PLUS
TE Connectivity’s Partner Summit in Tier 1 Cities /22
india’s first IT magazine for sme business VOLUME 04 | ISSUE 08 | PAGES 54 | OCTOBER 2013 | RS. 20/-
SME TREND
/42
Quantum: Growing focus on SMBs
SECURITY CORNER /46 Trend Micro: Focus on 3C’s
SME TREND
/44
Netapp: Add cloud capability in an enterprise data center
CHANNEL BEST PRACTICES A successful channel relationship has become vital for today’s business environment and vendors are following best practices to turn them from just channel partners to trusted sales partners /30
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RIGHT SOLUTION. RIGHT OPPORTUNITY. RIGHT HERE. SMB Success Starts with McAfee www.mcafee.com/SMBSpecialization McAfee has the solutions tailored to the unique security needs of SMBs. Whether SaaS or on-premises, single solutions or bundled suites, monthly billing or annual billing—we’ve got what your customers need. And we have the resources you need to help drive sales to this ripe market. For McAfee SMB partners, that’s one profitable relationship. With attractive margins, accelerated SMB Deal Registration, and the McAfee Rewards Program, partnering with McAfee adds up to incredible opportunity. Make the right move. Partner with McAfee today.
© 2013 McAfee, Inc.
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PLUS
India SMBs Server Market Growing at 12 percent /20 www.smechannels.com
india’s first IT magazine for sme business VOLUME 04 | ISSUE 08 | PAGES 54 | OCTOBER 2013 | RS. 20/-
SECURITY CORNER /26
GUEST TALK
SME TREND
/52
Panasonic: Trends in Digital Signage market in India
HID: Securing Identity
/48
BPE: Engaging the Partners
MY EXPERIENCE EDITORIAL
IMPORTANCE OF CHANNEL BEST PRACTICES SANJAY MOHAPATRA editor@smechannels.com
ORGANISATIONS CAN’T do without channel partners. No matter a business is big or small to establish foothold in the market partners come to play a pivotal role. Partners can take their product and services to the remotest of the places and to the customers hitherto inaccessible to vendors. It is their reach both in terms of physical and personal relationship which endears the vendors to reach out to them. But a partner-vendor relationship is a fragile one and to make the bonds stronger and last longer it has to be nurtured and cared for. There need to be genuineness in the relationship, based on trust and loyalty and yes, profitability too. This is what our cover story is based on: the channel best practices that vendors follow to keep their partners in good humour. It does make sense; it’s the partners who are ultimately the ‘face’ of the product or the company. They way they handle the products, take it to the market, the rightful customers can make to break the image of the company. This is where channel enablement, training, educating on the products, enabling them with the right sales and marketing tools come in handy. But the fact of the matter is like any business the main driver for the channel partners or for that matter any business is profitability. In these hard times with the shrinking margins everyone is looking for ways to differentiate themselves in the market. The partner programs that are launched in the market to help partners make sales should be formulated keeping the mind what’s best for both of them; and not just one sided. One do keep hearing from the partners how these program are nothing but vendors dumping their stuff on them in the garb of helping them make sales. Trust is a two way road. Some partners also rue to the fact that vendors do not trust them and this further discourages the partners. Committing to this relationship is not just the vendors or the partners’ job; both sides need to give their best to make the relationship a success. Vendors need to be committed to the responsibilities and not stray from what they promised to their partners; and partners in return need to fulfil their part of the agreement only then will this marriage work.
ZyXEL UAG4100 Unified Access Gateway ZYXEL Communications’ UAG4100 Unified Access Gateway is a new hospitality gateway which delivers best-in-class services and achieves high customer satisfaction for businesses in the hospitality industry. The UAG4100 supports dual radio frequencies, 2.4GHz and 5GHz, to serve two times of users than legacy Wi-Fi gateways. The design of dual radio automatically switches to 5GHz when 2.4GHz band is fully occupied, and digests traffic flow to avoid unstable data transmission due to the shortage of bandwidth.
SPECIFICATIONS The UAG4100 also adopts a management platform that can handle up to 300 wired or wireless users simultaneously. FINAL WORDING This can become a significant burden for the owners if they do not have the right equipment.
OVERALL RATING
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contents
OCT VOLUME 04 ISSUE 08
2013
ER COV RY STO
india’s first IT magazine for sme business
Publisher: Sanjib Mohapatra Editor: Sanjay Mohapatra Assistant Editor: Karma Negi Reporter: Aparajita Choudhury Executive Editor: Smruti Chaudhury Copy Editor: Neil D’Souza Web Designer: Vijay Bakshi Technical Writer: Manas Ranjan Satya Sagar Sinha Lead Visualizer: DPR Choudhary MARKETING Senior Manager: M Raj Marketing Executive: Rajat Kumar Circulation and Printing: Panchanan Bhoi SALES CONTACTS Delhi 6/102, Kaushalya Park, Hauz Khas New Delhi-110016 Phone: 91-11-41055458 / 9313891660 E-mail: raj@smechannels.com Bangalore #28/1, 3rd Floor, Sri Lakshmi Krupa, Near Shamanna Park, Model House Street, Basavanagudi, Bangalore - 560004 Ph. No. +91 88618 21044 Mumbai Tahmeed Ansari 2, Ground Floor, Park Paradise, Kay-Bees CHS. Ltd.,Opp. Green Park, Oshiwara, Andheri (west), Mumbai - 400 053. Ph. +91 22 26338546, Fax +91 22 26395581 Mobile: +91 9967 232424 E-mail: Info@smechannels.com Kolkata S Subhendu BC-286, Laxmi Apartment, Kestopur Kolkata-700101 Phone: 9674804389
Channel Best Practices /30 A successful channel relationship has become vital for today’s business environment and vendors are following best practices to turn them from just channel partners to trusted sales partners
EDITORIAL OFFICE Delhi: 6/103, (GF) Kaushalya Park, New Delhi-110016, Phone: 91-11-41657670 / 46151993 editor@smechannels.com Bangalore Bindiya Jadhav #28/1, 3rd Floor, Sri Lakshmi Krupa, Near Shamanna Park, Model House Street, Basavanagudi, Bangalore - 560004
SME CHAT Cisco Capital /36
“Expanding Coverage with Focus on the Channel”
more inside Editorial~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 06
V.S.Traders /41
“We Have Maintained a Yearly Growth of 20%”
Trend Micro /47
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Securing Identity
accentinfomedia.com Skype ID: b1diyajadhav
Printed, Published and Owned by Sanjib Mohapatra Place of Publication: 6/101-102, Kaushalya Park, Hauz Khas
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Phone: 91-11-46151993 / 41055458 Printed at Karan Printers, F-29/2, 1st floor,
“Focus on 3C’s: Consumerization, Cyber Threats & Cloud”
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110020, India. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced without the prior written permission from the publisher. Subscription: Rs.200 (12 issues) All payments favouring: Accent Info Media Pvt. Ltd.
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SNIPPETS PRODUCT | CHANNEL | CONSULTING | SERVICES
for more log on to smechannels.com
Kaspersky Lab Wins Lawsuit Against Patent Troll Kaspersky Lab has emerged victorious from a lawsuit initiated by Lodsys, a company located in Texas that operates as a Patent Assertion Entity, more commonly
known as a non-practicing entity or “Patent Troll,” known for initiating patent infringement lawsuits against a variety of companies. Kaspersky Lab, along with
54 other companies including Atari, Symantec and Estee Lauder were originally named in Lodsys’ lawsuit. Of the 55 total companies named as defendants
in the lawsuit, only Kaspersky Lab refused to settle out of court with Lodsys, and instead demanded the case be brought to trial announced the press release. On September 30, seven days before the trial was to commence, Lodsys withdrew its claims rather than facing the verdict of the court, and its lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice. Kaspersky Lab paid no money to Lodsys, and did not agree to any settlement terms. “Our position is firm. No concessions to the trolling scum and IT racketeers. We call on all other IT companies to keep on fighting and not give up. Only then will it be possible to get rid of the patent parasites once and for all,” said Eugene Kaspersky, Chairman and CEO, Kaspersky Lab. The business of Patent Trolls around the globe is very large scale, and has been attributed as a hindrance to innovation, development, and implementation. Rather than incur the cost of litigation and time required to fight these frivolous lawsuits, most companies will pay these Patent Trolls their requested fees.
TRI-Ed and Aditya Infotech Form Alliance Tri-Ed, North America’s independent security distributor, and Aditya Infotech have together formed The International Alliance of Independent Security Distributors. New Delhi, India, based Aditya Infotech with its channel partners in India (& SAARC Countries), Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal &
ASEAN countries offers products and services that are similar to those Tri-Ed in the U.S. and Canada. This collaboration will allow Tri-Ed and AIL to share information on new trends and market insights within their areas of operation, resulting in a sharing of knowledge that will help all
members increase their market share through Best practices. Tri-Ed and Aditya Infotech will be inviting other key distributors from other parts of the world to join The International Alliance of Independent Security Distributors. “The Alliance will serve as a highlevel focus group, and be very ben-
eficial to both our vendors and our customers,” explains Pat Comunale, President and CEO, Tri-Ed Distribution. Both organizations will be sharing the best trade practices and systems to value add their channel and employees; thereby setting new quality benchmarks in the industry, in respective domain.
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Sanovi Strengthens India SAARC Region Team Sanovi has effected few changes at its senior managerial levels, with the aim of consolidating its leadership in the DR space and to focus on strategic growth areas and new businesses in the India/SAARC region. Ashis Guha, President- Global Sales, Sanovi Technologies, said, “Our goal is to rapidly increase our market base in India, and expand into the emerging markets, with an empowered
team of functional leaders and clearly defined focus areas.” In the first of these promotions, Amarjeet S. Gill, takes on the role of VP, sales for India and SAARC. Sankara Krishnan has assumed the position of VP, Alliances and New Initiatives for India and SAARC region and Narayana Menon K has taken on the position of Director, Marketing for India, ME and APAC markets.
Antec India Strengthens BP Series PSUs Antec Inc has added BP 400PX PSU in it more popular BP series PSUs. BP 400PX comes with ATX12V v2.3 and ErP Lot 6-compliant solution which is designed to render good quality, high performance and incredible value to the user informed the release. It features 400W Continuous Power, reduce 82% of electricity bill, 120 mm Silence, thermal manager, CircuitShield, Heavy-duty Caps, ErP Lot 6 and Active Power Factor Correction (PFC). Kevan Li, Business Head, (India), Antec Inc, said, “After the success of BP300P Power Supply in India, we are excited to introduce the BP400PX PSU which promises to deliver on quality, performance and value which are ideally suited to the mainstream PC users’ requirements.”
NETGEAR Extends ReadyNAS Product Family NETGEAR has released ReadyNAS 3220 and ReadyNAS 4220, as new additions to the awardwinning ReadyNAS product family. The new devices are the latest networkattached-storage (NAS) products to run on the revolutionary ReadyNAS OS, introduced in March 2013, that delivers high value, high performance storage with enterprise features to small and medium-sized businesses (SMB). Available for the first time in 2U rackmount form with 12-bay capacity, the new ReadyNAS 3220 and 4220 enable easy storage for businesses supporting up to 500 concurrent users. Commenting on the product, Subhodeep Bhattacharya, Regional Director (India & SAARC), NETGEAR, said, “These cutting-edge rackmount devices are designed as ‘storage made easy’ and are built on a custom platform that lets you do more with your vital business data than you ever thought possible. With ReadyNAS, you’re getting the most storage value for your IT budget.”
MY POINT
SAP Simplifies Adoption of SAP HANA SAP AG has announced a new offering that simplifies adoption of the SAP HANA platform for customers running SAP Business Suite software. Rapid database migration of SAP Business Suite to SAP HANA enables IT professionals to replace their conventional relational database with the SAP HANA. The offering automates the migration process through a series of preconfigured software, implementation services, standardized content and end-user enablement. The rapid database migration of SAP Business Suite to SAP HANA is available for all customers and partners. SAP Consulting offers a fixed price and scope implementation that helps reduce the risk of delays, downtime, overriding costs security violations and integration challenges. Bernd Welz, EVP and global head (Solution & Knowledge Packaging), SAP, said, “SAP provides a tested and reliable migration package that takes doubt and uncertainty out of the equation. By removing these obstacles, we are making it easier for SAP Business Suite customers to supercharge their business dealings with the power of in-memory data management, whether deployed on-premise or through the SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud service.”
AWS Activate for Startups Launched
“SMEs are a critical growth engine for jobs and economies today. Our objective is to help more SMEs transition to, and benefit from, modern IT.” KARAN BAJWA, MD, MICROSOFT INDIA
Amazon Web Services has released AWS Activate, a structured package of resources for startups, including AWS credits, training, developer support, a special startup community forum and special offers from third parties. AWS Activate bundles resources in packages, designed to enable startups of different types to easily and quickly get started with AWS and successfully use the AWS platform to help grow their businesses. AWS Activate helps address startups’ needs for technology, support, knowledge sharing and additional resources that make it even easier to use the cloud to grow their businesses announced the press release. AWS Activate is organized into two packages – a Self-Starter package, which any startup can apply for, and a Portfolio package, which can be applied for by startups in select accelerator, incubator, venture capital seed funds or entrepreneur organizations.
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HP Launches MPS Resell Program HP has released the next phase expansion of its all-new HP Managed Print Specialist Resell program. India is the first country in Asia to launch this program. The program is designed to precisely meet the unique demands of customers in India. The HP Partner MPS program offers customers a cost-per-page agreement, fleet optimization and solutions, coupled with differentiated services for maintenance and supplies replenishment. The HP Managed Print Specialist Resell program is designed to provide resellers with greater differentiation in the high-growth market of Managed Print Services (MPS) among India’s SMBs and enterprises. HP has launched a new affordable A3 multifunction printer (MFP) developed for Indian businesses – the HP LaserJet Pro 400 M435nw - and two new HP LaserJet Enterprise M800 series flow MFPs that come with near field communications (NFC) touch-to-print and wireless direct.
KONICA MINOLTA FORAYS INTO TIER 1 & 2 CITIES Konica Minolta has started entering into tier 1 & 2 cities. After the launch of its A4 printers in places like Gurgaon, Bangalore and Kochi, it has now launched some of its new A4 category products at Jalandhar (Punjab). Konica Minolta has partnered with PK International of Jalandhar for Punjab distribution. This new range of printers by Konica Minolta has been launched under three categories: Pagepro which is mono series, Bizhub which is mid-range mono series and Magicolor which is colour series. “In partnership with established distribution companies in Tier 1 & 2 cities, we would like to take our products into the interior parts of the country to be able to provide printing solutions to a wider customer base,” said Tadahiko Sumitani, MD, Konica Minolta Business Solutions India. The USP of Konica Minolta’s newly launched range is the remarkably high image quality and consistent results through the entire print run. These models featuring compact size and high reliability easily integrate into any small office or home setting announced the press release. PK International was established in 2009 and is well connected as a distributor/ retailer with a turnover of 30crore. Rajeev Bansal, Director, PK International, commented, “We are glad to be associated with an international brand like Konica Minolta and we will help the company in expanding their range in Punjab market.” These A4 range printers by Konica Minolta are available in the market and are priced between 5,000 INR and 40,000 INR.
Google to Get 50,000 Gujarat SMEs Online Google India plans to get 50,000 small medium businesses in Gujarat online by the end of 2014. The initiative is part of Google’s national campaign titled ‘India, get your business online’ which offers free websites and hosting to small medium business in India. The campaign is aimed at bringing down the barrier that prevents small medium businesses to get on the Internet. Giving a head start to this project, Google also unveiled the details of a special project wherein Google India & HostGator went to popular traditional markets in Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara and Rajkot and built websites for 5000 small businesses making them accessible to the world. In addition to creating the websites, Google India also created Google maps listings and Google+ business pages for these businesses. All these 5000 businesses can also use 24X7 customer support to manage their websites and get free online advertising credit that can be used on Google search to promote their business online.
ECS Rolls-out Diwali Offer Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS) has announced a marketing promotion to appreciate the partners’ efforts by launching a Diwali Special Scheme where lucky partners stand a chance to win Samsung 32” LED TV. Along with the grand prize ECS with Rashi Peripherals provides a chance to win 2 Nokia cell phone,15 cash voucher and 30 backpacks. The promotion began on 21th Oct and end on 15th Nov. 2013. This scheme is point based scheme where the partner has to earn points on the basis of sales done of ECS Motherboards all over India.
Unistal Offering Trial Pack Unistal is providing 30 days free trial version for its recently launched “Activity Reporter for Android” for Tablets. Alok Gupta, MD, Unistal Systems Pvt. Ltd., affirmed, “We are offering trial pack so that the users can use the product and get actually feel of the functionalities to realise its effectiveness. With Activity reporter, parents can relax as they are getting the complete activity log on their mail. In a nut shell Activity Reporter acts as perfect parenting software when it comes to working on tablets. We have similar software for windows based laptops also.”
ASRock 8 Series Mobos Global motherboard manufacturer ASRock released the 8 Series Motherboard line at a launch event in Mumbai. ASRock has divided its Z87 motherboards into three tiers Z87 Formula, Z87 FATAL1TY and Z87.These motherboards feature home Cloud, Purity Sound and 802.11ac WiFi and HDMI-In. The company said that Z87M OC Formula has been used to break several world records in both CPU and memory overclocking since its debut in early June, 2013.
QNAP’s New Rackmount VioStor NVR QNAP Security has launched new business-class 4-bay, 1U rackmount VioStor NVR VS4100U-RP Pro+ series, available in 8, 12 and 16 channels featuring high reliability. Powered by Dual-core Intel processor and 4GB DDR3 memory, the new series deliver quality performance with up to 250 Mbps throughput to ensure steady recording of multiple megapixel IP cameras. Moreover, the HDMI output and hardware decoder provide the ability to deliver up to 200fps Full HD local display.
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Avaya Strengthens Collaboration Solutions for Midmarket
ZYXEL ANNOUNCES NEW RANGE OF INTERNET ACCESS SOLUTIONS
Avaya has unveiled new software designed from the ground up to streamline the way midmarket companies collaborate and communicate. At the center of the Avaya strategy is Avaya IP Office 9.0, a single software platform for collaboration with highly flexible deployment options for companies up to 2,000 users that is capable of being deployed in as little as an hour announced the press release. The release further added that this introduction is part of the $2.5B investment Avaya has made over the past six years to transform from a telecommunications provider to a software and services led company focused on delivering collaboration and communications solutions that are open, mobile and centered on the cloud. An Avaya IP Office midmarket collaboration solution supports the broadest range of end points – analog, digital, IP, and soft phones; PCs, MACs; Android and iOS smart phones and tablets.
ZyXEL has released its new performance-driven VDSL2 gateway product range (VMG4325/4380/8324/8924). With the future-proof 802.11ac wireless technology in combination with advancements such as Vectoring, Bonding and Combo WAN functionalities, the new fleet of Internet access solutions once again manifests ZyXEL’s long-standing leadership in DSL broadband technology and application developments announced the press release. On top of the 802.11n wireless technology built into the entire range, the VMG8924 exceptionally features the cutting-edge 802.11ac concurrent dual-band technology for additional power of performance. It enables not only the astounding throughput of as high as 1300 Mbps, but also operates with a specifically efficient dual-band mechanism. With the capability to perform concurrent packet transmission over both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, the mechanism alleviates traffic congestion and cross-interference within a single band to a great extent when numerous electronic devices are accessing the network simultaneously. The bandwidth performance, such as data throughput, coverage range and resilience to interference, is enormously boosted to secure high-quality transmission for high-definition multimedia applications. To equip service providers with the capability to provide optimal bandwidth performance through network deployments, the gateways have incorporated two additional state-of-the-art technological breakthroughs – Vectoring and Bonding. Vectoring is a technique that revives the performance of decade-old DSL copper wires for rejuvenated networking efficiency; by cancelling out the noise or electromagnetic interference on VDSL2 lines in a bundle, vectoring enables higher speeds as if a leased line exists the bundle and it also doubles the bandwidth for better throughputs. With the improvement, service providers can enlarge service coverage for over three times.
EXECUTIVE MOVEMENT
GLOBAL PC SHIPMENTS DIPS 8.6% IN Q3’13 WORLDWIDE PC SHIPMENTS TOTALED 80.3 MILLION UNITS IN THE Q3,2013, AN 8.6% DECLINE FROM THE SAME PERIOD LAST YEAR, ACCORDING TO PRELIMINARY RESULTS BY GARTNER, INC. THIS MARKS THE SIXTH CONSECUTIVE QUARTER OF DECLINING WORLDWIDE SHIPMENTS. PRELIMINARY WORLDWIDE PC VENDOR UNIT SHIPMENT ESTIMATES FOR 3Q13 (UNITS) Acer Group
Dell
11.6
HP
17.1 10.5
8.3
9.8
Asus
6.1
7.2 Others
39.2
15.4 41.4 17.6 15.7 Lenovo Q3 2013
Q3 2012 Source: Gartner (August 2013)
Note: Data includes desk-based PCs and mobile PCs, including mini-notebooks but not media tablets such as the iPad.
Quick Heal has named Rajesh Ghonasgi as chief financial officer of the company. He will help guide and oversee the company’s continued market leadership and financial growth. Fortinet has appointed Jason Nadar as the national sales manager for wireless technologies in India and SAARC.
VMware has appointed Sanjay Mirchandani to the post of senior vice president and general manager to lead the VMware Asia Pacific & Japan (APJ) business, effective October 14, 2013. ADC India Communication has appointed S. Devarajan as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the company and J N Mylaraiah as the managing director of the company.
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CA Nimsoft Monitor Snap Released for SMEs
DIGEST
CA Technologies has released the availability of CA Nimsoft Monitor Snap—a free, feature-rich version of its CA Nimsoft Monitor solution. It enables resource-constrained customers to quickly achieve enterprise-class visibility into the health of the diverse IT resources that support delivery of their business-critical IT services announced the press release. It further emphasized that unlike existing freeware, freemiums, time-limited trials, open-source tools or mid-market commercial products, CA Nimsoft Monitor Snap can be up and running in as little as an hour and is free for up to 30 monitored devices each with unlimited monitors—not a limited time-trial. “Until today, under-resourced customers faced an unacceptable choice between non-integrated ‘point’ monitoring tools, technically challenging open-source code, and conventional enterprise-class technology that cost too much and took too long to implement,” said John Smith, GM (Infrastructure Management), CA Technologies.
Silicon Power has announced a capacity upgrade of one terabyte on its Ultra-Slim portable hard drive – Diamond D20. It comes with built-in 7mm slim hard drive and features a solid aluminum metal structure and the anti-scratch surface. Combining with USB 3.0 SuperSpeed interface and slim structure, D20 is the ideal selection for those who are looking for portability and maximum performance announced the release.
ESCAN UNVEILS SPECIAL OFFER FOR END-CONSUMERS eScan has introduced an offer for the end-consumers which will bequeath the buyers with free eScan Mobile Security Solution for six months along with the purchase of eScan Internet Security Suite for home users. With its specially designed offer for end users, eScan aims to leverage the Desktop and Smartphone users with real-time protection against evolving cyber threats. eScan’s special offer for end-customers is valid for IT users pan India till November 30, 2013. IT users can reap the benefit of this offer on a direct purchase from the resellers. The offer will not be viable if the purchase is made from the website directly. According to Anil Gupta, AVP (India Sales), eScan, “We have IT users around the globe that are successfully using eScan, and these offers will definitely enable them to stay with us for longer period. With our prolific clientele across India who are successfully using eScan, this offer will ensure that we enhance our buyers with utmost customer satisfaction.”
neoteric Conducts Xplore & Evolve for Intel neoteric infomatique limited conducted Xplore & Evolve events for Intel in Jammu & Guwahati. Previously, neoteric had successfully conducted similar events for Intel in Surat, Coimbatore and Patna. The objective of these events is to generate product awareness for Intel’s state-of-the-art products amongst the partner community. As part of the Xplore & Evolve programme, there were live demonstrations on both days, focusing on how businesses can be benefitted by the latest Intel Core processor platform through a multitude of devices including Ultrabook devices and all-in-one PCs. The partners got a hands-on experience of the ‘look and feel’ of the demo products on display, viz., the 2nd Gen Intel Core processor and the 3rd Gen Intel Core processor families.
Eaton Unveils 9145 UPS Eaton has launched Eaton 9145 UPS for BFSI, IT, SME and SMB segments which is a double-conversion online UPS, which protects mission-critical applications from downtime, data loss and corruption. The 9145 comes with an inbuilt over-voltage cut-off device (OVCD) in all 1 – 3 kVA models, protecting UPS and other critical loads. It is optimized to operate in very wide input voltage range, reducing the number of transfers to battery power. 9145 allows smart thermal management to operate in high temperature environments up to 45°C. Unlike other UPS in this segment, 9145 brings its users a compact product that delivers perfect sine wave output with high frequency technology. Eaton has designed this high-performance product with an output factor of up to 0.9 on 6 - 20 kVA models, thus offering 28 percent more power than other competitive products in this segment.
SP’S DIAMOND D20 CAPACITY UPGRADED
GENIUS’ NEW ENERGY MOUSE Genius has introduced its new innovative Energy Mouse which combines a 1200dpi mouse with a 2700 mAH power bank feature. The mouse comes with a Li-polymer battery for charge control and four LED Lights to indicate battery capacity as well as charging status. The bi-directional 2.4GHz anti-interference technology ensures a reliable working distance of up to 10 meters. The Genius Energy mouse is available at the price of USD 29.9 and comes with the warranty of 1 year.
ZEBRONICS’ 7.1 CHANNEL GAMING HEADPHONE Zebronics has unveiled four new gaming headphones – the Zebronics Iron Head, Colt, Rattlesnake, and Stingray, with volume control, mute button, mic on/off and inbuilt microphone. The Zebronics Iron Head is the first from Zebronics to incorporate 7.1 channel simulated sound effects for powerful, immersive PC gaming audio, it delivers superior sound isolation announced the press release. It further has dedicated microphone and volume controls and is easily connected via USB and built-in sound processor and featuring a 3-meter long cable.
EDIMAX ROLLS-OUT HIGH PERFORMANCE ROUTER Edimax has launched AR-7286WnA/B— a high performance router. It provides full ADSL2+ capability and superb reliability as a cost-effective networking solution for homes and small businesses announced the press release. The AR-7286WnA/B is a wireless router with a built-in ADSL2/ADSL2+ modem combining a high-performance router, modem and switch into a single device. It saves desk space, the hassle of extra cords and cables and the cost of leasing a router from DSL service provider.
SANDISK’S ‘FASTEST’ 256GB COMPACT FLASH CARD SanDisk has released 256GB SanDisk Extreme Pro CompactFlash memory card, which it claims is the world’s fastest and first high-performance 256GB CompactFlash card with the latest Video Performance Guarantee (VPG-65)2 specification. It also announced a faster speeds across all other capacities of the SanDisk Extreme Pro CompactFlash line of memory cards. The card delivers minimum sustained write speeds of 65MB/s2, optimized to capture 4K and Full HD video3.
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Buffalo’s ‘TeraStation TS3400D’ for SMBs Japan headquartered Buffalo has launched TeraStation TS3400D, a high performance corporate network storage solution for small businesses, branch offices, home offices, and power users, at an affordable price. The dual-core Marvell ARMADA XP 1.33 GHz processor and 1 GB DDR3 RAM of TeraStation provide faster transfers and backup of data-intensive files and stall-free imaging and recording with IP cameras the press release announced. TeraStation TS3400D comes in 4TB and 8TB capacities which provide plenty of storage even for huge amounts of data. It has been priced MRP at Rs. 91,000 for 4 TB and Rs. 1,18,000 for 8 TB. With a transfer speed of over 90 Mbps, the users of TeraStation has to spend less time waiting for transmissions and backups while enjoying better quality video and vastly enhanced overall performance. This also increases the efficiency of operations and improves the business. This TeraStation comes with different RAID modes that can be selected for optimizing failure resistance, speed, capacity, or a combination.
CEM Systems Boosts Security at SAEI
COMGUARD AND GATEPROTECT HOLD DELHI PARTNER MEET Value added distributor, ComGuard recently conducted partner meet on “Extreme Security for The Next Generation” in Delhi. The event served as an opportunity for both, ComGuard and gateProtect to galvanize partners to join them and work for mutual benefits. gateProtect utilized the platform by giving the brief and technological specification to the partners. Further, ComGuard highlighted the market scenario and Harish Rai, Country Manager, ComGuard opportunities available in India. About 80 partner India organizations attended the event announced the press release. Speaking on the occasion Harish Rai, Country Manager, ComGuard India, said, “As we expand and penetrate into the Indian IT market, it becomes important to keep our network strong and stringent. We would like to express our gratitude to all our channel partners who have put in efforts to maintain and add value to our network. We are organizing this series of partner meets so that our partners get this platform to exchange knowledge and frame a business oriented approach.” Speaking on the occasion Meiling You, VP (APAC), gateProtect, said, “India is a proven, large market for security on. Our recent decisions have focused on the value we can deliver in India together with the opportunity to grow in one of the largest markets globally. We would like to express our gratitude to all who are part of this partners meet.”
CEM Systems, part of Tyco Security Products, has installed CEM AC2000 security management system at Saudia Aerospace Engineering Industries (SAEI) main base at King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah. SAEI joins leading airports and aviation maintenance facilities around the world where the CEM AC2000 system is providing paramount security announced the press release. Saudia Aerospace Engineering Industries is the maintenance arm of Saudi Arabian Airlines, the flag carrier of Saudi Arabia. SAEI maintains the entire fleet of Saudia which includes Boeing B777-200 & -300 & Airbus A320 and A330 families and provides maintenance handling at all in-Kingdom airports and over 27 international stations.
Kingston Completes 26 Years Kingston has completed 26 successful years in the industry. The announcement was made by Kingston along with an innovative activity at a gadgets exhibition in Bandra Kurla complex, Mumbai. REX, the superhero from Kingston, has been transforming over the years and is now a renowned symbol of the world’s independent memory leader. He was the highlight of the exhibition activity wherein the company showcased four of his upgraded superpowers – HyperX Nitro boosters, USB 3.0, Branded RAM and Solid State Drives (SSDs). Speaking at the event, Vishal Parekh, MD (India), Kingston Technology, said, “We are the leaders in Memory and are elated to complete 26 fruitful years in the industry. Taking cues from the fantastic response received from the markets, we will continue to build a better experience for our network and end users.”
India SMBs Server Market Growing at 12 percent The India SMB server market is presently experiencing a healthy growth rate of 12%. Small and medium businesses (SMBs, companies with fewer than 999 employees) play a significant role in driving the all-India server demand. The current India SMB server market amounts to approximately $300M and is expected to grow to over $500M by 2017. These are some of the key highlights of AMI’s soon to be published “2013 India SMB Server and Storage Study”. India SMBs operating in the manufacturing and IT/ITeS space continue to be on the watch list of major server vendors as they are expected to fuel the demand for servers.
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SNIPPETS
TRENDnet Delivers Travel Router TRENDnet has announced the availability of the N150 Wireless Travel Router, model TEW-714TRU, which is designed to share a single internet connection with multiple users while on the go. The TEW-714TRU comes in a compact form factor which plugs directly into an outlet. It has three replaceable electrical plugs - an America, European, and British style plug to accommodate electrical outlets in almost every location. Set the TEW-714TRU to Router Mode and plug in an Ethernet cable, with an internet connection, to convert a single wired internet connection into a wireless resource for all colleagues or family. “The TEW-714TRU is designed to meet the needs of the road warrior,” said Sonny Su, Director (Technology), TRENDnet. “It plugs into outlets on every continent and offers handy USB share and charging ports.”
TOSHIBA TAKES PARTNERS ON DUBAI TRIP Toshiba along with Rashi Peripherals recently concluded the Dubai programme. This was part of the scheme that partners achieved for Toshiba External HDD business. In all, 21 partners from all over the country and few Rashi branch heads travelled with the team. One of the highlights of this trip was the limousine ride for all the partners for an hour, which replicated the rich lifestyle lead by sheiks and elite people of Dubai announced the press release. The release further emphasized that this trip proved that Toshiba Storage along with Rashi Peripherals is going an extra mile by making a gesture to interact and casually enjoy with the partners and what better place than the exotic locations of Dubai with an efficient team. Commenting on the grand Tour Polad Garda, Manager, Toshiba Storage, said, “We are very pleased to see partner’s commitment to Toshiba and their reciprocation of the same towards our business. I am also very happy to see partners satisfied with the tour. Rashi team put in a lot of effort to bring this to reality. I take this opportunity to thank all our partners and Rashi team for the continued support and commitment towards Toshiba Storage business.”
SMBs and Marketers High on Cybercriminals’ TE Connectivity’s List Partner Summit in Cybercriminals targeted SMBs and marketers who were trying to increase their online presence in Tier 1 Cities second quarter of the year, revealed Trend Micro Q2 2013 Threat round-up report. Influence in social media depends largely on the number of followers an entity has. Cybercriminals created sites which lured users by the idea of acquiring a huge number of followers in a very short amount of time, and with almost no effort at all announced the press release. “These sites offer not only followers, but also re-tweets and likes for particular posts indicated by the customer. The required payment would depend on the number of followers, re-tweets, or likes preferred,” said Dhanya Thakkar, MD (India & SAARC), Trend Micro.
PNY Brings Facebook Contest PNY has announced a Facebook contest as a way of rewarding its Indian fans. The company will be giving away two HP v234r 8 GB USB 2.0 flash drives via lucky draw. To enter the contest one will have to follow the PNY Technologies India Fan Page on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/PNYIndia and can then head over to the Giveaway page at http://goo.gl/ Izu8K1 and login using one’s Facebook or email address to register for the contest. The contestant will be then entered into a lucky draw in which two winners will be declared to win the prize. The contest has started from 18 September and will run till 30 September.
Sophos Holds Partners’ Meet at Chandigarh IT security and data protection firm Sophos successfully concluded its Sophos India Channel Partner Meet 2013, with the theme – “Cyber Security: a new approach”. Aimed at enhancing its channel connect and understanding the market requirements and needs from a partner standpoint, Sophos used the Meet which took place at Chandigarh, to enable, equip and recognize its best Indian channel partners. Around 46 members of the channel community participated in the Channel Meet. The Channel Meet came as Sophos readies to expand its operations in India, with the starting of regional offices in Mumbai and Bangalore, in addition to the country head office in Delhi.
TE Connectivity hosted a multi city partner summit for its channel Partners, with an objective to further strengthen its relationship with its partners. The multi city summit this year had the theme of “Experience How Fiber Comes Alive with TE”. The summit was held at multiple Tier 1 cities across India. The summit discussed insights on the latest industry trends, market growth and technological developments around ‘Fiber in India’.
Gigabyte ‘Pi is Returned’ Contest Ends Gigabyte has announced the conclusion of its latest overclocking contest at HWBOT.org, ‘Pi is Returned’. Running from August 16th until September 16th 2013, all HWBOT members were invited to pit their overclocking skills against each other using the classic SuperPi benchmark. Several cash prizes totaling $5,000 were on offer as well as Gigabyte and AMD hardware.
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Matrix to Attend IISE-2013 Matrix Comsec is set to participate in 16th IISE2013. Matrix will showcase its complete portfolio of security products encompassing range of access control and time-attendance solution, video surveillance solution and fire alarm panel. At the event, Matrix will also launch a range of new door controllers which include COSEC DOOR PVR and IP65 compliant COSEC PATH series. These products have a cutting edge advantage over others COSEC DOOR PVR, a palm vein reader based door controller provides the highest security and eliminates hygiene concerns as it is a completely contactless device announced the press release. This device is most suited for hospitals, chemical organizations, mines, factories, corporate houses and many others. COSEC PATH is a range of IP65 compliant compact door controllers with inbuilt PoE.
CANON INDIA OUTLINES STRATEGY FOR IMAGING SOLUTIONS DIVISION Canon has revealed its growth plans to expand its Office Imaging Solutions division (OIS) by the end of 2015. The division is aggressively tapping the SME market specially the manufacturing units in C, D and E class where the print volume is around 1-2 lakh a month. Canon is working with its channel partners in these cities who will be focusing on SMEs and PSU segments. Canon plans to enable the SME community by introducing cost effective workflow solutions and Managed Document Services offering. The division is also targeting cities like Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Cochin, Patna and Bhubaneswar. Speaking at the occasion, K. Bhaskhar, Senior Director Office (Imaging Solutions Division), Canon, said, “Organizations of all sizes from SMEs to large enterprises are looking at growing their business and expand rapidly into tier III and IV markets. We want to be a part of this growth journey and take care of their printing related requirements by offering customized and best in class technology from Canon. This is in-line with our strategy to target customers from C, D and E markets and expand our service reach to 700 locations across India.” He further announced that they also plan to increase its customer base for MDS to 100 by the end of 2013. Further elaborating on Canon OIS plans, Bhaskar Joshi, Senior Marketing Manager, Office Imaging Solution, Canon India, stated, “We want to empower our customers with best-of-breed technology which helps them to evolve and grow their business with a competitive edge.”
Strontium Debuts NITRO Range of MicroSD Cards Strontium has launched NITRO range of MicroSD cards in India. According to the press release these UHS-1 Class 10 cards are an ideal storage option for smartphones and tablets and deliver superior app performance, better phone gaming experience and high speed data transfer. They offer up to 85MB per second read speeds and are compatible with all android and windows phones. They come with a free copy of My Backup Pro app which costs Rs.314 in Android app store. Strontium High Speed NITRO UHS-1 MicroSD flash cards will be available in 8GB to 64GB capacities with price ranging between Rs. 990 to Rs. 5,990 with the authorized distributors of Strontium and they come with a lifetime limited warranty.
Unistal’s Incentive Schemes for Partners Extended Unistal Systems has extended the special incentive schemes for the partners. With purchase of 25 boxes of Protegent Security Solutions, partners are entitled to get complementary Protegent Internet Security key for their own usage. This scheme is valid till October 31, 2013. Apart from this, there are series of ongoing incentive schemes for their direct gold partners, resellers and end users. These schemes are valid on making the purchases of Protegent – Antivirus, Internet Security, Total Security & Complete Security software and solutions.
ESET Reports Major Rise in Filecoders Malware
ESET HQ Malware Research Lab is reporting an unusual spike in the activity of Filecoder malware trojans that encrypt user files and try to extort a ransom from the victim in exchange for decrypting software. ESET LiveGrid technology- the company’s cloud-based malware collection system - has shown a rising weekly number of Win32/Filecoder detections by over 200% since July 2013 from average numbers in January - June 2013.
DIGISOL Launches CCTV Solutions DIGISOL has announced its new range of CCTV products with include a series of Dome cameras, Bullet cameras and DVR’s smart features and Smartphone integration for live viewing over the internet. Bimal Raj, CEO, Smartlink Network Systems, said, “Today, Security of people and assets in the society is high on agenda for companies, builders of residential and commercial complexes etc.To meet this high level of security demands coming from all across, we have launched our next generation of CCTV products.”
Iris is Lenovo’s Disty SMB Biz West India Lenovo has appointed Iris to handle its consumer market entailing - Lenovo PCs, Desktops, Laptops and LFRs for all partners in Mumbai. Iris expects a business worth Rs 3-4 crore per month to be generated from this current venture with Lenovo in Mumbai. It has also been appointed as Lenovo’s distributor for its western India division for SMB businesses. A stock & sell plan for Lenovo desktops and laptops to SMB market (below 500 people) has been put in place, which would generate a business of about Rs 5 crore per month.
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SECURITY CORNER
SECURING IDENTITY As the adoption of security moves from enterprise to mid-level, secure identity solutions provider HID Global is also charting an aggressive strategy for the smaller cities. BY: APARAJITA CHOUDHURY
aparajita@smechannels.com
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ith the rising security risks and breaches organisations, be it government or enterprise, are implementing technologically advanced security solutions. The physical security market has been forecast to increase at CAGR of 9% over the next five years, increasing from a value of $55.59 billion in 2013, to reach a total of $85.51 billion by 2018. According to Ranjit Nambiar, Director, IAM, South Asia, HID Global, “Physical security market is worth $600 million which is divided between video surveillance, CCTV, access control, intrusion and fire detection. Video surveillance contributes 40% of the overall market, access control contributes 20%-25%, intrusion would be 5%-6% and the rest is the fire detection.” He further says that physical security market is witnessing growth as access control and security have now started getting integrated within IT infrastructure or the IT backbone of the organization and further says the management of both will soon be moving towards cloud based application. Besides, the identity management is also moving towards cloud. US headquartered HID Global operates in more than a hundred countries. Its parent company is ASSA ABLOY which is a large conglomerate in the door opening solution. HID Global’s enterprise part of the business contributes 60%-65% of the business and SMB contributes 35%-40% of the business. The company considers SMB as a significant part of its business and to address this segment, there is a very strong footprint on the distribution part of the channel business. The national distributors of
HID Global are Westcon and ADI who through their branch operations cater to almost about 20 cities in India and the regional distributors cater to 15-20 cities. So the distribution structure is not only restricted to tier I cities but also to tier II and III cities. HID Global has two types of partners: global and national integrator. National Integrators comprise of 15-20 large companies like Honeywell, Siemens, Tyco, etc; besides there are also 5-6 HID Connect Partners in India for different application. While Honeywell, Lennon, BOSCH are global OEM partners, Indian OEM partners are Matrix, Spectra and Smart-I, whereas Software Workshops and Telematics develops solution around canteen management and applications around vehicle traffic solutions respectively. Overall, HID Global has 1500 channel partners under the distribution structure. In order to empower these channel partners, the company conducts product training, sales training, hands on demo training, certification training program. In terms of margin, physical security industry offers 15-20% margin to channel partners. It has also launched product with respect to its new platform called iCLASS SE readers which are NFC enabled which means that smartphone can be provisioned with the access control data and it can be used instead of a plastic card for the access security, so IP architecture and the SIO (secure Identity Object) based or the NFC enabled smartphone for provisioning of access control and third is the cloud based application for identity management. As Nambiar says, “One of the biggest changes we are preparing for is that, as we move to the next evolution of physical and logical access control,
identity no longer must reside on a plastic card. Instead, it can now become transportable and media-independent, and can be embedded into smartphones and other mobile devices that feature NFC capabilities. In this new environment, mobile access control will complement traditional plastic cards as an additional way to provide identity to individuals. Users can open doors by holding their phones close to a reader so they can “present” the digital key or card inside.” But he also adds that the industry won’t see plastic cards going away anytime soon, though. At the end of the day, the mobile access control infrastructure will augment what already exists for plastic smart cards in the typical physical access control system (PACS). Many organizations will still want their employees to carry traditional cards because they are used as a means of photo identification. In terms of verticals HID Global targets IT/ ITeS, multinational banks and technology companies. In addition, the company also focuses on some of the emerging verticals like airports and metros, oil and gas, energy vertical, power vertical, Indian banks, Indian telecom as large enterprise projects happen in these verticals. HID Global further focuses on IT authentication solutions with the availability of two factor authentication or converge security authentication because Nambiar mentions that this part of the business is small for them in India which is around 7%-8%; whereas secure assurance contributes 30%-35% of the business and the rest is physical access control. It’s also starting to see tremendous growth in sectors such as government, defense and transportation, as well as the power and energy sectors,
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SECURITY CORNER
value-added services for its customers. Nambiar says they maintain a strong focus on customer satisfaction excellence, ensuring that its customers receive complete support and that Genuine HID solutions optimize the cost of ownership benefit. “The balance in the customer value equation (cost, security and convenience) is achieved as we add new technologies and solutions to our portfolio that extend customers’ existing investments,” he adds.
“Physical security market is of 600 million dollar which is divided between video surveillance, CCTV, access control, intrusion and fire detection.”
Finally
RANJIT NAMBIAR, DIRECTOR, IAM, SOUTH ASIA, HID GLOBAL
apart from the early adopters of access control systems in India - IT and BFSI segments.“Meanwhile, rapid urbanization in India has created the demand for security equipment and services in
second-tier cities such as Hyderabad, Pune and Calcutta and tier 3 cities such as Ahemdabad, Kochi, Coimbatore, Vizag, Jaipur and Lucknow. One of the strategies it focuses on is to develop
HID Global is strong in both enterprise segment and mid segment of the market. The go-to-market strategy of the company is to engage with the channel partners, large integrators and global accounts. The company has a separate team to address the regional structure under distribution and manages the channel partners in 12 to 13 cities from the sales management point of view. Besides, the company works with the consultants in terms of managing the specification work with the end customers, and in order to increase the awareness of end customers, HID Global conducts lots of seminar, road shows and briefing session for them.
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COVER STORY
CHANNEL BEST PRACTICES
A successful channel relationship has become vital for today’s business environment and vendors are following best practices to turn them from just channel partners to trusted sales partners BY KARMA NEGI
C
hannel partners are the Brand Ambassadors of today’s organisations. They are the ones who go out in the market, sell the products, and do the marketing; in short they are the face of the company. They can make or break a company. We all are well aware of the role they play and its importance for the organisations to take their product and message forward; and hence the need to make them more effective. In this story we bring to you some of the “Channel Best Practices” followed by the organisations.
Channel Team To successfully manage the channel ecosystem every organisation need to have a separate team to manage the channel partners. Juniper has dedicated partner mangers to manage its Elite partners, global alliances, broad channel and distributors. Quick Heal has appointed Managers to head specific product verticals. It has also created new and dedicated teams in the current financial year that have started working. Account management for Tally’s partners is
karma@smechannels.com
handled by a field force stationed at its regional offices across the nation. This team is in regular touch with the partners and works with them to develop their businesses. This dedicated team helps partners analyse their business performance as well as identify the right areas of focus and growth. Gigabyte’s sales team members, designated as area sales managers, are based across all major centers, as well, as the upcountry markets, in India. The area managers are consistently in touch with value partners, almost on a daily basis. Similarly, the regional managers communicate regularly with its Premier Partners. “In this scenario, we ensure speedy delivery of our partners’ requirements and also nip any grievance in the bud itself,” says Sunil Grewal, Sales Director – India, Gigabyte Technology (India). While Schneider Electric’s channel team is based out in 21 locations in the country; they are goaled on business generated through the partners.
Channel Enablement Vendors who want more from their channel partners have to make sure that the partners are
imparted with the relevant knowledge and motivation to play an effective role in their overall market strategy. It’s here where channel programs, trainings, education play an imperative role. A joint go-to-market and consistent enablement is very important says industry; one should constantly strive through channel partner programs to build value based relationships, so that end customers derive true benefit of this partnership. In the case of Gigabyte, it has three focus areas – Channel Profitability, Product Innovation, and After-Sales Services. It says its focus is on working for a common cause of knowledge-sharing among customers and partners alike. “Consolidation among Premier Partners gives us an excellent opportunity to offer better support, carry out effective training/education, and also ensure more profitability for both our partner categories - Premier and Value,” informs Grewal. To make the marriage work both the vendors and the partners have to work in tandem. Strengthening the business relationships with existing partners and aligning the partner’s core competencies with the business requirements should be followed. Enablement help partners dif-
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TO SUCCESSFULLY MANAGE THE CHANNEL ECOSYSTEM EVERY ORGANISATION NEED TO HAVE A SEPARATE TEAM.
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“CONSOLIDATION AMONG PREMIER PARTNERS GIVES US AN EXCELLENT OPPORTUNITY TO OFFER BETTER SUPPORT, CARRY OUT EFFECTIVE TRAINING / EDUCATION, AND ALSO ENSURE MORE PROFITABILITY FOR BOTH OUR PARTNER CATEGORIES - PREMIER AND VALUE.” SUNIL GREWAL, SALES DIRECTOR – INDIA, GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY (INDIA).
ferentiate themselves in the marketplace through better understanding of product portfolio and today’s market opportunity. Empowering and enabling partners with relevant sales and marketing tools give them the competitive edge. Training help partners become more customer centric and match the right solution to the right customer Tally deters from using the term Channel and instead regards them as its Partners. “The logic is inlaid in the sentiment with which we operate, wherein the partner network is not used as a route to deliver our products to the customers; but that we work together towards mutual and collective growth,” explains Mukesh Khanna, Associate VP (Sales and Marketing), Tally Solutions. Quick Heal believes in stepping into the shoes of its channel partners. “Clear communication that includes addressing grievances and concerns, training etc. go a long way in promoting a healthy channel partner ecosystem,” advices Kailash Katkar, MD and CEO, Quick Heal Technologies. ComGuard’s country manager Harish Rai says that vendors have much deeper knowledge about
the technology or product. For better and finer marketing strategies it is necessary for channel partners to understand the specifications and USPs. “We organise events where vendors and channel partners participate and exchange knowledge. This serves as a platform for direct interaction and boosts marketing skills,” he adds. Schneider Electric IT Business’s Channel Partner Program aims to help partners build a solutions-focused power and cooling practice with increased knowledge and expertise. “We believe a well-trained, knowledgeable partner will always deliver better value to the customer,” says M Gurudutt, Director (Channel Business), Schneider Electric IT Business, India. Industry agrees that channel readiness and partner empowerment are critical forces for business success. It’s vital to adopt an apt approach in channel practices and business plans should be chalked out with channel partners on the basis of their strength and vendors need to make efforts to make them being realistic in order to obtain ideal business hygiene.
“CLEAR COMMUNICATION THAT INCLUDES ADDRESSING GRIEVANCES AND CONCERNS, TRAINING ETC. GO A LONG WAY IN PROMOTING A HEALTHY CHANNEL PARTNER ECOSYSTEM.” KAILASH KATKAR, MD AND CEO, QUICK HEAL TECHNOLOGIES
“THEIR LEAD GENERATION EFFORTS ARE TAKEN TO RESPECTIVE CHANNEL PARTNERS BASED ON THEIR EXPERTISE AND REGIONAL FOCUS. IN ADDITION, WE ALSO HAVE AN-HOUSE TEAM OF TELE-CALLERS TO GENERATE LEADS FROM INTERNAL CUSTOMER DATABASE.” SUNIL SHARMA, VP (SALES & OPERATIONS, INDIA & SAARC), CYBEROAM NEC has a Market Development Fund specially created to motivate and boost the partner ecosystem to drive better performance and empower them to reach out to a larger customer base through co-branded marketing activities. This fund is made available to the best performing select partners on a periodic basis.
Trust and Profitability With the shrinking margins vendors are making sure that their channel partners are profitable. “We treat channel partners as our extended family members. As almost all our business comes from partners, we leave no stone unturned to ensure their profitability. Channel Profitability is ensured by coming out with attractive schemes,” says Grewal.
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“THE PARTNER NETWORK IS NOT USED AS A ROUTE TO DELIVER OUR PRODUCTS TO THE CUSTOMERS; BUT THAT WE WORK TOGETHER TOWARDS MUTUAL AND COLLECTIVE GROWTH.” MUKESH KHANNA, ASSOCIATE VP (SALES AND MARKETING), TALLY SOLUTIONS
“WE ARE ALSO FINALIZING AN INSIDE SALES REPRESENTATIVE MODEL WHICH SHALL FOCUS ON PROVIDING MORE LEADS.” ASHOK NAIR, DIRECTOR SMB LENOVO INDIA “We treat our channel partners as natural partners-in-profit. We work towards fortifying our relationship with them and nurture a long - lasting bond that is mutually beneficial,” says Sudhindra Holla, Country Manager, Axis Communications India. Zubair Alam, GM (Sales & Marketing), NEC India, adds, “It is very essential to maintain cama-
raderie with the partners to have a long term business relationship therefore we make all the efforts to maintain the same. We have always encouraged the concept of keeping the channel partner on good humour for the betterment and smoothening the work process.” Trust is other component of the vendorpartner relationship as Ajay Kaul, Director & GM (Global Commercial Channels), Dell India, says, “Channel Partner Relationships, like any other relationship, is based on mutual trust. We keep them in good humour by not crossing the boundaries of this trust at any point. We ensure that we maintain a healthy competition between our channel partners. We also believe in involving our channel partners in our strategic decision making processes as well.” Other than a yearly partner conference Emerson invites partners zone-wise to plan business together with them every quarter. “And what sets us apart from other organizations is the personal touch we add to these meets and trainings. This direct interaction doesn’t just build partner trust in us, but also reassures them that they can proactively reach out to us for anything they need to
“WE ORGANISE EVENTS WHERE VENDORS AND CHANNEL PARTNERS PARTICIPATE AND EXCHANGE KNOWLEDGE. THIS SERVES AS A PLATFORM FOR DIRECT INTERACTION AND BOOSTS MARKETING SKILLS.” HARISH RAI, COUNTRY MANAGER, COMGUARD
improve their skills or gain knowledge about our products” says Sanjay Zadoo, Country Manager (India Channel Business), Emerson Network Power. Gurpreet Brar, Director (Commercial Channel Sales), PPS HP India, says, “To ensure that our partners grow their revenues and profits, we are constantly working on new initiatives and introducing channel and marketing programs designed to achieve profitable growth for our partners and for us. Our new partner engagement model is based on three key pillars of Simplification, Profitability and Innovation.”
Lead Generation Lead generation is vital to any successful programme. Ranjit Nambiar, Director, IAM, South Asia, HID Global says that the most effective lead generation activities are achieved from an integrated marketing approach constituting online and offline, outbound and inbound activities, across multiple media. “Enabling and incentivising our partners to generate leads with us and to register them early to gain additional benefits really helps keep the momentum going. We offer our partners the ability to grow their business and benefit from our innovative solutions,” he adds. Juniper Networks’ global opportunity registration program rewards partners for hunting and qualifying new opportunities. “Beside this we have our in-house team of tele callers, they help us in generating leads from commercial patch and those leads are directly share with our Elite partners and we help partners through inside sales engine in terms of solution design , joint calls and preparing competitive analysis,” says Jitendra Gupta Director, Partner Sales (India & South Asia), Juniper Networks. Some use social media, advertising to help in building leads. Data collected by inbound call centre is also collated and analysed to be utilized
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COVER STORY
“AND WHAT SETS US APART FROM OTHER ORGANIZATIONS IS THE PERSONAL TOUCH WE ADD TO THESE MEETS AND TRAININGS.” SANJAY ZADOO, COUNTRY MANAGER, INDIA CHANNEL BUSINESS, EMERSON NETWORK POWER in the right way. There are also third party lead generation agencies at work. In addition existing customers also helps in providing referrals. ComGuard has a dedicated department that generates leads and coordinates with its marketing team. Cyberoam has a dedicated senior Business Development Managers (BDMs) at key metros to chase and identify prospect customers. “Their lead generation efforts are taken to respective channel partners based on their expertise and regional focus. In addition, we also have an-house team of tele-callers to generate leads from internal customer database,” adds Sunil Sharma, VP Sales & Operations, India&SAARC, Cyberoam. Lenovo’s tele-calling agency helps them in lead generation. These leads are then shared with the channel partners. “We are also finalizing an Inside Sales Representative model which shall focus on providing more leads and also supporting the Channel partners in closure of customer requirements. We also have a ‘Feet on Street’ team which works closely with the Channel partners in identifying and closure of leads,” informs Ashok Nair, Director SMB - Lenovo India. Juniper has an online educational portal called “Juniper learning Academy.” This portal is freely available to all of its registered partners and their
team. It offers trainings for all functions like sales, pre-sales and post sales. Hrishi Parthasarathy, Director (Channels and Strategic Partners), Avaya, India, says, “With each major new launch we provide in depth solution training for our channel partners – both webbased and face-to-face. We have regular communication vehicles, including newsletters and a monthly webinar series to provide updates and sales support. And through our channel account managers, we have regular one on one contact with our major partner representatives.” Zadoo adds that in short, then aim is to help elaborate on a partner’s skills, and scale him up to become a solution provider of choice and not just a product channel.
Technical Support For those not technically sound providing technical support to partners and end customers is also vital for the business. From forums to toll free numbers, to technical sales representatives have been put in place to handle all technical enquiries. QNAP has its own forum for technical discussion which is available to everyone across world. “QNAP Sales teams are highly qualified and technically sound, so we are able to handle all technical enquiries even sometime we do cross verified
“WE BELIEVE A WELL-TRAINED, KNOWLEDGEABLE PARTNER WILL ALWAYS DELIVER BETTER VALUE TO THE CUSTOMER.” M GURUDUTT, DIRECTOR (CHANNEL BUSINESS), SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC IT BUSINESS, INDIA
our solutions VS enquiries by Product manager,” quips Sanjay Biswal, Sales Manager (India), QNAP Systems. Gigabyte recently moved its Toll-Free Helpline Number in-house, to ensure improved support to both customers and channel partners. It is open to any kind of pre-sales and post-sales queries regarding its motherboards, including service and technical support. It also caters to
TOP FIVE BEST PRACTICES Gigabyte
n Consistent and attractive incentive schemes for T2 partners n Prompt and efficient after-sales services through Gigabyte Exclusive Service Centers, which work in tandem with our 23 ATR centers and 86 Accel Service Providers (Accel Frontline is our service partner) n Regular SI meets to share technology knowledge; n Loyalty program for Premier Partners that also includes special holiday packages;
n Ensuring utmost Channel Profitability under any circumstances.
Tally Solutions
n Partnering relationship focused at collective growth n Adopting policies that allow partners to operate in line with their key strengths n Processes to encourage and coach partners to adopt proactive approach in their business n Equipping and enabling partners
with the right tools to generate and close leads n Continuous improvement in providing the right systems and processes to partners to help them in automating their business operations
Quick Heal
n Maintaining consistent and sustainable relationships n Creating win-win situations n Case locking n We have a fair price policy
n Free of Cost trainings
QNAP
n Channel Friendly n Always Connected with Partner n Regular Training n End Customer
Juniper Networks
n Joint Marketing n Lead Generation n Opportunity Registration n Regular sales, pre-sales and post
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COVER STORY
“IT IS VERY ESSENTIAL TO MAINTAIN CAMARADERIE WITH THE PARTNERS TO HAVE A LONG TERM BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP THEREFORE WE MAKE ALL THE EFFORTS TO MAINTAIN THE SAME.” ZUBAIR ALAM, GM (SALES & MARKETING), NEC INDIA.
“BESIDE THIS WE HAVE OUR IN-HOUSE TEAM OF TELE CALLERS, THEY HELP US IN GENERATING LEADS FROM COMMERCIAL PATCH.” JITENDRA GUPTA DIRECTOR, PARTNER SALES (INDIA & SOUTH ASIA), JUNIPER NETWORKS
enquiries related to product information and availability. Through its partner certification program Avaya enables its channel partners to provide much of the technical support required for end customers. “We have a very well developed selfserve web tool which covers the vast majority of queries. We have a partner help desk operating out of APAC providing critical support to our
sales trainings n Rewards for partners on Achievement of the mutually assigned targets
ComGuard
n Regular Training Programmes n Pre sales, implementation and post sale support n Live events & Networking n Analysis & Planning n Vendor Engagement
channel partners. And we have critical escalation staff on hand to trouble shoot any major issues with our partners around the clock,” adds Parthasarathy. Cyberoam has 15+ dedicated and experienced pre-sales teams across the country to address technical queries. Axis offers technical support through both phone and chat services. The new facility in India is in line with the company’s global standards and includes an exclusive testing and demo centre to enable superior customer and partner support. “In addition, Axis authorized distributors are available across India to provide sales & technical support,” informs Holla.
Channels The channel community also has some expectations from the vendors and wants them to have full faith in their channel partners. Salimath, MD, SVNT Infotech Pvt Ltd, says, “Every vendor should have full faith in its channel partners and system integrators and should avoid having multiple partners for a specific region. Having more
Schneider Electric IT Business n Uniform Pricing Policy n Channel Programs n Training and enablement n Specialisation (3Phase and Datacenter) n Dedicated Channel team to manage partners across 23 locations.
Axis
n Educating and retraining
than one partner reduces the overall value of the product.” Santhosh Kamble, MD of Nexgen Integrated Pvt Ltd. comments that any vendor should follow good CRM techniques and Return Materials Authorization (RMA) mechanism in place. Partners say that vendors often concentrate more on the product performance rather than designing a whole solution for specific requirements. “Security and surveillance industry still lacks the general awareness in the Indian market. India being a price sensitive country, the major problem faced by us is in terms of price of these premium products. Other challenges include unavailability of demo machines and weak customer support techniques,” says Kamble.
Finally In this ever growing competitive world partners can bolt before we can think cultivating relationship and demonstrating that you are watching their back is what vendors need to follow as part of their channel best practices initiative.
n Enhanced margins n Demonstration equipment’s n Collaborating with partners n Enabling our partners
technical queries n Establishing a Market Development Fund for the growth and empowerment of the partner
NEC
Dell
n Recognizing our channel partner’s strength and structuring the business plan accordingly n Organising regular training sessions to familiarize our partners with the products n Regular performance reviews n Trained engineers for handling
n Investing in our channel partner’s success n Focus on their profitability and they will focus on yours n Provide Product Support n Leveraging Partner Strength n Continuous education programs for channel partners
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SME CHAT
SCOTT GRIGGS, SR. MARKETING MANAGER AND HEAD - PARTNER MARKETING, CISCO CAPITAL, APJC
“EXPANDING COVERAGE WITH FOCUS ON THE CHANNEL” Scott Griggs, Sr. Marketing Manager and Head (Partner Marketing), Cisco Capital, APJC talks to SME Channels on how vendor financing is picking up.
Vendor financing is picking up in the market. Brief us on Cisco Capital. We are wholly owned by Cisco and were established in 1996 basically to help end-user customers purchase Cisco kits and help channel partners with profitability. We have three lines of business: End-user financing, Extended terms which is basically just extending the net 30 day payment (the term that Cisco has) to 60 or 90 days, and Cisco pre-owned equipment business. The last business includes when a lot of equipment comes off the financing structure or lease, it gets returned to Cisco Capital and we refurbish it, certify it and load it with proper systems and software and sell them as Cisco certified refurbished equipment. In India, we have been offering this finance since 2006 and have pretty much in-country presence wherever Cisco operates in APAC region. For the financing in most parts we use Cisco balance sheet, as the company has lot of cash on the balance sheet, we put that in use to help customers afford Cisco equipment and to help partners offer that to their customers. What are the criteria for providing finance to channel partners or customers? Unlike some financing companies like GE capital which finance white and yellow goods and so forth, we are sales enablement arm for Cisco and its partners, hence we mostly finance Cisco equipment. We have a deal in which a lot of case we have
complementary partners, and equipment is part of the solution and we finance that as well. Mostly we focus on Cisco solutions hence the conditions will differ based on the customers’ credit worthiness. We have an in-house professional credit evaluation team that performs credit assessment on the customers, size of the deal whether or not that customer has entities in multiple countries or branch offices etc. Hence lot of factors go into how we assess the eligibility of the customers and what their needs are. Who all partners avail this facility from you? We work across all our partners and all our partners can avail of Cisco capital financing. To name a few top tier 1 partners include Wipro, Dimension Data etc. It’s also available for tier 2 partners as well; any set of partners which have a customer that wants to finance any Cisco partner with a valid Cisco partner agreement can avail it. We have a long relationship with these bigger partners and are starting to expand our coverage through our in country resources that’s focussed specifically on the channel. In US we have a channel focused Cisco capital team for a number of years, then we established the same in Europe two years back and last year we put some resources in place in APAC. What are the benefits of vendor financing for the channel partners vis-a-vis banks? Since the global financial crisis particularly smaller companies haven’t had the access to credit
sources that they had prior to the financial crisis. And it’s lingering even though there has been a bit of global recovery. Therefore, on the global level its pure access to finance for the Cisco partners. Another benefit to our customer is another line of credit; we allow them to purchase more immediately. This helps in building a better relationship with the end-customer by introducing them to sorts of financing, and capital can help their profitability. How cheaper is your financing compared to others? We don’t advertise on rate as the calculation of the rate part again depends on the partners’ credit rating. What we do is we deduct certain residual value of that equipment which is a price that we think we could get three years down the road for that equipment upfront; for example a solution costs a thousand dollars and we might say okay we will take 200 dollars of the top because we know that equipment sits on our balance sheet and three years down the road we own that equipment, then customer can repurchase or can upgrade it. We have the refurbishing capability on our equipment business and we know we are going to be able to sell that, hence it’s different then what an independent financier or bank would be able to do with that equipment. We advertise we are market competitive in terms of rate but we do have benefits over banks and we know the market value of equipment. Do the credit rates differ for different partners or are they the
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SME CHAT
to banks like giving them a notification period, we would work with them to try to allow them to payback overtime. What are the risks in vendor financing and the precautions that you undertake? The biggest risk is credit worthiness of customers we are lending to, and we try to have a balanced portfolio so we don’t want to concentrate risk too much in either a particular country or with one particular customer or partner.
“...IF A CUSTOMER WANTS TO BUY CISCO BUT CAN’T AFFORD IT WE WANT TO MAKE SURE THEY DO.”
same across the board? The difference in rates for tier 1 and tier 2 partners depends on the term and the credit worthiness. If it’s a very big well established partner with a lot of cash on their balance sheet, long credit history of prompt repayment and so forth, they will have a very strong credit rating. However, a partner with limited cash on balance sheet, had to borrow from other sources and had been delinquent in the past, they will have a lower credit rating. And that difference in credit rating will be reflected in the price that is being given to the customer. In addition, the term would also be an indicator. If we are lending over a period of three years we take the prevailing rates into account, the interest rates in the country we are lending in, our
costs of funds, the overheads etc. hence, there are innumerable factors and we need to evaluate it on a case to case basis. The minimum duration for which we lend is three months and actually greater than 12 months and for maximum we can be somewhat flexible; for most part we lend between the periods of three to four years, sometimes five but most of the partners and customers borrow for three to four years. How do you deal with partners who default on payment? We have very low delinquencies that go back to the fact that we mostly lend on Cisco solutions and through established Cisco partners. But if such a situation arise we deal with them similar
It’s said that vendor financing is a way to increase the sales number inn short term? Please comment. I disagree with it; we have been around since 1996 and in our case we are mostly a sales enablement arm and since Cisco has more than 50 billion dollars in its balance sheet there are a lot of things that we were just looking to make money on money. We were established to help customers afford Cisco equipment and help partners sell Cisco equipment. It’s not a short term proposition where we are trying to pump up numbers it’s very much a long term proposition and Cisco capital has grown quite substantially. And we will be around for a long time. If a customer needs option to finance and they want to buy Cisco there is no question that it helps us competitively but if a customer wants to buy Cisco but can’t afford it then we want to make sure they do. Which are the verticals with higher traction for borrowing? It’s hard to pick one. We finance across all the verticals that Cisco and its partners target from manufacturing to education, public sector, oil and gas etc. We did a survey with Forrester on this which was based on end-users who qualify on financing and related topics. The survey revealed that the manufacturing and IT sector have a lot more respondents who were familiar with financing. Tell us more about this survey? The study revealed that in India 38% of businesses use their own balance sheet funding. We also wanted to see how important the role of CFOs in technology purchase decision is and in India CFOs across 43% of companies are primary decision makers. This we messaged to our partners that we need to talk to the finance folks too and not just the tech folks, and how important they are when it comes to vendor selection.
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FEATURE
VIDEO CONFERENCE
COLLABORATING ON VIDEO The role of SMEs is imperative in fuelling economic growth, and they are adopting technologies like video collaboration solutions to further their growth story BY KARMA NEGI
karmai@smechannels.com
T
he video conferencing market in India is growing by leaps and bounds; thanks to the competitive business environment which demands instant collaboration. And SMEs are not far behind in embracing the virtues of collaboration to further their business. In addition, the growing market opportunities provided by them are enormous. According to an IDC report (SMB Telephony: Current/Planned Telecom Resource Use, 2013) 30 percent of midsized firms are currently using some videoconferencing resources beyond simple Web cams. It further reveals that the number of SMBs
using video collaboration is clearly set for significant growth, and could potentially double in the next 12 months. Small and medium businesses are no longer shy or apprehensive to this rising technology as it not only provides huge cost benefits but also increases productivity. Ajay Joseph, Director (Mid Market), Avaya India, says, “The need for collaboration today is on the rise, as it can be compared to a face-toface meeting, thereby making it more impactful. Realizing the huge cost benefit it can provide them and to ease their business routines and drive productivity, SMEs are increasingly using such
technologies.” According to various market analysts, the market share of video-conferencing in India is around $110 million for the year 2012. In 2013, the video conferencing market was poised to grow to about $146 million. The availability of high-speed network connectivity is accelerating growth of video conferencing among SMEs says Levis Wilson, COO, *astTECS: “Also fuelling this growth is workforce spread across geographies. Access to video conferencing on hand-held devices along with wide spread availability of affordable hardware is also leading to increase in demand.”
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“Realizing the huge cost benefit it can provide them and to ease their business routines and drive productivity, SMEs are increasingly using such technologies.” AJAY JOSEPH, DIRECTOR (MID MARKET), AVAYA INDIA
Moreover, every vertical is lapping up this technology as Rizhkant Zha- Director, System Sales Division, Panasonic India, says, “Last year, we saw new sectors such as entertainment, healthcare, finance, education and manufacturing explore and deploy video solutions. The total contribution that SMEs make in the video solutions market is around 11 %.”
The Growth Curve Video solutions enable SMEs to increase productivity by breaking the barrier of distance. Reducing travel cost, accommodation cost and time but increasing the productivity of the business is what such solutions do. Sitting at one place you can collaborate with multiple people spread across different geographies. Today, it is used to varied purposes from job interviews, meetings, product demonstrations, trainings, to remote healthcare etc. Wilson says, “Today with availability of advanced video solution technology offering powerful features with plug & play simplicity, the enterprises are able to connect remote offices and teleworkers, able to share the information effectively and helps in faster decision making; thereby increasing their productivity saving their travel time & cost.” Joseph informs that in recent times sporadic increase in number of SMEs in India has been witnessed. This is due to the fact that they large enterprises become less flexible to ever demanding customers. “This is where SMEs come in,
“The significant challenges faced by SMEs are requirement of high speed infrastructure, need of special equipments and good quality of support and services, which require higher cost.”
FEATURE
“Nowadays there is a culture of mixed environment which is quite interesting and depends upon number of vendors.” RAJ BALI, OWNER, SUN LINE COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS
LEVIS WILSON, COO, *ASTTECS
providing customized offerings and providing door to door service. Key mantra of how SMEs operate is “do more with less”, which means there is increasing gap between resources and customer demands. This gap is somewhat bridged with technology like Video, that enables SMEs to collaborate effectively and take smarter decisions. Therefore, we have seen significant traction with SMEs adopting video solutions,” he adds. Wilson predicts that among the SMEs, there will be greater demand of mobile functionality and the ability to integrate different devices with enterprise IT applications. With the proliferation of high speed data and smart devices, Video solutions market would witness significant growth. Despite the tough economic conditions the spending by SMEs on video conference solutions was no less than impressive. According to Zha 11% percent of spending on video conference solutions in 2012 was by SMEs and this proportion is expected to increase to 14% percent. Joseph informs that a typical SME with around 250 employees and two offices would spend around $5K-7K on video solutions. This would increase with the increase in office locations or increase in mobile workforce.
tutions and Corporate. “The absence of requisite assistance proves to be a handicap in becoming more competitive in the national and international markets. SMEs face a number of problems - absence of adequate and timely banking finance, limited capital and knowledge and non-availability of suitable technology,” he adds. According to Joseph first organisations must integrate video collaboration seamlessly into the current infrastructure of multiple networks, including assimilation with instant messaging, telephony, web conferencing, mobile and social media. Second, enterprise networks must rise to the challenge of an ever-increasing number of desktop and mobile video users. Third, organisations must put together a corporate policy that establishes a secure environment for remote video solutions and services. And last, the success of video will rely heavily on whether video collaboration tools are easy to use and intuitive for users. “The significant challenges faced by SMEs are requirement of high speed infrastructure, need of special equipments and good quality of support and services, which require higher cost,” opines Wilson.
Challenges for SMEs
BYOD
With limited budgets Indian SME’s are predominantly preoccupied with finance and management issues says Zha. He airs his view that SME sector needs more support from the concerned Government departments, Banks, Financial insti-
With the advent of BYOD and consumerisation of IT more and more price sensitive SME’s are embracing video and voice solution. BYOD is also helping video conferencing gain momentum. Joseph says, “Mobile technology and
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VIDEO CONFERENCE
“Whilst this gives tremendous opportunities for the channel partner ecosystem it also poses the challenge to constantly replenish the skills required.” VINOD NAIR, VP (Video Conferencing & Multimedia Sales), AGC Networks Ltd
cloud computing coupled with the proliferation of popular consumer devices like smartphones, iPads and other tablets, are helping to fuel demand for technologies like video conferencing that are more responsive and offer anytime, anywhere and any device access to SMEs in a reliable, scalable and secure manner.” However, it also comes with its own set of problems and challenges like posing a threat to security and privacy. Zha informs, “Web site filtering, spam filtering, data leak protection and application control technologies will become ever more important as information is transferred to and from each user’s individual device. This also means Wi-Fi technology will need to be tightly integrated into security infrastructure and networks will need to be segmented so that guest devices are not allowed on production network. Licensing of network security infrastructure will also be of importance.”
Tapping SMEs And to make good the opportunities which lies in SMEs Panasonic has a special market strategy to tap SMEs with its video conferencing solution. This includes reducing cost of Entry Level HD End Point, introduction of low cost PC based and mobile solutions, use of Interoperability & Open standards reduce risks of investments and save future investments, software based & cost effective interoperable Multiparty solution, solutions
“SMEs face a number of problems - absence of adequate and timely banking finance, limited capital and knowledge and non-availability of suitable technology.” RIZHKANT ZHA, DIRECTOR, SYSTEM SALES DIVISION, PANASONIC INDIA
to be integrated with existing Voice solutions using PBX. Avaya with its SME solutions is focused on designing, building and marketing complete communications systems for organizations with up to 250 employees. “From easy-to-use standalone systems to sophisticated and integrated multi-site solutions, Avaya helps SMEs increase the productivity of their employees, deliver superior customer service, and reduce costs. Together with thousands of certified partners in virtually every part of the world, Avaya delivers the full breadth of solutions and services that today’s SMEs require,” Joseph replies. To address the SME market *astTECS offers video conferencing solution - *astV series.
Channel As video solutions get ubiquitous enterprises are looking at channel partners who are “UC Specialist” says Vinod Nair, VP (Video Conferencing & Multimedia Sales), AGC Networks Ltd. “However whilst this gives tremendous opportunities for the channel partner ecosystem it also poses the challenge to constantly replenish the skills required for doing complex implementations,” he adds. Then the changing vendor strategy according to the market (like during downturn some vendors try cutting costs) can have adverse effect on quality feel some channel partners.
Adds Jilesh zaveri, Partner, Procom Office Solutions, Mumbai, “Talking about channel practices lots of vendors think of appointing more partners to reach more customers, in a way it can work for some products but products are now sold more on solutions which require special support and understanding of the product where only a few partners who have invested in training their engineers would succeed.” He rues that some vendors focus more on incentive programs and special pricing which results in incentive margin being passed on, leading to loss in revenue and lower margins. He feels that well-designed incentive programs can help in increase of revenues and profits for all. “In a 2 tier system its must that vendors play vital role in maintaining relationships and see that the distributor as well as authorized partners get their due margin. Vendors should ensure that partners visibility over the product increases and there should be no diversion of the product outside authorized chain,” suggests Zaveri. Appointing incompetent and inexperienced channel managers by vendors who just know the art of selling (though can lead to good figures) diminish profit margins say partners. They also rue the fact that sometimes vendors make such complex schemes where the involvement of the partner is more into the paperwork of the scheme rather than pitching the product. Availability of product is a big issue as end customers have more options nowadays. Support has to be for extended hours, as many companies work round the clock and they would need support at odd hours. Delhi based owner of Sun Line Communications Systems Raj Bali says, “Nowadays there is a culture of mixed environment which is quite interesting and depends upon number of vendors; one challenge faced is of managing all the contracts, whereas the other challenge is of processes being different for all the contracts along with diverse delivery methods. Taking that a step further if there is interruptibility problem between vendors then, there would be situations where people are pointing fingers at each other and clearly you want to avoid that by looking at multi-vendors as this is where you place all your business.”
Finally The video solutions market for SMEs is definitely booming that’s why every major vendor wants to grab a pie of this market like Panasonic which is targeting to grab 10% market share this year. Apart from the established ones some new players have also joined the bandwagon like LG, Huawei, and Avaya too recently announced its video collaboration solutions specifically for the SMEs.
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SME CHAT
VIKAS KAUL PROPRIETOR, V.S.TRADERS
“WE HAVE MAINTAINED A YEARLY GROWTH OF 20%” Since 2005, V.S.Traders has been one of the distributors of Matrix for Jammu region. The company has been dealing in all Matrix telecom and security solutions which has helped it earn good market share. SME Channels spoke to Vikas Kaul, Proprietor, V.S.Traders. Excerpts.
Brief us about your company? We have been associated with Matrix since 2005 and since then we have been one of its premium distributors in Jammu region. We are dealing in all Matrix telecom and security solutions. What is your turnover and growth percentage? We have maintained a yearly growth percentage of 20%. What is your strength in terms of market reach and others? Our key strength is in providing prompt service to our customers and channel partners in terms of quick delivery of the material, backed by an accurate after-sales service offered by our efficient technical support team. What kind of solutions and products are you dealing in? We deal in electronic and communication, office automation products, banking automation products, automobile products, industrial timing, belting products, etc. How do you find telecom market in India? Telecom market is growing with pace and globalisation has increased the market potential. There would be a 10% to 15 % growth only for OEMs.
What kind of telecom solutions you have? In the telecom domain we deal in Matrix IP-PBX’s, VoIP and GSM Gateways. How do you find Matrix products in terms of its advantages vis-àvis other brands? Matrix is substance brand. Substance in the form of technology, depth, genuineness and going beyond the mere outer façade and offer more values in all the areas. This is what differentiates Matrix from the lot. Matrix solutions are packed with More. More productivity, more applications, more flexibility, more functions, more features, more cost saving, more reliability, and more support. Matrix positioning is based on offering more of these true inherent values which customers expect from infrastructure solutions. What is the potential and challenge for Matrix in the market? Potential is very good and as far as challenges are concerned every product has to survive and I know we will because of the quality products offered by Matrix. This quality of Matrix products had played a key role in earning a good market share. What the company needs to do to improve the market share?
“AS A MATRIX PREMIUM PARTNER, OUR ASSOCIATION HAS CONTRIBUTED GREATLY TO THE GROWTH OF OUR COMPANY AND WE LOOK FORWARD FOR MORE MARGIN, STRATEGIES AND INCENTIVES WHICH WILL BE AN INSPIRATION FOR US TO ACHIEVE OUR TARGETS.’’ As a Matrix premium partner, our association has contributed greatly to the growth of our company and we look forward for more margin, strategies and incentives which will be an inspiration for us to achieve our targets. As a partner what kind of products you want to add this year? This year we plan to add more new products to our portfolio catering to the telecom and security domain, which encompass IP-PBX systems around 800 to 1600 ports, telephone sets (low cost both non-CLI & CLI), cordless extensions along with EPABX systems, power supply for CCTV cameras, power supply for CCTV cameras, MDF boxes, CCTV‘s and allied products and biometric & time -attendance systems.
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SME TREND
GROWING FOCUS ON SMBS Quantum has put in place new set of team members and partners as part of their enhanced focus on the SMB segment BY: KARMA NEGI
karma@smechannels.com
O
ver the last six years Quantum has evolved as an enterprise solutions provider to various clients. Starting form mid-range to enterprise customers it offers various levels of data protection solutions as well as big data solutions. Today, data protection solutions, Cloud and Big data are its primary focus areas in India. While it’s growing 30% year- on-year in APAC, in India it’s somewhere around 27%-30%. With a rich 33 years experience in the Data protection business gives Quantum the advantage of deeper insights and understanding of the market; and is consistently investing on this business. The verticals which forms its focus areas comprises of IT and ITeS, followed by govt, oil and gas, media and entertainment, manufacturing and BFSI. From SMEs to SMBs to enterprise Quantum has solutions for all these sectors. For the SMEs who have moved from physical infrastructure to virtual data protection in the virtual environment still remains a challenge. And this is where Quantum seriously focuses on. Its product called VMpro helps to protect data in virtual machines and also deduplicate the data and replicate as a single vendor. For Big Data, media entertainment industry is one of the well known industry for Quantum; apart from this there are government, private, oil and gas, and video surveillance because of their need for loads of data management as well as the archival ability. Genomic sequencing is another big area but in India the market is still nascent. World 2 genomic large sequencing organisation runs on Quantum storage. Quantum also offers product infrastructure for
people who are into the cloud business. “Because lot of times the cast to build a cloud is the real challenge. Products margins are shrinking and partners want to retain clients and Quantum helps those clients minimise the cost by integrating physical and virtual infrastructure which they can offer their customers at a cheaper price and hence can acquire as many clients as they want,” says Guna Sekaran R, Country Manager (India & Sri Lanka), Quantum. Its business in India is done through its SIs and close to 30% of its Indian revenue comes from the government sector, while IT and ITeS and BFSI sectors also contribute the same. Disk based back up appliances are gaining momentum not only globally but also in the India market. This comes between primary and tape archival. IDC and Gartner puts this category under PPBA or purpose built backup appliance which is currently supported by seven billion dollar globally and is expected to grow to 5.7 billion dollars by 2015. “So it is one of the most high growth market,” says Sekaran, “and India and China have the largest adaption rate.” He further remarks that the key driver for this is the IT infrastructure, 70% of which is moving towards deduplication as a major concept. “We help customers to reduce the storage cost investment and this is where the trend is moving towards. Operational data is the second key driver as the customers want to have nearline copy so that if anything goes wrong they can always get back the data,” adds Sekaran. Deduplication also helps in reducing the data footprint so in the end it reduces the storage cost
GUNA SEKARAN R, COUNTRY MANAGER, INDIA & SRI LANKA, QUANTUM
“WE HAVE INTRODUCED NEW SET OF TEAM MEMBERS, NEW PARTNERS MODEL TO STOCK AND SELL THESE SMB ENTRY LEVEL DATA PROTECTION SOLUTIONS AND WE ARE DRIVING THIS NATIONALLY AS OUR KEY INITIATIVE.” for the clients. Globally India is seen as the second largest market after China, and is projected to grow big time by tapping this technology because as per Sekaran this is not a vendor driven but a customer driven concept. Sekaran says that India adaption rate is big because the primary storage cast is pushing them to look at deduplication model. Though some have written of the Tape market but for Quantum it’s very much alive and kicking. With a 36% market share in this space Quantum’s
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SME TREND
35% of business is still dependant on Tape. On why the market is still alive Sekaran answers, “In India you will never see every corporate, government or customer bid without Tape as a part of it. It answers the question for many people who do not provide tape as a solution today. Vendors who say tape is dead are actually trying t o promote something else around it but from a customer usage perspective the role of Tape has changed as an archival medium not depending on the nearline.” He quotes another reason; being the compliance policy in India according to which sectors like BFSI has to store its data on a Tape in an offsite location and should have three DR locations; and this is an RBI driven rule. With the video surveillance market getting bigger, to put all the data captured into primary storage is an expensive proposition, this is where archival plays a huge role. Operational data gets stored in small form factor and the rest gets pushed back to the tape which is much cheaper. “Tape is actually a growing business; its role has changed from a secondary storage to archival and the inter-medium area is covered by the disk backup so that they get an operational data in a
faster recovery mode,” he says. Disk based back up contributes 27% of the revenue and tape 35%, the rest comes from the big data area. It also has a well entrenched focus on the SMEs. Quantum’s India focus is on how is to educate and support them and develop the SME market. SME contribution to business is around 30%-40%, five to six percent of the market is SMB which is now a growing focus area for Quantum, and the rest is enterprise. “We have introduced new set of team members, new partners model to stock and sell these SMB entry level data protection solutions and we are driving this nationally as our key initiative. We offer storage deduplication and replication solutions from a single vendor which no one in the market offers,” informs Sekaran. Out of its 100 plus partners in enterprise and SME, 70 partners are in data protection and the rest in big data and are directly managed by Quantum. Moreover, it has also segmented its partners for Data Protection and Big Data. While in the SMB business or the volume business it has 200 plus channel partners who are managed by the distributors. Its two distributors are iValue
and TechnoBind and the latter focuses on big data solutions and is also the exclusive distributor for the SMB or volume products. Media and entertainment is one of the biggest vertical for big data solutions. For this industry MAM or media assessment management software is the key for them and Quantum works with majority of the MAMs in the world to provide StorNext appliance for managing big data. Hence MAM dealers are different channel than the traditional IT channel.
Finally With a consistent growth rate of 36% y-o-y in APAC in the last three years, it’s looking at a similar growth for the next three years in India too. It also wants to develop a unique partner model in India and develop a partner who is completely certified to sell data protection and big data solutions from Quantum. And this is going to be its big focus area in the coming year. Apart from the above it’s also looking at developing 100 strong partners in India who are certified and capable of selling Quantum data protection solutions and at least 50 channel partners on the big data.
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SME TREND
NETAPP
ADD CLOUD CAPABILITY IN AN ENTERPRISE DATA CENTER NetApp’s vision is to build comprehensive ecosystem and differentiative technology features which help service provider and enterprises to build cloud computing architecture in a better manner BY: APARAJITA CHOUDHURY aparajita@smechannels.com
A
ccording to Gartner, cloud computing market in India is estimated at 50 million dollars for cloud computing services and infrastructure. NASSCOM predicts that the Indian cloud computing market is expected to reach 16 billion US dollar by 2020. Basically private cloud and public cloud drive the cloud computing market. There is an increasing traction of cloud computing across enterprises, small and medium enterprises, public sector and government agencies. The target market for public cloud is SME segment whereas for private cloud it’s the large enterprises, government agencies, banking, financial services, insurance, IT, IT enabled sectors and telecom; this is because private cloud provides the benefit of efficiency, agility and utility of the computing while maintaining ownership over the data, and the governance model around the IT architecture. Gartner says the public cloud market is around 450 million dollars in 2013 and the growth percentage is 30% yoy in 2013 as compared to 2012. It further state that infrastructure-as-a-service is around 60 million dollars in 2013. Santosh D’souza, CIO, NetApp India, says, “Market is growing rapidly and the adoption rate of cloud computing in India is 443 million US dollar which is 36% compared to 2012. Infrastructure as a service which delivers compute storage and network as a service in the cloud is expected to grow around 40% yoy in 2013.” The vision of NetApp is to build comprehensive
ecosystem and differentiated technology feature which help service provider and enterprises to build cloud computing architecture in a better manner. The company provides enterprises with wide variety of cloud service provider and cloud technology, and work with various vendors to deliver converged infrastructure as well as cloud architecture that service provider and enterprises can deploy. NetApp considers itself as the core contributor of Open Stack project. It runs on basic computer storage networking component and addresses all kind of storage heterogeneous underneath. The company also works with another cloud computing platform called Cloud Stack. D’souza maintains, “We are working with all of the technology vendors and community that are relevant to cloud computing architecture. We are providing customers comprehensive and universal data platform for cloud computing. Our storage operating system which used to be called Data ONTAP has always adopted a software defined approach.” NetApp’s flagship product is Cluster Data ONTAP and its storage portfolio starts from 60 terabytes to 69 terabytes. Cluster Data ONTAP is a unified storage operating system which runs on FAS series of storage. The company also has three different families of storage 2000, 3000 and 6000 series, each one of them have five different model in each family. He further says that Cluster Data ONTAP has increased the level of virtualization secure
multi tenancy and an automation capability that a storage platform might be required to deliver to enable cloud computing. Its vision with Cluster ONTAP is to ensure that all of these data can be universally managed by an enterprise. NetApp has a solution for Amazon Web services called NetApp Private Storage. The company also build converged infrastructure with Cisco called FlexPod. The other aspect that the company is focusing on is to build a universal data platform to ensure that storage is defined through software. “NetApp is in a position to deliver software defined storage today through the recent launch of a new version of a Cluster Data ONTAP,” says D’souza. The company informs that public clouds offered by TCS, Wipro and HCL and private cloud service named BSNL Operated One Cloud are built on NetApp Storage only. Cloud services provider like NetMagic also runs on NetApp Storage. Worldwide NetApp has around 175 cloud service provider that offer over three hundred different storage services based on NetApp Storage. Now the focus is to add cloud capability in the architecture of an enterprise data center. And the data center has diverse compute storage and networking infrastructure so the attempt is to consolidate and standardize all of these elements in data center architecture. So most of the Indian enterprises make investment in server virtualization and storage virtualization because virtualization is the first step towards cloud computing. The second step towards cloud computing is
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NETAPP
SME TREND
informs NetApp Flash technology witnessed huge demand in the Indian market. With the huge amount of data that enterprise holds of the customers and its eco system, big data is also beginning to play a major role in storage and data services market place.
Channel Partners
to create the automated environment and the third step is to create service catalogue and allow business users and application users to provision for themselves through this service portal. However, there are many significant challenges which restrict customers from shifting towards cloud computing specially the public cloud like the ownership, security and integrity of data that they are transferring into the cloud. In private cloud environment, heterogeneity and diversity of technology component, multiple different brands of storage, multiple different brands of compute lead to complexity, so it is important to ensure that orchestration, automation and virtualization layer is optimized for different brands of compute and storage. Here the crucial thing to do is to standardize specific set of compute, storage and networking element. “Standardization also becomes important prerequisite that will facilitate smooth transition into a computing platform within the data center,” states D’souza. Further, NetApp connect allows the company to deliver all of the intranet data. This product also provides the capability to securely and in an authenticated fashion access all of the data reside within the data center without VPN client. With NetApp E series, the company delivers efficient capacity, performance, operating cost, reduce power and cooling requirements. “E series forms a perfect platform for big data kind of initiative and it works very well in video surveillance requirement which demand high
SANTOSH D’SOUZA, CIO, NETAPP INDIA
“NETAPP IS IN A POSITION TO DELIVER SOFTWARE DEFINED STORAGE TODAY THROUGH THE RECENT LAUNCH OF A NEW VERSION OF A CLUSTER DATA ONTAP.” bandwidth,” maintains D’souza. Finally, with content repository solution called NetApp GRID, the company allows users to unify storage that exists in multiple data center. Altogether, NetApp has 300 different storage services offerings that are based on NetApp Cluster Data ONTAP being delivered by 135 cloud services provider. For the last one and a half year, NetApp has been focusing on Indian enterprises and Indian parent companies. Besides, the company informs that significant amount of revenue comes from IT, ITes sector, banking, financial services, telecom and service provider manufacturing organizations. And cloud computing, virtualization and mobility drive the data management and server security area in India. In the storage hardware infrastructure D’Cruz
The main motive of the channel partners is to deliver the simple integrated solutions so it is essential for them to have the assurance from a variety of technology partners from whom they will pick up products to create that comprehensive cloud solution for their customer, so NetApp work in the backend with wide variety of ecosystem partner. The opportunity for channel partners is that they can earn revenue by building private cloud for enterprises or they can launch a public cloud service of theirs which SMBs or large enterprises can use as their public cloud of their choice. Enlightening about the empowerment program, D’souza says, “We conduct training in various geographies including tier I and tier II cities, we have a dedicated workforce of both program management and training instructors that we employ to deliver all of these skills and learning to our partners, so NetApp has always been viewed as a partner centric organization, and we have the ability to continuously keep training and enhancing the skill of our partners.” He further adds, “We conduct virtual class rooms and internet class rooms which are designed to arrive at justification both technology and business justification for either migrating to private cloud or creating a private cloud for the services providers or government agencies and we have people that NetApp brings in from various parts of the world who work with our partners’ sales and pre sales force in making sure that they understood how to articulate a value proposition.” NetApp provides channel partners technology related tools and architecture related tools which allow them to justify the various aspects of solutions that they present to the customer. With the economic and financial model tools, the company creates value propositions, ROI and TCO evaluation of what it takes to move to private cloud and public cloud.
Finally, In November, NetApp will launch new models and products and early next year, the company will launch new flash platform called Flash Ray. In the recently worldwide quarterly results, NetApp posted revenue of 1.516 billion US dollar which is a growth of 5% yoy from the same quarter one year ago.
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SME CHAT
DHANYA THAKKAR, MD, TREND MICRO (INDIA & SAARC)
“FOCUS ON 3C’S: CONSUMERIZATION, CYBER THREATS & CLOUD” Business needs are evolving as organisations embrace new technologies, so are the nature of threats. The newly appointed managing director of Trend Micro (India & SAARC) Dhanya Thakkar in a chat with SME Channels talks about his priorities for the company and where he wants to take it.
After taking over the helms of Trend Micro what is your vision for the company? I look forward to working with our India team to continue our proud legacy and come closer in achieving our vision i.e. to create a world safe for exchanging digital information. We are looking at adding greater value to the company, channels and further advancement of the offerings. We wish to go a step ahead into our enterprise accounts, to sell new products like Deep Discovery, Deep Security and I-DLP to large customers.
and manage; and to offer security that fits the world with seamless integration with the ecosystem – maximizing existing investments, not replacing them. In the post-PC cloud era, Trend Micro approaches security with a data-centric framework that advances the depth and breadth of the global threat intelligence coming from our cloudbased Smart Protection Network, integrates data protection that follows and protects your data, and increases visibility into data access and potential targeted attacks.
Which areas you have turned your immediate attention to and
When and what kind of changes will we see in the coming times? Managing the security of devices, small business systems, and large enterprise networks will become more complex than ever before. Users are breaking down the PC monoculture by embracing a wider variety of platforms, each with its own user interface, OS, and security model. Businesses, meanwhile, are grappling with protecting intellectual property and business information as they tackle consumerization, virtualization, and cloud platforms head-on. This divergence in computing experience will further expand opportunities for cybercriminals and other threat actors to gain profit, steal information, and sabotage their targets’ operations. It will be essential for business to use effective solutions to protect their business, safeguard their
why? Business needs have evolved, companies seeking greater flexibility and agility are embracing mobility, virtualization and cloud computing. The nature of threats has evolved as well, taking advantage of more open networks with targeted and persistent attacks. Security companies must respond with flexible, adaptable data and threat protection that follows the data wherever it goes. Because in the era of the cloud, your data can be anywhere! Our prime focus here has emerged to deliver smart exchanging with real-time protection powered by innovation solutions, big data analytics and deep security expertise; to provide simple yet safe specialised solutions that are easy to deploy
customers’ interests and simultaneously establish and implement effective IT usage guidelines. What will be your strategy for the further growth of the company? What kind of market share are you looking at? Trend Micro has created a niche for its solution offerings. We are recognised for our Internet content security and threat management solutions and it does not restrict our market interest. We are profoundly focused in making the world safe for businesses and consumers to exchange digital information and this is what defines our market. We continually advance our technologies to deliver on our mission to make the world safe for the exchange of digital information. What are the opportunities and verticals you are bullish on? As an early adopter of virtualization and cloud computing, Trend Micro has gained a clear understanding of the security challenges for extending protection into the emerging cloud environments. We believe that security solutions must evolve towards an integrated security approach that follows the data from physical to virtual to cloud environments. Trend Micro understands its role in an increasingly interconnected world. As one of the oldest and largest internet security software and services
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SME CHAT
uted around 15 percent of our revenue last year. Recently we launched our integrated DLP product called I-DLP. With virtualization, security at the endpoint is getting revolutionized. With thin clients, integrating DLP at the endpoint level has become crucial. The other new product we launched is Deep Discovery, which is aimed at managing APTs. The product works on the Detect, Analyze, Adapt and Respond model. Deep Discovery provides sand boxing or virtual analysis. Furthermore, a lot of our development efforts are towards the next wave of what we call as 3C’s which is consumerization, cyber threats & cloud. We are working with partners and increasing their profitability, reducing their cost of business and at the same time making sure they build a huge services business. We are focused around the 3C’s.
“WE BELIEVE THAT SECURITY SOLUTIONS MUST EVOLVE TOWARDS AN INTEGRATED SECURITY APPROACH THAT FOLLOWS THE DATA FROM PHYSICAL TO VIRTUAL TO CLOUD ENVIRONMENTS.”
companies in the world, we believe we can have a very positive impact to society and any investment we make in it can go a long way. We are not standing by and expecting others to do it because we know social responsibility is something that belongs to all of us. Our vision is to contribute in creating a world safe for exchanging digital information. In the post-PC, cloud era, Trend Micro approaches security with a data-centric framework that advances the depth and breadth of the global threat intelligence coming from our cloud-based Smart Protection Network, integrates data protection that follows and protects your data, and increases visibility into data access and potential targeted attacks. Our smart protection strategy addresses the risks and opportunities inherent in cloud computing and the mobility of people, their devices
and their data, as well as confronting the dangerous increase in targeted attacks on business and government. With virtualization, security at the endpoint is getting revolutionized. With thin clients, integrating DLP at the endpoint level has become crucial. Our products like Deep Security 9 and Deep Discovery will further assist us in protecting the investments. Deep Discovery works on the Detect, Analyze, Adapt and Respond model. Deep Discovery provides sand boxing or virtual analysis. What will be your product strategy? Today, Trend Micro offers a portfolio of integrated solutions that secures data out into the cloud. We have launched Deep Security 9 for server security; for the enterprise segment, and contrib-
What plans have you chalked out to develop channel partners? Trend Micro is focusing significantly on its channel ecosystem as they play a crucial role in making our products and solutions widely available. We have new channel initiatives which are designed to empower and make them profitable. On a regular basis, we will continue announcing various schemes and promotional activities to help partners earn higher rewards. We introduced Trend Channel Empowerment program to enable our channel partners to sell our solutions more easily and profitably. We have also introduced channel training program to train the sales and technical team of all our partners to be ready for the next generation Antivirus solutions based on Cloud Technology. We strongly emphasize to our partners for strong commitments towards mutual growth in one of the fastest changing consumer market in India towards personal integrated security needs. We have today more than 5000 active channel partners selling our SOHO solution in more than 200+ cities in India. What are the marketing strategies you have planned? Trend Micro constantly endeavours to create awareness around our Anti-APT solution to ensure the customers are adequately sensitized on changing security landscape. We ensure a custom defense strategy that improves detection, analysis, adaptation and response, which is necessary to minimize the risks and impact of these targeted attacks. We are also investing in the training & development of our Value Partners in selling our strategic product to ascertain the availability of the apt solution as per the requirements.
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BPE
ENGAGING THE PARTNERS With two new programmes launched, BPE is focusing to involve partners in a mutual growth BY: KARMA NEGI
karma@smechannels.com
T
o drive the business of partners better, every company rolls out innovative programmes for them. Best Power Equipment (BPE) seems to have taken a different approach to assure margin and revenue to the business of partners. It has launched two unique partner programmes namely BPPC and BPPV emphasising that it is a partnership to mutually drive business together. Amitansu Satpathy, Director, BPE, says, “All companies emphasise on stock and backend incentive to their partners without involving themselves or the team in their business.” He thinks that certain issues like how 1.5 to 2 average margins will take care of their operations, who will it take care of hefty salaries of executives, who takes care of huge outstanding piled with corporate as they follow strict procedure and follow up to get payments realization etc. remain unanswered. The overall incentive is on certain volume and partners give stock order to avail the incentive, and in case of non movement of stocks, which makes partner go for overstocking and goes beyond their permitted capital. As a result, they end up paying more on interest and default on timely payment to National distributor/financing organizations. “BPPC and BPPV program is designed to address the above points,” Satpathy adds. Under the new programmes, there is a limit total investment on BPE business including running stock and outstanding do not exceed 15 to 30 lakhs depending on the target city and partners performance which is predefined while entering into the agreement. The revenue is mutually agreed on the target to achieve the goal through
dedicated front and backend team and there is a 7% assured margin. BPE has also incorporated a personalized dedicated priority service for partners. In a recent development, BPE also appointed IRIS computers as its national distributor. “IRIS computers is an ideal partner for BPE with its wide product portfolio, strong network presence across tier 1, 2 & 3 cities, professional management and even stronger channel reputation. The company is ideally positioned to provide us with strong product placement advantage and strong channel pull for our product lines,” comments Satpathy. BPE has a commitment towards channel with assured margin towards sales, co-marketing, regular product training, price protection on stocks, and spare availability at all service locations. Headquartered in Noida, BPE was established in 2000. Since then, the company has extended its power solution offerings for IT, Industrial and critical equipments, with energy saving applications, which not only carry the innovation, R&D, and manufacturing but also site specific solution, value for money and service at doorstep capabilities. BPE is continuously enhancing its product portfolio in UPS and Power Solutions. It rolled out its latest range of ‘Fully Digital’ UPS Solutions for Home, Enterprise, IT & ITES, Industrial and Critical Equipments, with energy saving applications, environments. BPE has announced various schemes and offers running till October 30th like buy INR 3.90 Lakh worth of ONLINE UPS and get a fully paid trip to Pattaya (Thailand ) and buy INR 5.90 Lakh worth of ONLINE UPS and get a full paid trip to Dubai.
AMITANSU SATPATHY, DIRECTOR, BPE
“ALL COMPANIES EMPHASISE ON STOCK AND BACKEND INCENTIVE TO THEIR PARTNERS WITHOUT INVOLVING THEMSELVES OR THE TEAM IN THEIR BUSINESS.” Finally.. With the newly launched programmes BPPC and BPPV, BPE is giving out the message that growth in the business of partners is its high priority. The company intends to embark on the road to success that is mutually beneficial.
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PARTNER CORNER
“CUSTOMERS NEED A PBX WITH PRI AND OTHER ADVANCED FEATURES” Digitech Telesystems & Solution is a Mumbai based enterprise telephony reseller since a decade plus and has been growing consistently. SME Channels spoke to Ajay Kumar Singh, the Proprietor of the company to know its strategy in the competitive market.
What is your strength in terms of market reach and others? Our key strength is to provide prompt services to our customers by offering the right product and solution which aptly fulfils their requirement. This has helped us to maintain a good rapport with our customers. What kind of solutions and products are you dealing in? We deal solely in Matrix Telecom products. How do you find telecom market in India? Due to the PRI technology there is a huge potential in the market. Customers need a PBX with PRI and other advanced features. What kind of telecom solutions you have? In the telecom domain we deal in Matrix IP-PBX’s, VoIP and GSM Gateways. How do you find Matrix products in terms of its advantages vis-àvis other brands? Matrix is substance brand. This is what differentiates Matrix from the lot. Matrix solutions are packed with More. More productivity, more applications, more flexibility, more functions, more features, more cost saving, more reliability, and more support. Matrix positioning is based on offering more of these true inherent values which customers expect from infrastructure solutions.
Brief us about your company? We started as a system integrator in the year 1999 and are very much aggressive to expand our business. Earlier we were into SOHO business but now we are into enterprise business, executing with multiple branches. We have been associated with Matrix for the last 10 years and so far the journey has been very fruitful. What is your turnover and growth percentage? After having associated with Matrix we have gradually increased our potential. Today, our turnover is about 2 crore and our growth percentage is about 30%.
AJAY KUMAR SINGH, PROPRIETOR, DIGITECH TELESYSTEMS & SOLUTION, MUMBAI
“POTENTIAL IS VERY GOOD AND AS FAR AS CHALLENGES ARE CONCERNED EVERY PRODUCT HAS TO SURVIVE AND I KNOW WE WILL BECAUSE OF THE QUALITY PRODUCTS OFFERED BY MATRIX.”
What is the potential and challenge for Matrix in the market? Potential is very good and as far as challenges are concerned every product has to survive and I know we will because of the quality products offered by Matrix. What the company needs to do to improve the market share? To train and educate more and more sales executives, improve product awareness in the market and to give priority to business with service providers are few steps that we would like to suggest for earning a good market share. As a partner what kind of products you want to add this year? After being actively involved in the telecom domain we plan to add security products to our portfolio.
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PRODUCT
REVIEW
CADYCE INTERNET CAMERA WITH 2-WAY AUDIO
CANON IMAGEFORUMLA P-201 SCANNER BY MANAS RANJAN info@smechannels.com
CANON’S FIRST ultralight portable scanner imageFORUMLA P-201 scanner is capable of scanning variety of document sizes and paper densities like plain paper, postcard and business card. The scanner scans at a speed of 7.5 seconds per page with a 200 x 200 dpi result. It has contact image sensor and supports simplex scanning side. The scanner weighs only 550 gms and consumes 2.5 W electricity when connected with cable. The scanner is loaded with latest image processing options and is equipped with an Automatic Paper Size Detection. P-201 has auto color detection which intelligently determines whether to save the scan in Grayscale or Color, this eliminates the need to manually switch between mono & color modes. the launch of it’s first ultralight portable scanner imageFORUMLA P-201 scanner along with the introduction of CaptureOnTouch, a mobile application for easy scanning on the go. The scanner and application together will help consumers to effectively scan the documents in variety of file formats like PDF, JPEG and so forth. Users can further share the scans through e-mail or archive in other applications on a click. Canon is mainly targeting Two segments – Households which have enormous personal hard copy documents like marksheets, loan agreement, insurance policies & Sales representatives of insurance companies who digitize customer documents on-site. Besides this demand for mobile scanning is expected to rise for frequent travelers, SOHO’s, MSME/SMEs & doctors etc. Scanning anytime, anywhere of important documents with P-201 is just a plug away.
FEATURES n It is capable of scanning variety of
document sizes and paper densities like plain paper, postcard and business card. n It scans at a speed of 7.5 seconds
per page with a 200 x 200 dpi result. n It has contact image sensor and
supports simplex scanning side. n The scanner weighs only 550 gms
and consumes 2.5 W electricity when connected with cable. n The scanner is loaded with latest
image processing options and is equipped with an Automatic Paper Size Detection. RICE P Rs. 11,995
WARRANTY 1 Year
CONTACT Canon India, 1800 180 3366 and 01139010101
OVERALL RATING
Cadyce Internet Camera CA-IP100M gives Mega-Pixel resolution which gives an excellent picture quality with two way audio, ideal for home and small office surveillance announced the press release. Cadyce CA-IP100M has a Micro SD card slot for local storage and Supports 3GPP mobile surveillance. It comes with complimentary camera management SecuGuard software which monitor 64 cameras simultaneously. The Cadyce internet camera comes with high performing video compression (H.264) Up to 1280x720 pixels and has also simultaneously helps in multi-profile streaming. CA-IP100M is easy to install Supports NAS, FTP, Email, Voice alert, notify to HTTP/TCP servers and supports 3GPP mobile surveillance (MPEG4). The camera triggers different actions like Send to NAS, send to FTP, send to Email, Voice alert, save to micro SD card, notify to HTTP/ TCP servers.
n Price: Rs. 7500, Contact: sales@ cadyce.com
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NEW ARRIVALS
PRODUCT
QNAP
TRENDNET
TRENDNET USB TO SERIAL CONVERTER: TU-S9 TRENDNET TU-S9; a USB to Serial converter allows users to connect RS-232 serial device with Desktop or Laptop. The TU-S9 operates on multiple operating systems and provides dual buffers for upstream and downstream data transfer. TU-S9 is light weight and its cable length is 60cm. TU-S9 works at maximum 85% humidity announced the press release. It supports data rate up to 6 Mbps ans is powered by USB port by which no external power adapter required. It is easy to instal and supports multi OS and comes with USB 1.1 Specifications. The TU-S9, USB to serial converter brings a level of versatility among PC users to connect their RS-232 serial device such as a modem with USB on their PC without hampering the data travel speed.” n Price: Rs 1,490, Warranty: 2 Years limited, Contact: Abacus Peripherals Pvt. Ltd.
QNAP TS-X70 SERIES TURBO NAS QNAP SYSTEMS’ business-class TS-x70 series Turbo NAS is available in 4, 6 and 8-bay tower models; the TS-x70 series with scale-up support is the perfect solution for the growing data needs of modern business environments. The TS-x70 series’ high-scalability design supports online capacity expansion by connecting multiple QNAP RAID expansion enclosures (REXP-1200U-RP / REXP-1600U-RP) to expand total storage to 100TB raw capacity. With this flexibility, businesses can expand their storage as needed and have more control over their storage deployment. Powered by a Dual-Core Intel 2.6 GHz Processor and 2GB DDR3 RAM with the availability of four Gigabit LAN ports, the TS-x70 offers business users an ultra high-performance NAS solution for day-to-day operations. In addition, the TS-x70 series supports 10GbE high-speed networking making it an ideal solution for applications such as real-time HD video editing and data center environments. n Price: On Request , Warranty: On Request, Contact: Sanjay Biswal, Sales Manager India, QNAP SYSTEMS, INC M.No:+919953036535
GIGABYTE
GIGABYTE GA-H81M-S1 MOBO GIGABYTE GA-H81M-S1 is a unique offering from the GIGABYTE H81 motherboard series that offers highly enhanced stability to your system, by providing advanced electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection for both your Ethernet LAN and USB ports - both common sources of ESD-related failures. Motherboards in this series also include additional USB 3.0 ports, and support the latest 4K resolution displays on both HDMI and Display Port. The latest Intel 8 Series platform offers significant improvements in performance and power consumption with the latest 4th generation Intel® Core™ processors and Intel® H81 chipsets. The latest HD4600 Intel® processor graphics provide significantly higher frame rates in the latest DX11 3D game titles. Solid Caps (Capacitors) for CPU VRM and Low RDS(on) MOSFETs which are rated to work at higher temperatures to provide a longer lifespan. Each LAN and USB port paired with a dedicated protection filter that can withstand high electrostatic discharges, protecting your system from common electrical surges and even direct lighting strikes. Gives you easy access to wealth of GIGABYTE apps that help you get the most from your GIGABYTE motherboard. Using a simple, unified user interface, GIGABYTE App Center allows you to launch all GIGABYTE apps installed on your system. n Price: Rs. 4,200 (approximately), Warranty: 3 Years, Contact: Anilkumar Ramakrishnan, +91-22-40633218
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GUEST TALK
TRENDS IN DIGITAL SIGNAGE MARKET IN INDIA One of the recent trends in the signage technology was witnessed with the shift from 2D to 3D digital signage making it more interactive for the consumers. TORU HASEGAWA Divisional Managing Director, System Solution Division, Panasonic India
BRIEF PROFILE Toru Hasegawa is the Managing Director Corporate Planning and System Sales Division in Panasonic India. In his current role, he ensures that the company’s plan aligns with business goals and the organization’s strategic mission. Previously, he served as Global Marketing General Manager for System Products for 4 years. With his deep understanding and experience in the segment, Hasegawa has played an important role in taking Panasonic System Networks to a new level that comprise of products such as projectors, telephones, PBX/KTS, fax machines, security and networking products segment to new heights. He has a wide experience of more than 4 years in global markets such as Germany, UK & USA. In his role as a Global Marketing Manager for System Products, he defines and manages the company’s global marketing activities across key markets. Mr. Hasegawa was born on 08 Dec 1959. In 1982 he graduated from University in Japan with major in Economics.
USAGE OF Digital Signage in India has seen an upsurge in the past few years with an estimated market of Rs. 500 crore and an annual growth rate of 25 per cent. With new innovations taking place every hour, digital signage has reached a new tipping point altogether. These digital signage devices can be easily spotted in public places like restaurants, airports, gyms, etc. featuring advertisement campaigns. Other industries making frequent usage of this device would be banking sector, corporate buildings and retail sector. Digital signage has eliminated the cumbersome waiting queues at the banks, restaurants and many other busy places. Many a businessmen prefer arranging together a bundle of digital signage together to display a larger picture which helps them in the branding and positioning of their products. This simple electronic display has outsmarted many intelligent devices due its versatility. It conveniently displays important information, picture albums and plays videos. With addition of features like wireless connectivity, touch interactivity, video, live feedback, and demographic analytics, the digital signage market has a new tipping point. One of the recent trends in the signage technology was witnessed with the shift from 2D to 3D digital signage making it more interactive for the consumers. Digital Signage makes use of latest display technologies like LCD, LED, projection screens and projectors which allows convenient flow of important informa-
tion in the form of pictures and videos to a large audience in a targeted manner. Further, considering content is one the prime tools that make the digital signage effective, a shift has also been witnessed in the creation of content sourcing scenario. The supply chain in this sector has also substantially grown with an increase in the number of new suppliers in digital signage, including static sign and digital graphics providers, thus bringing in much needed innovation and variations in the market. However, there have been a few challenges gripping the sector. In spite of abundant services offered by digital signage, few sectors in India have still not been able to adapt to the digital signage system. This is mainly because the segment has been approached solely as a technical project due to the involvement of technology components like A/V integrators, media player software, and content creation tools. Thus, it has become crucial to increase awareness of benefits of digital signage. Today, digital signage has become cheaper with the recent drop in prices of LCD/LED screens. Many small & medium businesses are taking-up digital signage for their business activity thus resulting in a considerable increase in sales of the device. Complemented by lower costs of installation and maintenance, the digital signage systems are adding advantages to businesses thus making it an inevitable part of modern day information system.
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