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Identifying a clear void and huge potential for data management and storage services in the Middle East market, Vedantham established StorIT Distribution, thirteen years ago. Reminiscing, he says, “We had a bit of industry knowledge in data storage technology, a bit of vision and a lot of luck, of course. We had been here in the Middle East, eight to 10 years prior to launching StorIT. And at that time, we saw the huge gap in the market— noone was catering particularly to the data storage space.” There was also a huge void in terms of support, knowledge and committed vendors, especially in the distribution model at that time. Overcoming these obstacles, the aim of the organisation was to combine the best breed of technology with the right kind of skills, in order to offer a turnkey, end-to-end solution. “That was where the opportunity was,” Vedantham says. “Today, we got the best possible portfolio from across the world. Compared to any other solutions provider in storage, our profile couldn’t get any better.” Although a well-established brand now, the company did go through its own set of challenges to be considered a success story today. Having started out at a time when the data management space was in its earliest stage, the first major hurdle was convincing customers. “Selling a simple data protection or data backup solution used to be a challenge when we started out 12 years ago. Data was not so critical and moreover, the awareness didn’t exist. When we approached senior IT managers, we had to explain why data backup is important. Back then, even banks didn’t think it was a critical point.” Today, data is one of the most important assets for any company, across industries. It is about the kind
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Reseller Middle East
may 2014
StorIT Distribution
of data that organisations have. How secure is it? How to protect it and how fast can it be retrieved? And now with data exponentially increasing into petabytes and zettabytes, it is also about how efficiently it is
had launched its 100 percent subsidiary earlier this year, called Data Science Technologies (DST). “We see ourselves in the Big Data space today where we were around 12 years ago with data storage – it’s
“We literally act like a systems integrator at a distribution level. That’s the mindset you need to get to the table to be successful and that’s what we did from day one.” managed. “Organisations want their IT departments to be able to efficiently save data at a minimal cost,” he explains further. Not having the right skills was another big hurdle, one that the company took seriously and mitigated by investing into it, which then became one of its market differentiators. Shortage of skills is a challenge the industry continues to grapple with. The key is to first identify which phase the business is into and then get the right kind of skills and domain expertise it calls for, Vedantham says. “Make sure you get the right skill set and then you are in the game for a longer term. We have been training and enabling our resellers in all aspects including technical training, and this is a continuous action.” BIG DATA The world of IT is dynamic, disruptive technologies such as cloud and Big Data will transform business models. “But we need to be ready for this,” he says. Identifying an opportunity in Big Data space and wanting to leverage first-mover advantages, the company
just in its nascent stage with so much more to come. StorIT is well poised to take the lead and therefore, we set up an independent vertical called DST because technologies like Big Data calls for additional skills. We are the only distributor who can actually walk the Big Data talk and that has been our pioneering effort,” he adds. With the channel being its forte, DST is aimed at developing consultancy skills and industry knowledge over and above understanding new technologies such as Hadoop. Enterprises have been investing in collecting data over the last few years but to harness the value of the data is the real challenge. Technologies such as Hadoop enables one to scan through entire petabytes of data that have been collected but not analysed before due to lack of resources. He further explains, “We have gathered the expertise to sit down with any kind of client from any vertical. Big Data helps you in better decision-making.” Having seen a significant progress in terms of real-time deliverables when it comes to Big Data analytics,
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