business,” Dodds says. “I don’t have to have servers, and [employees can] bring whatever computer they have or I’ll just buy them a Chromebook. We can connect to a virtual desktop that’s always ready, clean, updated and secure—and all I have to worry about is my Internet connection.” He says he hopes to see his dream become reality in two years, but right now most of his IT dollars are still spent “just trying to keep the lights on.” For many companies, migrating to the cloud doesn’t require new IT dollars— just a shift away from infrastructure spending. “When companies move things to the cloud, they’re spending less on traditional on-prem-
dedicate IT dollars to enterprise analytics, data mining and business intelligence in the coming year. “The theme for IT spending in 2015 is all around digital business,” says Richard Gordon, a U.K.-based Gartner analyst. “So you’re seeing spending in things like analytics. There’s a wave of data coming from customers and social media. And as the Internet of Things rolls out, there will be even more information on customers. Businesses are scrambling to figure out how they can extract value from that information.” Georgetown’s Davis says higher education is just beginning to understand the value of big data and how to use analytics. In 2015, the university will marshal the resources and dollars necessary to kick off an enterprise
APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT More than one-third (38 percent) of our respondents said that they will spend money on developing, upgrading or replacing applications, including mobile apps. At trade show company Hargrove, Snyderwine says he plans to spend the largest chunk of his 2015 IT budget (30 percent) on application development. Customers visit the Hargrove website to order carpeting, chairs and labor for their displays, and he says “it’s time for a refresh” of the company’s threeyear-old customer-facing app. Snyderwine says he wants to build new apps and upgrade others to get more functionality and a “modern Windows 8-type interface,” and he will probably use a third party to do that. “I
With the economy slowly improving, IT leaders are more optimistic that corporate purse strings will loosen up in 2015, and they’re eager to bring new technologies into the fold in addition to just keeping the lights on. structure investments in favor of cloud-based systems. More than 40 percent of the respondents to the Computerworld Forecast survey said that their organizations will spend more on software as a service (SaaS) and a mix of public, private, hybrid and community clouds in 2015. Nevitt & Associates, an agricultural asset management company in Queen Creek, Ariz., will increase IT spending by 15 percent in 2015 after two years of flat budgets, says CIO David Dodds. As much as half of next year’s IT budget will go toward licensing for cloud-based offerings such as Microsoft’s Office 365
ises technology. So instead of buying their own servers, storage and systems, they’re buying infrastructure as a service or software as a service,” says Minton. There are exceptions, though. Small and midsize companies—which may have the most to gain from the increased capabilities and lower maintenance needs of hosted systems—would require budget increases to move to the cloud. “So it does drive some new spending,” he adds.
BUSINESS ANALYTICS Big data is still a big deal for enterprises. Some 38 percent of the IT executives we surveyed said they will
CRM project that will include a business intelligence and analytics platform from Blackboard Inc. Davis says the Blackboard tools will allow Georgetown to follow students’ data threads while they’re enrolled as undergraduates and after they become alumni. “We’ll be able to leverage those data sets so we understand what our undergraduate students are doing, what activities they’re in and who they’re networking with,” she says. When they’re out in the worlds, the university will be able to track their careers and “determine the likelihood of them giving back to the institution,” she adds.
need different skill sets that I don’t have in-house, so I’m going to outsource a lot of that,” he explains. For its part, Cross Country Home Services, a Sunrise, Fla.-based home warranty provider, plans to increase IT spending 10 percent to 15 percent next year as it ventures into new lines of business and the consumer channel. One of its top priorities will be developing mobile apps for its traditional and new offerings. For instance, the company’s new total home management website, TotalProtect.com, can be used on mobile devices, but “it’s a different experience than using a mobile
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n FOCAL POINT | IT BUDGET app,” CIO Joel Steigelfest says. “We want people to be able to enroll or initiate a claim through their mobile device, so we’re doing more of that kind of investment,” he explains.
WIRELESS/MOBILE Mobile spending rounds out the top five budget items for 2015 identified by respondents to the Computerworld Forecast survey. Some 35 percent of the respondents said that their organizations plan to invest in RFID technology, remote access tools, Wi-Fi, mobile/ wireless devices and mobile device management systems. “There’s a lot of investment around not so much the devices now, but more on the infrastructure and custom application development,” Minton says. Companies also plan to spend on technology to support bring-your-own-device programs—most notably the systems necessary to provide secure mobile access to internal systems, he adds.
NOT MAKING THE CUT While spending will increase in some areas, it will inevitably decline in others. Hardware was the area most commonly cited as a target of cuts in the Computerworld Forecast survey, with 24 percent of the respondents saying that their employers will decrease spending on servers, desktops, laptops, and other types of equipment. And with more companies thinking about outsourcing IT operations or moving systems to the cloud, 19% percent of those polled said legacy systems modernization or replacement will be put on the back burner and 16 percent said 64
that they will spend less on data center consolidation and optimization. “We’re making concerted efforts to spend less money on on-premises infrastructure and . . . data centers,” says Georgetown’s Davis. “We want to leverage cloud solutions or technologies in order to find ways to be more efficient and effective.” But hardware spending isn’t going away anytime soon for the majority of companies. “Moving everything to the cloud is not going to happen overnight,” says Minton, who estimates that 70 percent to 80 percent of IT budgets
cast survey respondents said they expected cuts in spending on ERP and CRM systems, individual point applications, Web services and service-oriented architecture, open-source tools, operating systems, e-business software and content management tools. There was a tie for fifth place on the list of the areas most commonly earmarked for cuts next year: 14 percent of the respondents said their organizations would dial back spending on unified communications technologies, such as email, instant messaging, telephony and videoconferencing, and another 14 percent
But body cameras require a huge investment in storage, networks, hardware and maintenance, says Jeff Stovall, CIO of the Charlotte city government. “That level of change in investment is not going to come without a sacrifice somewhere else,” Stovall says. “That’s where prioritization comes in: What’s really important to the city versus what’s really important to the individual department?” Charlotte increased IT spending by 13 percent for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2015, but after that, the budget will probably remain flat, Stovall explains.
The theme for IT spending in 2015 is all around digital business. So you’re seeing spending in things like analytics. There’s a wave of data coming from customers and social media. And as the Internet of Things rolls out, there will be even more information on customers. usually go toward maintenance and upkeep. “We think it’s going to take as long as a decade for the whole journey to the cloud to pan out,” he explains. In fact, IDC predicts that spending on physical hardware will rise slightly in the first half of next year before slowing down again, because the tight budgets of recent years left many companies overdue for upgrades to their on-premises servers and storage systems. IDC expects spending on PCs and desktops to follow the same trajectory. “We’re definitely going into a little bit of a resurgence in PC shipments that will be a temporary thing and then die off by this time next year,” Minton says. Investments in on-premises software will also cool off: 15 percent of the Fore-
INDIAN CHANNELWORLD JANUARY 2015
said they foresee a decline in expenditures on storage, including network-attached storage and storage-area networks.
COST CONTAINMENT STILL A TOP PRIORITY Even though many of them will have more money to spend next year, 53 percent of the IT professionals surveyed said that containing costs is among their top priorities. Next on the list of priorities were automating business processes (cited by 47 percent of the respondents) and optimizing existing investments (cited by 44 percent). For example, the police department in Charlotte, N.C., is looking to purchase body cameras for more than 1,000 officers—a big issue for police departments across the country.
His primary goal for the second half of 2015 will be to drive transparency into how each city department is spending on its own IT projects, and how that spending aligns with the city’s priorities. “Transparency forces prioritization discussions at the level of the city manager,” Stovall says. “That is different from the stove-piped prioritization discussions of the past.” The key is open communication, says Jason Hayman, market research manager at TEKsystems, a Hanover, Md.-based IT services, staffing and talent management company that analyzes IT spending. The whole C-suite needs to communicate the priorities of the organization and then decide what tools are going to be used to meet
those goals. Once an application is chosen, everyone must agree on who’s in charge and how the technology will be supported, he adds. Business units have been known to go rogue and purchase their own systems, Hayman says. And then, “all of a sudden they’re calling IT saying, ‘This system needs to plug in with other applications,’” he notes. “It causes back-office or technical issues, and the CIO didn’t even know this was going on, or budget for it.” It boils down to making sure there’s transparency and communication within the business units. Executives from all areas of the organization need to be on board and say, “Here is what we’re going to do, here are the objectives and the appli-
cations we’re going to invest in,” Hayman says. “[Then] the CIOs can make their best judgments.” As Snyderwine gets set to present his hefty IT budget proposal to the Hargrove executive team, he acknowledges a dose of reality. While he’d like an increase of 20 percent, he says, “I think I’ll probably come in at around 10 percent.” But that won’t dull his optimism. “I’m not presenting gadgets; I’m presenting use cases of what technology does for the customer—and they’re looking at the sales numbers,” he says. With the right pitch, technology and sales should be able to move forward together, he says. “As we say in the trade show business: The show must go on.” And while IT leaders are finding ways to squeeze out
BECAUSE
Better information EQUALS
extra budget dollars for their own innovation strategies, there’s often even more innovation spending going on outside the department’s purview—a growing trend in large organizations. Today, 30 percent of IT spending happens outside of the IT organization in large enterprises, and that figure could steeply grow to 50 percent over the next few years, Gartner’s Gordon says. In many cases, business units are bypassing IT and buying technology themselves to deliver products and services more quickly. The implications for IT departments include a loss of control over enterprise technology and perhaps a decrease in the amount of money allocated directly to IT for innovation.
“ We encourage partners to chalk out a long-term strategy, each time an organization needs a new security widget. - Andrew Littleproud, President, McAfee
Better business Read the latest interviews from the biggest names of leading IT organisations on their company direction, technology roadmap and channel strategies.
Read more at
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“ We are looking for disruptive partners who want to be a part of a big change in the industry. - Adam Judd, VP, Asia Pacific, Brocade
that a lot “ The common mistake folks make is
of vendor marketing that they think the channel can do ‘marketing’ for them. - Julie Parrish, SVP&CMO, NetApp
Gartner sees the rise in what some observers call shadow IT as part of a shift toward what it has dubbed “bimodal IT”—a moniker that conveys the idea that organizations need two speeds of IT: traditional and agile. Traditional IT is focused on strong efficiency and safety, approvalbased governance and price for performance. Agile IT, on the other hand, is focused on supporting prototyping and iterative development, rapid delivery, continuous and process-based governance, and business value. Gartner finds that organizations are most successful when they have two modes of IT—with different people, processes and tools supporting each. “Often, that duality requires spreading out IT projects throughout business,” Gordon says.
n PLAINSPEAK
YOGESH GUPTA
2015: Scope, Cope, Hope If hope played a role in helping enterprise IT companies in India get through 2014; the next year will demand a new strategy: Scope, Cope, and Hope.
Yogesh Gupta is executive editor of ChannelWorld. He is a computer engineer. You can contact him at yogesh_ gupta@idgindia.com 66
I
T’S THAT TIME OF THE YEAR AGAIN. With the New
Year just round the corner, bucket lists are being made and expectations and resolutions are flying thick and fast. In my column last December, I elaborated on how technology companies in India hoped to create profitable businesses in 2014. At that time, the IT industry was going through a phase of unpredictability, what with the flux in IT investments, over-hyped new technologies, and the uncertainty of the general elections. Twelve months later, the market climate has changed for the better. For starters, IT projects moved faster in the latter half of the year, and most CIOs have healthy IT budgets, which they plan to invest in new technologies. All in all, there’s a distinct hint of positivity in the market. Today, there are more opportunities for players in the enterprise IT space, but tech companies—and their channels—need to cope with the massive shifts in the technology world. If hope played a role in helping enterprise IT companies in India get through 2014; the next year will demand a new strategy: Scope, Cope, and Hope. Gone are the days when only tier-I partner organizations profited from the SMAC stack. According to the latest State of the Market 2015 survey, conducted by ChannelWorld, tier-II channels expect to make close to 18 percent of their revenues from SMAC technologies in 2015. That’s a significant number. Most vendor companies—even hardware ones—are super bullish about SMAC (often referred to as the 3rd platform). Companies failing to capitalize on this trend can expect a rough 2015. The SMAC trend opens up opportunities for channel partners, but it also creates challenges in the form of a skills shortage. To gain from the SMAC stack, partners will have to build an army of pre-sales and sales staff around it. But
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competent specialists—especially those with expertise in big data and cloud computing—might be difficult for channel companies in India to find. They’ll need to either upskill their existing teams or hunt for new team members. And they do not have much time to do that. Traditional companies also need to come to terms with the decline of hardware sales with the advent of SDx. Everything in the enterprise IT world is becoming software-defined. Almost all analyst firms, and OEMs, swear by this trend. Our survey reveals that hardware sales slid below 50 percent in 2014, and a further slide is expected in 2015. Services, on the other hand, will see a rise and will be a core focus in the next year. The question is: Can you cope with that shift in the market and do you have the agility to become a software and services-led company? It will mean a 360-degree turn for the GTM strategies of those companies over the next year. If you thought IT buying patterns, CIO expectations, ROI/ TCO equations, and the tech landscape changed faster than you could imagine in 2014, you’d best get ready for 2015. Accept the shift. Brace your teams. Devise a great plan. Here’s wishing you a great New Year and a profitable 2015!.