SME Channels December 12 issue

PLUS

Dell Renews its Vow for SMBs /10

india’s first IT magazine for sme business VOLUME 03 | ISSUE 10 | PAGES 64 | DECEMBER 2012 | RS. 20/-

LEADERS’ CORNER

LEADERS’ CORNER

LEADERS’ CORNER

IBM: Education and Awareness Initiatives Top Agenda for IBM

Airtel: Time for the Service Providers to Play A Bigger Role /56

Cisco: Cisco Partner Led Continues to Work on Partners’ Growth /44

/48

INVENTING BUSINESS THROUGH

SOCIAL

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Businesses are increasingly taking the Social Media route to engage, listen and understand its customers. /32

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PLUS

IBM Hones Students and Tech Profs Skills /18 www.smechannels.com

india’s first IT magazine for sme business VOLUME 03 | ISSUE 10 | PAGES 64 | DECEMBER 2012 | RS. 20/-

TREND SETTER

/28

SAP: 72% of India SMEs Eyeing Technology

TECH CORNER

/54

AGC: Top five 2013 trends for IT smart SMEs

TREND SETTER

/59

CommScope: Capacity and Capability Will be the Winning Mantra

MY EXPERIENCE EDITORIAL

AT THE FAG-END – GOOD TIME TO INTROSPECT SANJAY MOHAPATRA editor@smechannels.com

THE TIME HAS come that we should introspect as to what has gone right or wrong for

the market in the last four quarters. The market is never gone high but we cannot but keep working hard and harder. Some time back I was in Cisco APJC Partner Led meet in Bangkok. I could well imagine the strategy of most of global vendors for Indian market. The chips are down but there is a possibility and expectation. Possibility is unlimited and expectation is very high for the technology providers but difficult to predict about the right time. Companies like Cisco are ready to increase their investment in the country in order to get closer to the customers. The investment is not about creating brand awareness but about enabling the partners and creating demand generation. They do know about the unlimited possibilities and potential of the country. Most of the schools today are still using blackboard and chalk. Internet, broadband, smart phones, computers, etc. – these disruptive technology and devices have probably not reached to 10 per cent of the customers in true sense. So cloud computing, virtualization, XAAS, etc. too have great opportunity although it looks over marketd and over discussed now.

There is still a great divide in the country. On the one side rural Indian and urban India the other side –referred as Bharat and India. The governance is not quite stable. Decession making takes time. Thousands of citizen centric projects are in pipeline. But yes, the middle class employment is growing very fast and more than 65% of our population is below the age of 35. History knows how the growth of middle class and a formidable young population can change the course of time. So there is unlimitd possibility.

One of the Taiwan OEMs told me that India does not have market for mid-level pricing products. Either people are buying very expensive goods or very cheap goods. The perception that India is a price sensitive market is not exactly true. Small income group people are found using very expensive smart phones like iPhone and Android Phones but very rich people are found using entry level phones. Even chinese non branded phones are also selling in the market. The behaviour of the market is quite different from other markets. The buying is less need based desire based. So lack of right education is clearly deterrent to the market growth. But the indication is quite clear. GDP is not the indicator of the market size or customer needs. So do not shy away from investing in India.

ViewSonic VSD220 Touch Screen Display THE 22” VIEWSONIC touch screen desktop display is a 1920x1080 full-HD resolution monitor with the dual-core, ARMbased OMAP 4 processor from TI and an Android 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandwich” OS With VSD220 the users can enjoy a tabletlike browsing experience. This desktop display offers connectivity options including a Micro HDMI, three USB ports, a Micro SD card and plenty of network connection options including RJ45 Ethernet, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth technology. It also comes with a built-in 1.2MP webcam, microphone and integrated SRS Premium Sound speakers.

SPECIFICATIONS Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwitch Operating system and dual-core, ARM-based OMAP 4 processor FINAL WORDING With a pricing of Rs.31, 999 and warranty of 1 year, it is ideal for front office activities OVERALL RATING

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contents

DEC VOLUME 03 ISSUE 10

2012

ER COV RY STO

india’s first IT magazine for sme business

Publisher: Sanjib Mohapatra Editor: Sanjay Mohapatra Assistant Editor: Karma Negi Reporters: 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 Subrat S NO.661, 10th Main, 5th cross, 4th Block, Koramangala, Behind Old Maharaja, Bangalore-560034 Phone: 9886107294 E-mail:info@smechannels.com Mumbai Hemal Shah B/14, Neel Ashish 92, J.P.road, Andheri (West) Mumbai - 400058 E-mail: info@smechannels.com

Inventing Business through Social Media

Kolkata S Subhendu BC-286, Laxmi Apartment, Kestopur Kolkata-700101

/32

Businesses are increasingly taking the Social Media route to engage, listen and understand its customers. Hitherto limited to networking, it has thrown open opportunities and though it can’t be the foundation of a business development, it nonetheless is reinventing the way business is done, today.

Phone: 9674804389 EDITORIAL OFFICE Delhi: 6/103, (GF) Kaushalya Park, New Delhi-110016, Phone: 91-11-41657670 / 46151993 editor@smechannels.com Bangalore 136/ 9, Ground Floor, Eden Crest

SME CHAT Omnitech /26

“Want to Expand to Tier-2 Cities”

myOpenSource /50

“Use of Open Source Software can Help SMEs“

Pine Labs /52

“The Biggest Challenge is to Change the Mindset and Introduce to next-gen solutions”

Amtel /62

“Currently, Telecom Industry is Poised to Take a Giant Leap”

TECH CORNER AGC Network /26

Top five 2013 trends for IT smart SMEs

6

more inside

Apartment, Grape Garden, Ejipura Vivek Nagar PS Bengalore-560047 edit@smechannels.com

Editorial~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 04 Snippets~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 08 Printed, Published and Owned by Sanjib Leaders Corner ~ ~~~~~~~~~ 24, 44, 48, 56, 59

Mohapatra

Trend Setter ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 28, 39, 59

Place of Publication: 6/101-102, Kaushalya Park, Hauz Khas

Case Study~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 30 Partner Corner~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 31 Products~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 52

New Delhi-110016

Phone: 91-11-46151993 / 41055458 Printed at Karan Printers, F-29/2, 1st floor, Okhla Industrial Area, Phase-2, New Delhi 110020, India.

All rights reserved. No part of this publica-

PLUS FEATURE: Piracy Still Eating India’s Software Market /40

tion can be reproduced without the prior written permission from the publisher.

Subscription: Rs.200 (12 issues) All payments favouring: Accent Info Media Pvt. Ltd.

SME CHANNELS DECEMBER 2012

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FIVE Ways to Boost sMB ProFItaBIlIty. Partner with McAfee and opportunities abound Millions of small and medium-sized enterprises are in search of a trusted security advisor. When you partner with the leader in digital security, you can take advantage of this tremendous growth opportunity.

Here are the top five reasons to say “yes” to partnering with McAfee: 1. Opportunity Increase deal opportunities in the growing SMB market when you partner with McAfee, the largest dedicated security technology company.

2. Flexible Solutions Offer your customers the most flexible security solutions for SMB—from SaaS to on-premise suites.

3. Profitability Start earning more, fast with up to 25% higher margins and lucrative McAfee SMB rewards programs, with quick and easy deal registration.

4. Program Address the needs of your SMB customers with a range of enablement tools, turnkey marketing programs, and exclusive profitability programs.

5. Breadth of Coverage Provide the right SMB solution for every customer need—email, web, endpoint, and mobile security—only with McAfee.

Need more reasons?

Learn more at www.mcafee.com/becomeapartner.

Copyright © 2012 McAfee, Inc. All rights reserved.

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SNIPPETS for more log on to smechannels.com

PRODUCT | CHANNEL | CONSULTING | SERVICES

HP’s New Architecture of Storage Accommodates all Innovations HP launches industry-first innovations for its Converged Storage portfolio that breaks through complexities and inefficiencies with a single architecture for all sizes of client deployments.

Designed for virtualized, cloud

and big data retention environments, these solutions include new HP 3PAR StoreServ Storage, HP StoreAll Storage and HP StoreOnce Backup product offerings.

The company’s press release announced that the HP Converged

Storage system vision is polymorphic simplicity. This is a new storage concept that enables a single-system architecture to exist in several forms, shapes and sizes from low to high, but retains common data services for block, object and file

applications. This vision also calls for optimization for both hard disk drives (HDD) and solid state disks (SSD) stated the company.

“Legacy storage vendors are simply not equipped to help organizations respond to new workloads, and bolting on new features to old architectures has created a nightmare,” said Neelam Dhawan, VP and GM (Enterprise Group) and Country MD, HP India. “HP’s unique set of Converged Storage innovations helps clients simplify infrastructure and reduce costs with a common architecture across storage segments and categories.”

The HP StoreServ 7200 is available globally immediately starting at USD$20,000. HP StoreServ 7400 starts at USD$32,000. HP Priority Optimization will be available in 2013.

HP StoreAll Storage is expected to be available globally on Dec. 20, with pricing as low as USD $0.91 per GB. HP StoreOnce 6200 Backup systems are available worldwide immediately for a starting price of USD$250,000. HP StoreOnce 2000 Backup systems start at USD $10,000 and HP StoreOnce 4000 Backup systems start at USD$30,000. HP StoreOnce Catalyst Software licenses start at USD$500.

NetApp Brings Private Storage for AWS NetApp unveiled NetApp Private Storage for AWS – an enterprise storage solution that utilizes AWS Direct Connect to provide customers the ability to establish a dedicated network connection from their existing infrastructure to Amazon Web Services (AWS).

With this offering, organizations can now replicate data from on-premise NetApp®storage environments to NetApp Private Storage in an AWS Direct Connect facility to leverage on-demand cloud services. NetApp Private Storage for AWS allows enterprises to build an agile cloud infrastructure that balances internal datacenter resources along with AWS cloud resources to best meet their business needs announced the company’s press release.

“Our work with NetApp provides customers with the performance, security, compliance, and availability benefits of AWS with the high value enterprise offerings customers have come to expect from NetApp,” said Terry Wise, Head of Worldwide Partner Ecosystem, AWS.

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Netmagic, ShepHertz to Boost App Development

Dell Renews its Vow for SMBs

Netmagic Solutions and ShepHertz Technologies have announced a one-stop service offering for app developers looking to use the cloud for building, managing and deploying applications. The partnership will give a boost to the App development ecosystem in India, while reducing the time, effort and cost of App development on the cloud.

Nitin Mishra, SVP (Products & Services), Netmagic Solutions, said, “As India’s foremost cloud services provider, Netmagic is keen to further the use of the cloud. As part of our initiative to demystify the cloud and simplify access to it we have partnered with various organizations to enable this. We have made special customization to our cloud grid to ensure that app developers find the App42 PaaS a dream to use.”

Dell announced a renewed commitment to accelerate growth of small and midsize companies with scalable technology solutions, resources for entrepreneurs, and a new partnership with Clinton Global Initiative designed for next generation business founders.

Michael Dell, Chairman and CEO, Dell, said, “Fast-growing entrepreneurial companies are an important catalyst for global economic recovery and job creation. At Dell, we’re delivering Michael Dell, Chairman and agile, efficient CEO, Dell and powerful solutions to help entrepreneurs succeed today, scale quickly and have their ventures grow as big as their dreams and ambitions.”

Dell has invested in acquisitions and programs like the Dell Innovators Credit Fund to build and deliver adaptable, standards-based technology solutions ideal for the midsized business and scalable up or down to meet the needs of organizations. Further Dell Launched Center for Entrepreneurs under the leadership of its Entrepreneur in Residence Ingrid Vanderveldt, a community designed by and for entrepreneurs.

Asus Revamps GeForce GTX 680 DirectCU II Asus has launched redesigned GeForce GTX 680 DirectCU II graphics cards which comes with 4GB GDDR5 storage capacity. It updates DirectCU II thermal design with SSU-shaped heatpipes, and offers the stability, longevity, and overclocking of ASUS DIGI+ VRM and Super Alloy Power.

Vinay Shetty, Country Head (Component Business), Asus (India) said, “The redesigned Asus GeForce GTX 680 DirectCU II arrives in an accessible two-slot height. It doubles memory to 4GB and its redesigned cooler employs SSU-shaped heatpipes for improved dissipation.”

Sanovi Bonds with Partners in Pattaya Sanovi Technologies concluded its annual Business Partner Summit 2012 at Pattaya. Hailing the summit as a huge success and well received by the partner community, the company’s press release announced the participation of more than 30 senior representatives from partner organizations that included Wipro, TCS, HP, Netmagic, E&Y, Paladion, i-Value and Spancotel.

This year’s summit theme was ‘bond to rule’ and aligned to celebrate the special bond that Sanovi shares with their partners emphasizing on the elements of teaming, innovative approaches and ideas to spark new opportunities and markets.

Ashis Guha, President (Global Sales), Sanovi, said, “Today almost 90% of our business is with and through our channel partners. The enthusiastic response to our partner summit indicates the value Sanovi brings to the table for these partners and also the belief and commitment that our partners entrust in us.”

Among new marketing program initiatives discussed were a vertical-focused event series jointly with Wipro as well as initiation of an enablement and training series for all the partner organizations in attendance.

MY POINT

“The data center is transforming beyond recognition, and these changes can either act as a sail to catch the wind and accelerate growth, or an anchor holding organizations back.”

ANAND NAIK MD (SALES—INDIA AND SAARC), SYMANTEC

ZyXEL LTE Gateway Honored at CES Innovations 2013 ZyXEL Communications has announced its recognition at “CES Innovations 2013 Design and Engineering Honouree” for LTE gateway in the Home Networking product category.

The company said that LTE5121 4G LTE Gateway is an all-in-one, feature-rich multiservice gateway ideal for residences, SOHOs and point of sales such as café that require mobile connectivity.

It delivers high-speed 4G fixed broadband Internet along with a complete range of connectivity options, including Wi-Fi, Gigabit Ethernet, VoIP ports and support for smart home services such as home automation, home surveillance, home energy management and healthcare, among others.

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Cisco Acquires Cloupia Cisco has completed the acquisition of privately held Cloupia, a Santa Clara, Calif.-based software company that automates converged data center infrastructure – allowing enterprises and service providers to simplify the deployment and configuration of physical and virtual resources from a single management console.

This acquisition includes Cloupia’s infrastructure management software and talent. When combined with Cisco’s leading data center management solutions, Cloupia will enable enterprises and service providers to seamlessly manage pools of computing power, network services, storage and virtual machines as a unified whole in order to deploy and deliver IT services more rapidly and at lower costs announced the company’s press release.

The Cloupia team will be integrated into Cisco’s Data Center Group.

WIPRO SCALE TO SCALE UP SOON With branded accounting software/ micro ERP market size is about Rs.300 Cr in India, Wipro is positioning its ERP product – Scale as one of the best product for all emerging enterprises.

Scale is a complete business information system, for all emerging organizations. It can be implemented as a standalone solution like an accounting package, so also can be implemented as full-fledged ERP for a group of 20 to 50 users and can be customized to a large extent.

The products could handle key business operations. It requires minimal customization and very easy to implement. It also can be installed, administered and managed by customers without any support from IT staff.

Scale offers all applications that a classical ERP can offer. For example the Sales Management function facilitates the process of quotations preparation, transfer/sale of goods, preparation of Invoice as well as receivables tracking. The Purchase Management function helps you monitor all the purchasing activities. It maintains details on suppliers, purchase orders and goods returns.

The Inventory Management Function supports the maintenance and monitoring of stock of all input Materials and Finished goods. Inventory of all goods are maintained based on each inventory transaction. Scale supports a complete yet a simple accounting system with complete Book-keeping and statutory statements. It generates over 40 documents and statements like Invoice, Purchase Order, Payable/Receivable Statement, Stock Ledger, etc.

Finally, Scale is entirely Customer-Managed, works on any Windows PC and requires no third-party database. It is easy-to-Install and use. It takes only five minutes to start live use.

Eaton Acquires Cooper for $13 Billion Eaton Corporation has completed acquisition of electrical equipment supplier Cooper Industries and hosted welcome days with Cooper employees in the country during their first week with the company.

Alexander M. Cutler, Chairman and CEO, Eaton, “The $13 billion acquisition of Cooper, the largest in Eaton’s 101-year history, is a transformational milestone that expands our market segment reach, broadens our portfolio of products, services, and solutions, and strengthens our global geographic footprint.”

He further added, “Cooper adds proven capabilities in utility power distribution, smart grid, lighting, lighting controls, wiring devices, and safety solutions to Eaton’s strengths in power quality, power distribution and energy services.”

Fortune Strengthens Wireless Router Portfolio Fortune Marketing has launched Tenda N150 Wireless Travel Router which comes with 150mbps speed. Manoj Gupta, Director, Fortune Marketing, said, “Tenda has always introduced easy and efficient Router options for the SMEs & SOHO segment. The N150 Wireless A5 Travel Router is user friendly and helps is effortless Internet connection to an existing wired network in conference rooms, hotel rooms, or anywhere a Wi-Fi network is needed. With the world’s most intuitive User Interface, you are sure to get it up and running in minutes, whether being a tech-savvy or a novice.”

Envent Ties-up with Saboo Computers Envent World Wide has appointed Saboo Computers as its distributor in West Bengal for its IT peripherals. The main objective of this tie up is to increase Envent’s channel reach and further establish its footprints in the state announced the company’s press release. Saboo Computers is an organization that has actively been involved in the IT business. Its end-user strength is more than 4 lakhs in West Bengal.

It has created a professional company by carrying out its operations in various fields like channel distribution, trading, high-tech sales marketing etc Sukhesh Madaan, Founder and CEO, Envent, added “We are delighted with our partnership with Saboo Computers for our telecom and lifestyle offerings.

With this alliance, we aim to meet our business objectives in the eastern region.”

Matrix Comsec Announces Interoperability with Xtend Xtend Technologies, specialized in developing and delivering computer-based telephony solutions like Voice Loggers, IVR Toolkit, Outbound Dialers that can be implemented across enterprise for effective customer service and Matrix Comsec, a manufacturer of VoIP products such as IP-PBX, IP-Servers, VoIP Gateways and IP Phones; have joined hands by accomplishing interoperability tests among their products.

Kurian Thomas, Director, Xtend, said, “Matrix solutions will help us to navigate and provide reliable communication solution with its wide range of IP-based products, thus enabling voice calls to connect different networks in a flexible and seamless manner than ever before.”

Sharing views on this interoperability program, Sajeev Nair, Manager (Product Management), Matrix Comsec said, “Matrix with a wide range of IP-PBX and VoIP Gateways have identified the need to offer more opportunities to call centers to increase their efficiency. This interoperability program was designed and conducted to ensure the benefits especially to those offering solutions hand-in-hand with Xtend OBD Systems and call center agents.”

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F5 Networks Increases Presence in India

CHECK POINT LAUNCHES NEW SECURITY SERVICES OFFERINGS

F5 Networks has opened two additional Expedited RMA Service Depots in Delhi and Chennai. These additional depots, together with existing depots in Mumbai and Bangalore, enable F5 to extend RMA services to more customers in the greater New Delhi and Chennai metropolitan areas.

Customers in India can now upgrade their existing maintenance service contracts’ RMA Service Level Metrics (SLM) to fit various unique business requirements announced the company’s press release.

The company further announced that the partners and customers can rely on F5 to meet support requirements directly through the four depots located in Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai. With “next business day ship” commitment through premium services along with “next business day delivery” commitment in RMA2 services and “four hour delivery” commitment in RMA3 services, these depots located close to customers assure a smoother service support level.

Check Point Software has launches Check Point ThreatCloud Security Services, a set of new security service offerings to assist its customers in protecting their organization’s networks from the most sophisticated threats and provide expert 24/7 resources to help during any attack.

These new services monitor events directly on customer security gateways, and are powered by Check Dorit Dor, VP (Products), Point’s ThreatCloud security intelligence infrastructure.

Check Point Software ThreatCloud Security Services integrate this global Technologies collaborative intelligence and offer our customers several new services; ThreatCloud Managed Security Service and ThreatCloud Incident Response.

ThreatCloud Managed Security Service continuously monitors customer networks and gateways for security events, and provides easy to understand, actionable alerts based on this specific data.

The managed security service also optimizes security by recommending and fine tuning the organization’s Threat Prevention policies. ThreatCloud Incident Response provides customers with expert assistance in real-time during critical security incidents to help businesses respond and recover quickly.

“With the increasing level of threat sophistication and greater frequency, it can be challenging for even the best equipped security teams to stay ahead of the curve. These new service offerings provide customers with critical security resources,” said Dorit Dor, VP (Products), Check Point Software Technologies.

EXECUTIVE MOVEMENT

ECB DISK STORAGE MARKET GROWTH SLUGGISH WORLDWIDE EXTERNAL CONTROLLER-BASED (ECB) DISK STORAGE VENDOR REVENUE TOTALED $5.3 BILLION IN THE Q3 OF 2012, A 3.6% INCREASE FROM REVENUE OF $5.1 BILLION IN THE Q3 OF 2011 WORLDWIDE ECB DISK STORAGE VENDOR MARKETSHARE ESTIMATES FOR 3Q12 (PERCENTAGE) NetApp3

Hitachi/Hitachi Data Systems2

IBM

11.9

10.8

9.0 12.9

10.7

9.3

Dell SonicWALL has appointed a new Dell regional sales manager Amit Singh to lead its business operations in India. Singh brings more than 13 years of technology industry expertise in channel, sales and marketing to his new role.

HP

10.6

Dell

7.2 10.4 7.8

33.6

Others

32.1 16.6

17.0

EMC1 Q3 2012

Go Daddy has announced Blake Irving, formerly a long time Microsoft executive and Chief Product Officer of Yahoo! Incorporated (“Yahoo”), will assume the role of CEO, effective January 7, 2013.

Q3 2011 Source: Gartner (December 2012)

Note 1: EMC revenue excludes OEM revenue from Dell and Fujitsu Technology Solutions. Note 2: Hitachi/Hitachi Data Systems revenue excludes OEM revenue from HP. Note 3: NetApp revenue excludes ONTAP OEM revenue from IBM and Engenio OEM revenue.

Dell has appointed Suresh Vaswani as president of Dell Services. Vaswani previously led Dell Services’ application and business process outsourcing (BPO) line of business.

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Epson Delivers Next-Gen 3D Projectors

DIGEST

Epson has introduced next generation 3D projectors in India, the EH TW 6100 and the EH TW 8100.

The Epson EH-TW6100 and EH-TW8100 replace the older Epson EH-TW6000 and EH-TW8000 respectively. Both are full HD 1080P capable, and are able to deliver the 3D images of any projector in the world claimed the company.

The company informed that the 3D models will support all 3D formats without the need for additional hardware, unlike “3D Ready” projectors that require a separate format converter to play content in 3D formats used by Blu-Ray players or 3D TV broadcasts. In addition, Epson’s new 3D models use radio frequency based 3D glasses that comply with the new “Full HD 3D Glasses” industry standard.

Samba Moorthy, Director (Sales & Marketing), Epson India, said, “The EH-TW6100 and EH-TW8100 are two high-end 1080P home theatre 3D projectors that are capable of generating the world’s brightest 3D images.”

SILICON POWER INTRODUCES ELITE UHS-1 SERIES

FUJITSU LAUNCHES HYBRID TAB Fujitsu has introduced the STYLISTIC Q702 hybrid tablet in India which comes with optional embedded support for 3G/UMTS or 4G/LTE mobile data.

The hybrid tablet features iron-clad security including a biometric fingerprint sensor, Computrace support, HDD and BIOS password protection, embedded Trusted Platform Module (TPM), Intel Anti-Theft Technology and a 3rd Generation Intel Core i3 or i5 processor with optional Intel vPro Technology.

Dieter Heiss, VP (Workplace Systems), Fujitsu Technology Solutions, said, “With the new STYLISTIC Q702 hybrid tablet, Fujitsu is delivering the best of both worlds, the portability and ease-of-use of a tablet, which is perfect for consuming content, and an attachable keyboard, converting the device into a notebook with a full keyboard where it’s easier to create content, for example when working on a spreadsheet or editing a business proposal.”

Quantum Integrates Q-Cloud with OST Quantum has announced the integration of Q-Cloud with Symantec OpenStorage (OST) technology, providing NetBackup and Backup Exec customers with multiple options for leveraging Q-Cloud’s business-class cloud backup at consumer prices. These customers can now directly access Quantum’s Q-Cloud backup and disaster recovery services.

Q-Cloud now directly supports NetBackup and Backup Exec software, enabling both backup applications to stay completely aware of all copies of data backed up to a Q-Cloud DXi appliance. OST offers backup control across distributed sites and tiers of storage, providing application-aware replication for both NetBackup and Backup Exec. That capability can also leverage the deduplication-powered replication of OST-certified DXi appliances to move data between sites.

DXi Accent deduplicates the data on the backup server and sends only new unique data to Q-Cloud.

This approach eliminates the cost of on-premise hardware at remote locations, minimizes WAN costs, provides visibility from the backup application to the backup in the cloud, and enables backups to be stored securely and reliably in the cloud.

AllTimeIT Announces EFFICLOUD AllTimeIT Solutions has announced the commercial availability of ‘EFFICLOUD’ - a comprehensive portfolio of pay-per-use services on the cloud for enterprises across India. The event also marks a significant step towards positioning AllTimeIT Solutions as a cloud services leader, with Balu Doraisamy joining the leadership team as a mentor announced the company’s press release. Guidance from industry proficient, Balu Doraisamy, entails consistent focus for achieving business goals and accelerated business growth for AllTimeIT Solutions. “Cloud service providers need to offer secure and business-friendly solutions using path-breaking technologies, to translate into greater cost-savings, efficiency and enhanced experiences for businesses and customers,” said Balu Doraisamy, Mentor, AllTimeIT Solutions Pvt.Ltd. “With EFFICLOUD and an existing high touch-customer base of the consortium partners, spanning from Education, mid-market to Government and Corporate, AllTimeIT is positioned to be the obvious choice for businesses for their cloud strategy.”

Silicon Power has launched a series of flash cards, the Elite UHS-1 series which contains a product roadmap ranging from SDHC, SDXC to microSDHC and microSDX for all types of devices such as DSLR, Smartphones, tablets and camcorders.

These flash cards feature storage capacity of up to 64GB and the transmission rate of 50MB per second in reading. Further it is compliant with the SDA Memory Card Standard Version 3.0.1 and the Ultra High Speed Class 1 specification (UHS-1).

IBALL’S 7” WI-FI TABLET UNVEILED IN INDIA iBall’s has launched 7” Wi-Fi Tablet, the iBall Slide i6516 which features HD and IPS full capacitive muti-touch screen, HDMI port, USB ports and built in Bluetooth.

The company further informed that it comes with Cortex A8 1.2 GHz Processor, 1GB ddr3 Ram, 2.0MP camera on the back and a VGA camera up front. It also features Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system and 4000 mAh Lithium battery.

PORTRONICS LAUNCHES “HANDMATE” Portronics has launched “Handmate” which converts normal screen of laptop to touch screen.

Handmate uses Ultrasound and Infrared technologies, consists of ultrasonic digital stylus and a small receiving unit. This device is designed for Windows 8, enables all non-touch Laptop screen with touch features. Portronics “Handmate” is priced at INR 4999/- and will be available in a week’s time.

ESET ENLIVENS PARTNERS WITH THAILAND TRIP Eset has completed four month long scheme “Break Away with ESET” for channel partners in India with a trip to Thailand. Almost 80 channel partners across India qualified for Eset channel scheme which took place in Pattaya and Bangkok.

Eset India has also appointed new regional distributors in three areas, East, South and UP besides expanding its channel network. The company has more than 200 partners promoting Eset products across the country and it aims to reach more tier-2 and tier-3 cities across the country.

ADATA NAMED IN IF DESIGN AWARDS 2013 Adata Technology has been recognized by Germany’s International Forum Design Awards (iF) for three products in DashDrive family. The evaluation criteria for iF German includes design quality, choice of material functionality and degree of innovation.

The company says the DashDrive Durable HD710 external hard drive provides mobile, rapid and dependable data access in a rugged and sporty package. The housing of the HD710 is comprised of a unique silicone material, and the drive incorporates military-grade shockproof and waterproof (IPX7) construction with an ultra-fast USB 3.0 interface.

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IBM Hones Students and Tech Profs Skills IBM has announced an array of programs and resources to help students and IT professionals develop new technology skills and prepare for jobs of the future. The initiatives include new training courses and resources for IT professionals, technology and curriculum materials for educators and expanded programs to directly engage students with real-world business challenges.

The new resources will help reduce a critical technology skills gap outlined in IBM’s 2012 Tech Trends Report released today. The report, authored by the IBM Center for Applied Insights, found that only 1 in 10 organizations has the skills needed to effectively apply advanced technologies such as business analytics, mobile computing, cloud computing and social business.

In addition, nearly half of the educators and students surveyed feel there is a major gap in their institution’s ability to meet the growing demand for advanced technology skills.

“Having a highly skilled workforce is critical to an organization’s ability to innovate, meet client demands and grow,” said Jim Corgel, GM (Academic and Developer Relations), IBM.

eScan’s Yearend Offer for Partners

PANASONIC BRINGS RUGGEDIZED MOBILE SOLUTIONS Panasonic Toughbook has introduced two new products from its product range of ruggedized mobile computing to the Indian market. The Company announced that it has launched the world’s first ruggedized tablet, Toughpad FZ-A1 and the Panasonic From Left to Right: Rizhkant Jha, CF-AX2, the world’s the World’s Lightest Business Director, System Sales Division, Rugged Convertible Windows 8 Pro Ultrabook.

Hide Harada, Director of IT Products Business Unit, Toru Hasegawa, MD, Toru Hasegawa, MD- System Sales Division, System Sales Division & Gunjan Panasonic India, said, “With a wide product portfolio Sachdev, General Manager, - Toughbook Panasonic India the year-on-year average growth rate for Panasonic’s System Sales Division has been 40%. We are expecting this growth to cross 100% by this fiscal end and close with a turnover of Rs. 655 crores. Our Toughbook division contributes increasingly to the SSD revenue and has some phenomenal products in their portfolio for the Indian market. I am confident that we can add a lot of value to the businesses here.”

Commenting on the features of the Toughpad, Gunjan Sachdev, General Manager & National Business Head, Panasonic Toughbook India, said, “As we see an increase in uptake of tablet-form mobile computing devices in Asia, we want to ensure that we apply our market knowledge as well as our deep store of intellectual property, engineering and R&D resources as the leader in the ruggedized mobile computing space, to deliver an Android-powered tablet that is radically different from the largely consumer-based devices on the market today.”

Panasonic Toughpad is priced at INR 75,000 and is already available in the India market.

eScan will impart T3 partners with eScan Year End Dhamaka Offer 2012. Under eScan’s Year End Dhamaka offer, eScan T3 partners must purchase eScan products from Authorized eScan Partner only in their respective regions to qualify for the claims.

This Scheme will be valid on the purchase of eScan Anti-Virus 4x1 User Packs & eScan Internet Security 4x1 User Packs only. A qualified partner can claim multiple gifts at the end of the scheme, based on multiple bundle as per slabs mentioned in the offer.

Anil Gupta, AVP (India), eScan, said, “eScan has come up with this channel scheme as part of our relentless pursuit to deliver unprecedented value to our T3 channel partners. Our scheme is an extension of our unvarying endeavor to gratify and motivate them to achieve their targets with such attractive offers.”

Focus Softnet Introduces CRM version 2.0 Focus Softnet has launched Focus CRM version 2.0, a web application which is integrated with Outlook and works on Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari. Focus CRM 2.0 uses the technology to organize, automate and synchronize business processes. It also optimizes sales processes, enhances marketing initiatives and improves customer service to boost productivity resulting in increased sales and profits for the organization and client satisfaction. It provides a solution that spans through entire business cycle from marketing to pre-sales to operations through post-sales and service.

Ali Hyder, CEO, Focus Softnet, said, “The latest version tracks effectiveness of activities and campaigns and facilitates collaborations between team members. It also generates comprehensive reports that help companies.”

Lenovo Acquires Iomega Lenovo, the second largest PC vendor, which had entered into a partnership with EMC a couple of months back has acquired Iomega, which EMC had bought for $200 million four years back.

With the expansion of cloud services IT companies are seeing great potential in the servers and storage market. With this acquisition Lenovo will now pose a challenge to HP, Dell and IBM which are the world’s three-largest server makers with a combined global market share of 72 % as per IDC. Server revenues reached $56bn worldwide last year while storage revenues were $25bn, according to IDC. Analysts said the alliance will help Lenovo improve the capabilities of its servers, which are hubs for a company’s computer network, and bring them to market on a wider scale through EMC.

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SNIPPETS

HP Unveils Hotspot Print Solution HP Hotspot LaserJet Pro M1218nfs MFP, a 7-in-1 All-in-One printer is a milestone in the desktop printing solution history. It comes with wireless Internet Hotspot feature, which is quite new to the printing industry. The printer can take command through HP wireless direct, HP ePrint and Apple AirPrint for wireless printing, which allows users to print document from any smart device wirelessly.

Priced at only INR 18,306, it is designed specifically for SOHO, start-ups and micro business with 1-9 deployees, Installing this device is very fast as it does not require any CD. With an easy-to-use control panel, setting up and printing faster is like tapping the fingers. You can copy a two-sided ID onto one page and send and receive faxes from your PC, using the 33.6 kbps fax. Further, it offers a monthly duty cycle of up to 8000 A4 pages, and comes with a 150-sheet input tray.

NEC STRENGTHENS MEASURES AGAINST CYBER ATTACKS NEC Corporation has established a new company structure, the “Cyber Security Factory” (CSF), for strengthening its support of the deployment and operation of solutions that protect against cyber-attacks on government offices and businesses. CSF solutions are expected to be available in Japan in 2013.

In recent years, there are a growing number of organizations and individuals who have lost confidential and personal information through targeted cyber-attacks. Moreover, as these attacks become more sophisticated, they also become more difficult to detect, which slows the implementation of counter measures and allows the attacks to inflict greater damage said the company’s press release.

In order to expose this threat, and support the measures that organizations take against cyberattacks, NEC already provides its “Incident Visualization Solution,” “Targeted Attack Inspection Service,” and the “Utra-High-Speed Analysis Platform: InfoFrame DWH Appliance” in Japan.

NEC is leveraging this experience in the development of decision support systems for the National Security field in order to build monitoring control technologies and to offer technologies for building highly confidential network systems. This has resulted in the creation of the CSF, a company structure that horizontally links the internal departments that manage security issues.

The CSF allows NEC to provide its customers with a single service package that includes the installation of its cyber attack counter-measure systems as well as operational support.

TE Launches New MRJ21 XG System TE Connectivity has launched the new MRJ21 XG system from TE Enterprise Networks. It is a preterminated “plug & play” 10 Gb/s copper cabling solution designed to support agility and save valuable floor space in the data center infrastructures announced the company.

The MRJ21 XG system comprises pre-terminated trunks, panels and modular connectivity and is compatible with TE’s Universal Connectivity Platform (UCP). It occupies 5% less volume than most other zone cabling solutions. This lower cable volume, when deployed in the data center, can reduce containment costs and have a positive impact on both initial CAPEX and ongoing OPEX expenditure.

WD App for Windows 8 WD has announced comprehensive support for new storage features in Windows 8 and an app for the new Windows user interface that makes it easy to discover, enjoy and backup digital media and files.

The WD app for Windows 8 automatically discovers digital content on connected WD direct attached storage solutions and showcases those photos, videos and music on a live tile on the Start screen announced the company’s press release. Within the app, customers can easily find and enjoy their digital content as well as share their media via email and social media sites with the Share charm.

Windows 8 automatically installs the WD app for certified WD products or it can be downloaded from the Windows Store.

Additionally WD products simplify the process of computer backup through support of the new File History feature within Windows 8.

Socomec Strengthens Channel Product Portfolio Socomec UPS India has introduced 600 VA to 3.3 kVA UPS systems to the Indian market, designed to ensure electrical continuity at home and in the office for critical IT applications.

The company’s press release said that the ‘smart’ 600 VA to 3.3 kVA systems have been designed and built specifically to maintain a high technological level in daily lives. For critical IT applications at home, in the office and in small and medium sized businesses, the power supply remains perfectly constant and clean.

Belkin Launches Powerful AC Router Belkin India has launched the Belkin AC1200 Dual Band Wi-Fi router in India. It is the next generation router that features 802.11ac technology for speeds up to three times faster than existing 802.11n technology claimed the company. The router features Broadcom’s fifth-generation 802.11ac chip technology which provides gigabit speeds to extend network range and provide coverage at greater distances. Ideal for smartphones and tablets, AC technology enables faster web downloads and file syncing with less drainage on battery life.

Uniline to Empower e-Courts Power Solution company Uniline Energy Systems, has been chosen to empower the Government run ‘e-Courts Project’, to speed up judiciary processes and maintain records and data to reduce trial time. Uniline presently is focusing uninterruptedly on e-Governance projects.

“Government is investing in computerization and upgrading services and as a rising young nation we all have much to benefit from. Our first step is to ensure that these infrastructures are empowered uninterruptedly,” said RK Bansal, Founder and MD, Uniline Energy Systems.

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SNIPPETS

FortiWeb-VM Available on AWS Fortinet has announced the virtual machine version of its FortiWeb Web application firewall is now available on Amazon Web Services (AWS).

“FortiWeb-VM provides AWS customers the best of both worlds,” said Chris Rodriguez, senior network security industry analyst with Frost and Sullivan. “The tremendous flexibility and stability of AWS, combined with Fortinet’s advanced security capabilities, is a winning combination for customers migrating strategic Web applications to the cloud.”

With FortiWeb-VM, customers can deploy virtual Web application firewalls running on AWS in conjunction with other FortiGate security technologies running on their own internal network, all from a single, centralized management platform.

This allows them to easily extend the power and flexibility of Fortinet security technologies to the AWS Cloud. FortiWeb-VM provides multiple protection layers against today’s threats that target Web applications, including application signatures, HTTP RFC compliance, auto-learn-based violations and data leak prevention announced the company’s press release.

Digisol Launches new IP Security Solution

VIEWSONIC INITIATES SCHEME ON PROJECTORS ViewSonic has announced scheme for its partners on projectors to celebrate the festive season. Starting from 1st October 2012, the scheme is valid till 31st December 2012.

ViewSonic Finch Club members can avail this offer by gathering points on their sales of Projectors. The partners can gather 1 point on sale of SVGA Models and 2 point on non-SVGA Models respectively. The offer is valid for 3 months (1st October12- 31st December 12). With the maximum number of sales during this season the potential partners can win upto Rs.27000, minimum incentive starting at 15 points.

Kuldeep Ramaiya, Country Manager, ViewSonic Technologies, said, “We are glad to announce another Scheme on projector for our Channel partners who are the pillars of our growth in the Indian market. Our latest scheme will let our partners enjoy the New Year with lucrative VS Vouchers.” He further added, “ViewSonic has introduced some ground braking technologies in the projector segment. Our latest products include home entertainment products like PRO8400 & professional portable range PLED W200 & W500 and many more.”

Digisol has introduced 3 megapixel box IP camera DG-SC4600PI with CMOS sensor. This IP camera supports a range of video formats like QXGA, 1080p, 960p, 720p, D1, VGA and frame rates up to 30fps for better video quality.

The company further informed that this IP camera has an IR cut filter which offers true image during operation in Day/Night mode. Under day light operations, the IR cut filter filters the IR Ray from the image and offers a true color image. During night operations the IR cut filter is removed automatically and provides a monochrome image.

SAP’s Predictive Analysis Software for Big Data

Gigabyte Thunderbolt Mobos Support 4K Resolution Displays

SAP AG has announced the general availability of SAP Predictive Analysis software. This advanced analysis solution helps organizations gain a competitive edge by uncovering and predicting trends in their business.

SAP Predictive Analysis can be deployed stand-alone or with other SAP software, including the SAP HANA platform, to unleash powerful predictive capabilities.

Luca Baccarini, CIO, CIR Food, said, “We now need to predict, more accurately, the fluctuation of demand and the habits of clients to optimize sales cycles and employee allocation on different tasks. For this reason we chose SAP Predictive Analysis, which will allow us to reach these targets in a simple and integrated way.

Gigabyte Technology has stated that their dual Thunderbolt series of motherboards support 4K resolution monitors in configurations derived from two Mini DisplayPort connectors, each capable of 2K resolution output.

Tim Handley, Deputy Director (Motherboard Marketing), Gigabyte, commented, “Desktop PC motherboards are all about cutting edge features, performance, and upgradeability, and this is why Gigabyte was the first motherboard company to adopt dual Thunderbolt ports instead of the single port option. When combined with other innovative products, such as EIZO’s 4K resolution FDH3601 monitor, Gigabyte Thunderbolt motherboard users can enjoy next generation display options with their existing platform, without having to wait for future 4K resolution standards.”

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LEADERS CORNER

MODERN INKJET PRINTERS MATCH LASER PRINTERS Understanding the business needs of SMBs (who demand superior and cost-effective technology solutions), HP presents a broad portfolio of inkjet printers and solutions which it says dwindles business costs, increases efficiency and reduces 50% energy consumption unlike color laser printers.

BY APARAJITA CHOUDHURY aprajita@smechannels.com

I

nnovations have been a significant part of HP’ success as it continues to bring evolutions in printing space. HP acquired 53.1% market share in Q3, 2012 as per data from International Data Corporation (IDC).

Today, HP has an industry leading range of business inkjets in its Ink Advantage and Office jet portfolio. The company claims that modern inkjet printers match a laser printer in printing speeds and sharp printing quality.

Gurpreet Brar, Director (SMB and Commercial Channel), PSG, HP, says, “HP today offers the industry’s broadest portfolio of inkjet printers and solutions for all needs. We at HP understand that small and medium businesses (SMBs) are looking for advanced yet cost-effective technology solutions that can help them stay competitive.”

HP’s Officejet and Ink Advantage portfolio of business inkjets allow SMBs to sustain their competitive edge because lower total cost of ownership, safeguarding investments and increasing ease of use are some of the key factors that SMEs consider before adopting any technology. Brar maintains, “To meet the specific needs of SMBs, we have a range of Officejet printers and All-inOnes starting from Rs. 5,499. These printers employ HP’s latest technology and innovations that result in lower TCO for the SMBs.” The HP Officejet Pro range offers professionalquality color prints at up to 50% less cost-per-page than lasers. Unlike color laser printers, these AIO printers consume 50% less energy, provides high print speed and automatic two sided printing which reduces business costs and increases efficiency. “For small and medium businesses, this is a win-win situation as they are able to get the advantage of business-quality fast and reliable printing at lower comparative costs. As a result, the HP OfficeJet Pro range of business inkjets is finding greater acceptance in businesses and demolishing the myth that only laser printers are suitable in a business scenario,” states Brar.

“HP OFFICEJET PRO RANGE OF BUSINESS INKJETS IS FINDING GREATER ACCEPTANCE IN BUSINESSES AND DEMOLISHING THE MYTH THAT ONLY LASER PRINTERS ARE SUITABLE IN A BUSINESS SCENARIO.” GURPREET BRAR, DIRECTOR (SMB AND COMMERCIAL CHANNEL), PSG, HP Brar further enlightens, “HP Officejet printers feature a heavy duty cycle that can typically handle 25,000 printed pages a month, making them the perfect choice for even the busiest printing environments in SMBs or enterprises.

By printing color documents in-house on the HP

Officejet printers, SMBs can save space by using a single printing solution, and save money that would otherwise be spent on outsourcing documents to external printing shops.”

As HP considers SMB market as one of the fastest growing segments, they deliver the best value for money through a complete portfolio of printers and supplies, backed by HP’s world-class service and support infrastructure.

In addition, HP supports mobile and wireless printing with the products like HP OfficeJet Pro 8600 Plus and HP Ink Advantage 4625 e-All-inOne which features HP ePrint, AirPrint and HP wireless direct printing. HP wireless direct printing enables users to print their documents directly from the printer, without requiring any network as an intermediary.

According to the requirement of any business, HP offers printer at every price point as their main aim is to provide customers the most reliable business printing solutions whether it is an inkjet or a laser printer. Moreover, HP’s Officejet and Ink Advantage range are positioned as a strong pillar of HP’s industry-leading and comprehensive portfolio spanning inkjets and laser printers. In addition, the company initiates a 360-degree marketing program to help promote Officejet range among SOHOs, SMBs and large enterprises.

With over 6,000 partners and 4,000 retail outlets across 178 cities and towns, HP has a strong presence across all regions of India. On its goto-the-market strategy, Brar explains, “We have the IITO specialization program for the partners whereby they are incentivized to sell these products. This is a quarterly reward program based on the targets which are achievable and supported by the local HP Partner Managers.”

Finally, With leadership position and customer trust in the market, HP demolishes the existing myth around use of inkjet in business environments.

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SME CHAT

ATUL HEMANI, MD AND CEO, OMNITECH INFOSOLUTIONS

“WANT TO EXPAND TO TIER-2 CITIES” Software solutions provider Omnitech Infosolutions Ltd aim to further its reach in tier-2 cities and recently also held a seminar to educate the corporate bankers of tier 2 cities on their payment system up-gradations. Atul Hemani, MD and CEO, Omnitech Infosolutions Ltd., spoke to SME Channels and gave insights on its business plans.

Recently you conducted an information seminar for banks. What was the objective of this seminar?

Omnitech in association with a leading technology partner organized a series of information seminars “Smart Banking – Payment Convergence”. The event was held in Ahmedabad, Jaipur and Lucknow.

The primary objective of the seminar was to enable cooperative banks in tier-2 cities in their payment system up-gradations. This would enable the cooperative banks to not only comply with RBI guidelines but also provide better customer experience.

Being a software solutions provider, what are your key value additions?

We provide end-to-end solutions on payment and settlement systems. Being a technology independent partner to these cooperative banks, it gives us an edge to provide them with holistic solutions with a competitive edge.

We have almost 65% market share in terms of RTGS/NDS (Real Time Gross Settlement/

Negotiated Dealing System) related market.

Which verticals are you looking at in terms of growth?

47.60% of our revenue has been derived from BFSI segment as a result of our strong hold in the segment. We would further continue to leverage that advantage going forward.

We are also looking at pharma and healthcare, education and government sectors as the next big opportunities.

And what are our expectations in terms of revenue from these verticals?

Almost 50% of our revenue is expected from BFSI. Pharma & healthcare, education and government sectors are seen as the next big opportunities.

Can you just give a brief about your international and domestic acquisitions?

We have two focus regions in international business one is Far East Asia and another is Europe.

How does Build Operate Transfer (BOT) model help in further enhancing one’s business?

Build Operate Transfer (BOT) model helps organisations increase time to market, reduce risk and build best in class operations. Through the usage of BOT model, we enable our customers achieve these result, thereby building a better customer experience.

Tell us about your geographical presence in India and overseas?

We have authorized service providers (ASP) across India and overseas and more than 1,080 service network locations across India.

What is your marketing strategy for this year?

Our marketing strategy is to expand the reach to tier-2 cities and to increase the focus on organization challenges around growth, efficiency and cost. We are not only using innovation in our regular marketing activities, but also in the social media activities.

26 SME CHANNELS DECEMBER 2012

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TREND SETTER

SAP

72% OF INDIA SMES EYEING TECHNOLOGY To empower small and medium sized enterprises, SAP brings on cloud products and hosted solutions which it says enables SMEs to add Rs. 2 to 5 crore bottom line and Rs. 30 to 40 crores to its top line because SAP is not an IT solution rather it is a business application which supports business processors.

BY APARAJITA CHOUHUDRY aparajita@smechannels.com

M

ulling over the global and Indian scenario, majority of the SMEs across the world face various challenges, the most significant being holding on to new customers as they always tend to look at stable companies, especially the competitive ones, to work for. Recently, SAP conducted an Economist Intelligence Unit Survey which gives insights on SME opportunities and challenges in developed and emerging countries.

The study reveals that hiring people, easy access to capital are some of the big requisites which SMEs consider a challenge. But on the contrary, there are also growth opportunities for SMEs like in the the global supply chain which is converging as businesses are no more restricted to India but also to other geographical areas where SMEs operate. Earlier, they used to operate in local markets and call the auto ancillary companies who supply parts of the main OEM but today, the latter are becoming a part of the global supply chain.

So this is one of the key factors which make SMEs flexible in using technology to be able to deliver competencies.

Speaking about the target market, Priyadarshi Mohapatra, VP (Emerging Business), SAP India,, says, “Our target market is the entire SME segment, if you look at our sweet spot verticals we have lot of customers in IMC, 24 industry verticals that SAP has globally. There are lot of micro vertical solutions which are very relevant to SME customers and for which we are successful in SME segment.”

There is an erroneous belief that SMEs are very conservative in terms of spending money in technology but the notion has changed. Now the SMEs do not hesitate to take risks and they want

to operate lean resources. “They intend to invest in technology because they want to run a lean management which is extremely productive and they have the ability to take risk, so they are very open if they see value,” maintains Mohapatra.

In terms of investments in technology, SMEs invest depending on their business, how much value they want out of technology and where they see value they are very open to invest. Mohapatra explains, “SAP is not an IT solution, it is a business application which supports business processors and by adopting SAP can enhance the DSO, so it enable SMEs to add Rs. 2 to 5 crore to bottom line and by acquiring the ability to use CRM and maintaining new customers probably add Rs. 30-40 crores to top line. So, the investment in technology is directly proportional to the kind of value SMEs get out of adoption.”

The Economist Intelligence Unit Survey further discloses that 72% of the SME businesses in India are looking at technology. Figuring out the business challenges SMEs are facing, SAP brings customized solutions for them and offers a huge range of flexibility in terms of innovation. “We have products available on cloud, on premise; we have product which are based on best practices template which the customers can adopt and they can start seeing value in a very rapid pace. So we call this a rapid deployment solution (RDS) that goes live within 8-12 weeks. We also have business for design, B1 (business all in one), whether it is on cloud, premise or hosted solution,” states Mohapatra.

In addition, SAP offers ‘on cloud’ solutions and hosted solutions to SMEs because of their lack of ability to retain technical manpower internally and such companies always look at a solution

PRIYADARSHI MOHAPATRA, VP (EMERGING BUSINESS), SAP INDIA

“PARTNERS ARE VERY IMPORTANT IN EXTENDING SAP’S RELATION RIGHT TO THE DOOR OF THE CUSTOMER IN THE LOCAL MARKET.” which is run and managed by somebody else.

The company says that channel partners have become an integral part of its success as they help to expand reach in every part of the world and build relationships with customers. “Partners are very important in extending SAP’s relation right to the door of the customer in the local market, the partners also work with the SAP in creating micro vertical solutions,” avers Mohapatra.

To empower channel partners, the company initiates very methodical and systematic partner recruitment programs on which dedicated partners account managers work with these partners and imparts training to make them understand SAP solutions so that they can run a profitable SAP business.

Finally, SAP has already developed SAP HANA and B1, for SME customers. Besides, the company strives to bring the right form of innovations for SMEs which will be available in the right package for them to use.

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CASE STUDY

TALLY

HYDRAULIC FITTINGS COMPANY RUNS ON TALLY.ERP 9

H

y-Tech Engineers Pvt. Ltd. is a nationwide well-known leader in the manufacture of Hydraulic Fittings and also ISO 9001:2000 certified company, catering to almost all leading OEM’s like Machine Tool Manufacturers, Earth Moving Equipment Manufacturers, Plastic Molding Machine Manufacturers, Power Pack Manufacturers, Automobile Industries & Steel Plants. Founded in 1978 by a team of dedicated technocrats, it has grown in leaps and bounds and has won the esteem of all the customers.

In attaining these goals, the company’s objectives of meeting the customers’ increasing expectations for Quality, Delivery and Value were never compromised. Therefore Hy-Tech has enabled all its departments with IT. During 2000 time frame, Hy-Tech implemented enterprise solutions in order to enhance efficiency of the work force but it was proved to be difficult to handle. Therefore, in 2011, the company decided to migrate to Tally platform and implemented Tally.ERP 9.

Mr. Raju Meharwade, Plant InCharge, Hy-Tech Engineers Pvt. Ltd., says, “We found Tally.ERP 9 is a wellknown name in the industry and a proven product as far as accounting is concerned. We have references from many people about this software. Of course we evaluated the product from Apex Actsoft Technologies Pvt. Ltd., the Tally Integrator before implementing. We found the product to be smooth, simple and giving detailed information. We had tested other products like BECoN-BEZY and Om – Info but found Tally is a better and dependable brand.”

“We found that Tally.ERP 9 a wellknown name in the industry and a proven product as far as accounting is concerned.”

MR. RAJU MEHARWADE PLANT IN-CHARGE, HY-TECH ENGINEERS PVT. LTD.

CONTACT Tally Solutions AMR Tech Park II, No. 23 & 24, Hongasandra, Hosur Main Road, Bangalore – 560 068.

India.Tel +91 80 66282559; Fax +91 80 30228775; www. tallysolutions.com

BENEFITS

l Is Smooth l Is Simple l Gives Detailed

Information

He adds, “Today, we have 27 people using Tally software, but at the initial period when we implemented the solution during September of last year not many people knew to work on Tally, hence it was difficult to work; but gradually things became normal. Even now we have not transferred all our data. Data migration is easy for us only we need to convert the data in Microsoft Excel format and pull that to Tally format.”

Mr. Yogesh S Kulkarni, Director Marketing & Business Head, Apex Actsoft Technologies Pvt. Ltd. said, “Hy-Tech Engineers needed an end to end solution for managing entire organization-wide information from purchase to Production and Q.A. to Sales. We created Open P.O. management for OEM clients. Multi stage QA management was one more challenge that we handled carefully.

Similarly, multi-level BOM is unique here as the production includes basic parts-sub assemblies and final assemblies where WIP masters and inventory management is very important. We created invoicing where multiple clients could receive invoices as per their own identification for the same component manufactured by Hy-Tech.”

He added, “Some of the unique solutions we created around Running Raw Material Cost + In-House Process Cost including Machine Hour Cost and Subcontracting Cost where the highest cost of amongst the multiple vendors would be considered + Transportation. We also created a dashboard for given stock item of the BOM; based on above, description is provided that considers fluctuations in various parameters such as process cost, material cost etc. Tally.ERP 9.”

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PARTNER CORNER

POWER OF SIMPLICITY ARE THE MAGIC WORDS MR. SUNIL GHUMATKAR, CHAIRMAN & PRINCIPAL CONSULTANT, APEX ACTSOFT TECHNOLOGIES PVT. LTD

“TALLY WAS THE ONLY PRACTICAL SOLUTION THAT WE HAD FOUND FROM OUR YEARS OF EXPERIENCE AND HENCE IT WAS A NATURAL CHOICE TO GET INTO TALLY BUSINESS.”

B

orn out of the synergy of four young professionals who incidentally are now the four directors in the company, Apex Actsoft Technologies Pvt. Ltd., today is one of the most sought-after Master Tally Partners in Western India. After its inception in 2002, the company quickly realized the potential of Tally. So in 2004, Apex became a Tally Partner and gradually went on achieving excellence through their high standards of services and became a Master Tally Partner in 2010.

Though started with implementation of standard accounting practices in Tally, the think tank of Apex soon realized that there is more potential in them. Rather than accounts writing and routine practice of book keeping, Apex decided to branch out.

Mr. Sunil Ghumatkar, Chairman & Principal Consultant, Apex Actsoft Technologies Pvt. Ltd., says, “We wanted to promote our ideas of better MIS using effective accounting tools. Tally was the only practical solution that we had found from our years of experience and hence it was a natural choice to get into Tally business.”

The company has not only grown in terms of its capability within Tally but also in size. Today, the company has 631 partners across the western region and has a presence in multiple locations including Thane, Nasik and Pune. In terms of its clientele, Apex has clients across Mumbai, Navi Mumbai and Thane. Apex even caters to clients in other states like Gujarat, Goa and Delhi.

To address the growing needs of businesses, Apex has scaled up its staff strength to more

than 90 employees. Barring a few exceptions, all these staff members come from a background in accounts and business management. This helps the company gain a quick insight into the client’s business.

Mr. Yogesh S Kulkarni, Director Marketing & Business Head, Apex Actsoft Technologies Pvt. Ltd., says, “With an increasing stress on interdepartmental interaction and continued education, we are building a team that is formidable to take up any challenge that the client is facing in business information management and come up with solutions that are most practical.”

Apex handles most of the services around Tally including training, implementation, and customization and handling small projects in various industry verticals and large accounts. With equal ease, the company is able to handle verticals like Service, Distribution and Manufacturing. Apex is able to offer solutions that meet the changing needs of the clients - using theTally.ERP9 platform alone - as and when they grow in size or diversify business operations.

Having said that, Apex is able to handle many vertical including educational institutes, real estate developers, export documentation, and many more.

When asked about the major projects they had handled in the past, Mr. Sunil maintains, “We have handled over 800 solutions projects in Tally domain. But some of the important ones include project with Bitzer, Eureka Forbes, ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra, Soujanya Colours, GEE Limited, Pitambari Udyog, Hytech Engineering, etc.

We have created open Purchase Order management for Original Equipment Manufacturing clients, Multi stage Quality Assurance management, multi-level Bill Of Materials, Identification of Finished Goods by both Manufacturer and Client nomenclature, running cost sheet, dashboard for given stock item of the bill of materials, etc.”

When asked about their personal achievements, Mr. Yogesh says, “Tally’s Power of Simplicity - are magic words that gave us confidence in all the solutions we have developed since the beginning. With Tally we get easy access to a multitude of business entities and can deliver solutions with utmost confidence. Each success achieved has always propelled us forward to assume bigger, more complex challenges and deliver solutions to them successfully. Moreover, we are thrust to a global scenario where sky is the limit to test our capabilities and we are sure of winning with flying colors.”

Finally…

With an average turnover of Rs. 2 Crores from past three years, Apex is now surging forward to touch Rs. 5 crores this year. Of course, the company’s goal is to cross Rs. 100 crore turnover and a customer base of 25000 in the next 5 years.

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COVER STORY

SOCIAL MEDIA

ACCORDING TO A REPORT BY MCKINSEY GLOBAL INSTITUTE THE UNTAPPED BUSINESS VALUE OF SOCIAL TECHNOLOGIES IS $1.3 TRILLION.

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SOCIAL MEDIA

COVER STORY

INVENTING BUSINESS THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA Businesses are increasingly taking the Social Media route to engage, listen and understand its customers. Hitherto limited to networking, it has thrown open opportunities and though it can’t be the foundation of a business development, it nonetheless is reinventing the way business is done, today.

BY KARMA NEGI

karma@smechannels.com

W

hen The Pope opened his Twitter account it created a flutter around the world. But it was just another sign of the power that Social Media has come to harness and hard to ignore for anyone.

Social networking sites are no longer ways to interact or keep in touch with friends. Facebook, Orkut, Linkedin, Pintetrest, Google+ etc. has opened up new avenues for business and marketing strategies are being drawn around it. With real time communication and low marketing budgets to support it, businesses are turning toward it by droves to harness its power and businesses are investing in newer ways to engage their customers. It has helped

do away with many geographical, mental and communicative borders.

Kasperksy says that Social Media is reaching approximately 80% of Web audience in India. If marketers need to reach the right set of target audience they need campaigns targeted towards the growing online and mobile populations.

“When it comes to B2C marketing, Social Media has the biggest impact in terms of lead generation, increase awareness and increasing your online or offline sales revenue. In fact it’s playing a big role in building retail brands and attracting consumers. This media is cost effective and has a wider and strong reach. In India more than 50% population is under 25 years of age and they all use Social Media,” says

Jagannath Patnaik, Director (Channel Sales), Kaspersky Lab – South Asia.

For those who are yet to enter the bandwagon, plans are afoot. Kobian, which has not yet entered in a big manner, says “shall be soon in a prominent space in 2013”. Portronics is also increasingly chalking out plans to work on Facebook, Twitter and Linked in. Google Adwords is also something it uses very often to make its presence better.

Businesses are using Social Media as a platform to educate on new products launch, introduce new technologies, advertising, marketing, brand promotion, enhancing individual visibility and developing and maintaining contacts at the business level and even bridge good contacts, lead generation and boost

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“SOCIAL MEDIA REQUIRES A LOT OF STRATEGY ON MULTIPLE LEVELS AND TIME-FRAMES. WE HAVE MARKETING ACTIVITIES SPECIALLY OUTLINED TO ENGAGE OUR COMMUNITY.” KHWAJA SAIFUDDIN, SR SALES DIRECTOR (SOUTH ASIA, MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA), WESTERN DIGITAL

online sales.

With a host of Social Media platform available from Flickr, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, blogger, typepad etc., the preference differs from company to company. Take for example Kaspersky which apart from Facebook, Twitter and YouTube also employs informal groups (bloggers) for its marketing and sales functions primarily. “We think FB and informal group campaigns will give us ROI,” reveals Patnaik.

Western Digital in India employs Facebook and Twitter primarily to engage its fans. For Portronics too Facebook, and Linkedin are more popular for its business.

“Twitter is great for sharing updates and driving traffic to a blog. Owning to its full audiovisual capabilities and a significantly larger user base, Facebook is a much broader engagement platform compared to twitter for LG. Pinterest is perfect if a company has lots of great visuals to share with its target consumers. For our mobile communications vertical, we find Twitter to be the best tool to communicate with our consumers and run exciting contests in,” reveals LK Gupta, VP (Marketing), LG India. “Twitter tends to also become a platform for grievance redressal a lot more than FB.”

Some like Datamatics has created its own knowledge sharing platform. Varad Kamini, Head (Marketing Communications), Datamatics Global Services Ltd., says, “In addition to the engagements through Facebook, Twitter, Slide Share, You tube and LinkedIn, etc. we have also created knowledge sharing platform through our blogging corridor ‘Techperiti.com’. Our in-house tool SENTIPede helps us monitor the positive/ negative/neutral emotional potency during our digital engagement with wider audiences.”

Nevales uses FB, Twitter and Linkedin for important company announcements and as an educating platform for the associated groups.

Linkedin and Facebook for hiring and Slideshare for elaborate sharing of content.

In the B2B space, Linkedin has been Dell’s platform of choice. For consumers, Facebook has been the primary platform for engagement.

It also uses Twitter and Pinterest to reach out to consumers. “We’re engaging with SMBs via a Linkedin ‘More Growth’ community that consists of over 23,000+ members. We also have a CIO community on Linkedin, to keep our engagement with the relevant target audience constant and consistent,” informs P Krishnakumar, Executive Director, Marketing, Dell India.

“THIS MEDIA IS COST EFFECTIVE AND HAS A WIDER AND STRONG REACH. IN INDIA MORE THAN 50% POPULATION IS UNDER 25 YEARS OF AGE AND THEY ALL USE SOCIAL MEDIA.” JAGANNATH PATNAIK, DIRECTOR (CHANNEL SALES), KASPERSKY LAB – SOUTH ASIA.

“WE WORK TOWARDS ALIGNING OUR SOCIAL MEDIA ACTIVITIES WITH OUR CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE STRATEGY.” RAJAT SAHU, PRODUCT MARKETING MANAGER, INDIA & SAARC, TREND MICRO.

Dell’s corporate blogs Direct2Dell was launched in 2006. Today, it remains a focal point for information about Dell’s product, services and solutions, as well as Dell corporate news. It is the Company’s key social site for Dell to connect with customers.

And businesses can’t stop gushing about the rewards they are reaping. Last year during Diwali, Strontium Technology India had launched Design a Diwali USB Flash Drive on Facebook and claims to have witnessed overwhelming responses. On its latest phablet launch, the Optimus Vu, LG held a bloggers meet, “which generated lot of online buzz”, it says.

Kaspersky’s launched an introductory offer to promote the new version of Kaspersky Internet security and Kaspersky Antivirus aggressively in the Indian market, which was promoted via Facebook by its national distributor Sakri IT Solutions. “We got very good response. We have seen an increase of approximately 300% growth in the online sales during the promotion period. Sakri FB page likes had increased from 200 to 7000 likes. On an average there was 20% increase in the activation of licenses.”

Reinventing Business Social Media is reinventing, reshaping, redefining the way business is conducted. According to a report by McKinsey Global Institute the untapped business value of social technologies is $1.3 trillion. Whoa! This is a big number and hard to ignore. And businesses are scrambling to climb the Social Media band wagon and tap into

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COVER STORY

“CONFIDENTIALITY AND SOCIAL MEDIA IS LIKE AN OXYMORON. WHATEVER WE PUBLISH ONLINE HAS A SOLE INTENTION OF GETTING VIEWERSHIP AND ENGAGEMENT.” VARAD KAMINI, HEAD (MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS), DATAMATICS GLOBAL SERVICES LTD

the consumer conversations and feedbacks to improve their brand image and bottom line.

“What is fantastic about Social Media is that a little effort spent there can go a long way, without the need of spending truckloads of money,” says Gupta.

“Social networking can increase collaboration between teams, get work done more quickly; accelerate decision-making, problem resolution, and innovation. Social tools can enable employees to locate the right people, experts, communities, and content as well as croWestern Digital-source answers to specific questions, etc.,” says Minhaj Zia, Director (Collaboration Sales), Cisco India & SAARC. Social Media has broken down the barriers to communication. It has provided a way through which one can now interact with the end-consumers directly, which was not a case earlier. It also provides a platform where one can network with the vendors and partners also. It is the best way to get publicity without spending a lot.

Harish Rai, Assistant VP, Comguard Networks, notes, “In today’s scenario Social Media has changed the way the business is conducted with many innovative and out of the box idea’s to promote and build your brand. Plus few of the platforms also help us to build a professional network

which can further help us to leverage our brand presence.”

Varad opines, “Social Media psychologists and analysts delve into the mine of information available on various social platforms and make reports which form the basis of new products and services that companies invest in. So, it is definitely reinventing the way business is done.”

With the advent of Social Media, Zyxel finds the penetration of its message regarding the product is deeper than the usage of mailers, calls, or SMS. There is also an instant feedback from the customers. Says Pinaki Chatterjee, Executive Director - Distribution Channel & Business Development, ZyXEL India, “We get to know how they are feeling about the product/services. We get queries and comments on various social networking portals which in turn helps us to understand the psychology of the customers. Social Media gives a personal touch in the process.”

For Portronics, Social Media links it to youth of the today. It shortens the go-to-market strategy.

For e.g. the hits for the Youtube video has a much better effect if the same is promoted via Facebook with respect to just keeping it on your webpage. It gives tremendous reach to the brand in reasonable time frame. “We would be spending on the Facebook advertising next year to further increase

“WE’RE ENGAGING WITH SMBS VIA A LINKEDIN ‘MORE GROWTH’ COMMUNITY THAT CONSISTS OF OVER 23,000+ MEMBERS. WE ALSO HAVE A CIO COMMUNITY ON LINKEDIN.” P KRISHNAKUMAR, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR (MARKETING), DELL INDIA.

“WHAT IS FANTASTIC ABOUT SOCIAL MEDIA IS THAT A LITTLE EFFORT SPENT THERE CAN GO A LONG WAY, WITHOUT THE NEED OF SPENDING TRUCKLOADS OF MONEY.” LK GUPTA, VP (MARKETING), LG INDIA

the brand loyalty,” informs Jasmeet Singh Sethi, Director, Portronics Digital Pvt. Ltd. It has also become a channel for two-way instant communication between the end-customer and the company. “Social networks allow for better customer feedback and allow the company or brand to take control of how they are seen by the general public. Consumers and brands have the opportunity to converse and interact via Social Media,” says Ajay Kogta, Country Manager, Indian Subcontinent, Strontium Technology.

Gupta sees the roles of magazines and newspapers slowly taking a back seat to pave the way for the less-known (but often as influential) bloggers.

“Spreading the company’s message through the use of blogs has now become the trend.”

Since the very beginning, Nevales has been focusing on the network security facets for emerging businesses. “Through the Social Media platform, Nevales is educating the young players with the different aspects of security, establishing close two way relationship with the associated/interested groups; vendors, partners, customers, target customers etc,” says Ravishankar, Co-Founder and CEO, Nevales Networks.

While Sushmita Das, Country Manager- India,

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“IN TODAY’S SCENARIO SOCIAL MEDIA HAS CHANGED THE WAY THE BUSINESS IS CONDUCTED WITH MANY INNOVATIVE AND OUT OF THE BOX IDEA’S TO PROMOTE AND BUILD YOUR BRAND.” HARISH RAI, ASSISTANT VP, COMGUARD NETWORKS

“SOCIAL NETWORKING CAN INCREASE COLLABORATION BETWEEN TEAMS, GET WORK DONE MORE QUICKLY; ACCELERATE DECISION-MAKING, PROBLEM RESOLUTION, AND INNOVATION.” MINHAJ ZIA, DIRECTOR (COLLABORATION SALES), CISCO INDIA & SAARC

Kobian Pte Ltd, says, “In traditional IT products, it has not yet become the game changer. But for lifestyle and telecom products the Social Media has redefined the way business is done.”

Strategy Any marketing campaign is only as good as its effectiveness in reaching the target audience. Marketers need to understand their target audience and use Social Media platforms to engage them rather than going for the overkill. This calls for a Social Media strategy.

“Having sheer presence across popular media sites is of little help, unless engagement is happening. And the only way to engage your customer, online or otherwise is by having deep understanding of their requirements, to know their pulse and constantly stimulate their needs; to have a grasp of their wants and be ready to be there for them at the right moment. In short to know exactly what ticks them and how,” remarks Varad.

As part of its Social Media strategy Kaspersky is planning to allocate 30% of its and distributors resources towards building and running Social Media campaigns. “We shall be working on medi-

ums like FB, Twitter, Linkedin and other informal Social Media groups such as blogger community and online forums. So it will be difficult to say which one will be most popular but I feel FB and informal groups will give us better advantage,” says Patnaik.

Western Digital has an overall periodic plan in place which is tweaked to reflect current happenings. Khwaja Saifuddin, Sr. Sales Director (South Asia, Middle East and Africa), Western Digital, says, “Social Media requires a lot of strategy on multiple levels and time-frames. We have marketing activities specially outlined to engage our community in the form engaging apps and contests. We have planned campaigns to co-ordinate with physical launch of new products. We upload captivating pictures, videos, articles, puzzles and contests to engage our fans on the social platforms.”

And Buffalo’s Social Media strategy is towards building a strong community of tech and gadgets users and for that we are running campaigns on regular intervals. Contests are a popular feature that attracts much traction. “We are also building relationship with our consumers and partners through Social Media interaction so that we are able to know them better and provide our world class solutions and products,” says Deepak

Deveshwar, Head-Retail & Consumer Business, Buffalo Inc., India.

Rajat Sahu, Product Marketing Manager, India & SAARC, Trend Micro, “We work towards aligning our Social Media activities with our customer experience strategy. Our strategy includes creating, managing and growing the company’s support presence through community forums, blogs, social media sites and other strategically relevant online properties. Furthermore, identifying and analyzing issues, patterns and trends in customer insights and product feedback.”

Flipside However, the flipsides are here too. This medium changes dramatically and instantaneously, and to always remain on top of it, demands continuously learn and re-visiting the strategy. “You need to have a dedicated team of young and passionate people who belong to this medium and relate to social pulse,” feels Gupta.

The community page has to be monitored regularly to keep it engaging and relevant. But it’s also time consuming, not to mention the problem it might create when customers start getting too many updates. “Customers may start ignoring our posts,” remarks Chatterjee.

“Cost of the return on investment is a bigger

“WE GET QUERIES AND COMMENTS ON VARIOUS SOCIAL NETWORKING PORTALS WHICH IN TURN HELPS US TO UNDERSTAND THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CUSTOMERS.” PINAKI CHATTERJEE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR (DISTRIBUTION CHANNEL & BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT), ZYXEL INDIA

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SOCIAL MEDIA

“INFORMATION IS AN ASSET FOR ALL ENTERPRISES, COMPROMISE ON INFORMATION IS CHALLENGING ALONG WITH SECURITY.” KAMAL SHARMA, GROUP CIO AND ITIM SBU HEAD, MINDLANCE question today,” says Sethi of Portronics. Agrees, Patnaik, “Major challenges are measuring the ROI, monitoring and investing in the growing Social Media presence. Still most of the companies invest in traditional ways of markets and allot limited funds for SMM. Integration of the Social Media strategies with the core marketing activities will definitely help in to overcome the current

“AMONG THE GENERAL SOCIAL SITES, FACEBOOK DOMINATES THE LANDSCAPE WITH SEVEN IN TEN SMBS USING SOCIAL MEDIA HAVING A FACEBOOK PROFILE.” SHRADHA SUMAN ROUT, RESEARCH ASSOCIATE, AMI-PARTNERS

COVER STORY

“WE ARE EDUCATING THE YOUNG PLAYERS WITH THE DIFFERENT ASPECTS OF SECURITY, ESTABLISHING CLOSE TWO WAY RELATIONSHIP WITH THE ASSOCIATED/INTERESTED GROUPS.” RAVISHANKAR, CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, NEVALES NETWORKS

challenges.”

The medium has become so powerful that a single Tweet or a post on Facebook can make or break a company’s image. As the platform is open to anybody it means it can also serve as a medium for expressing any grievance publicly.

Talking about Social Media and security in one breath sounds like an oxymoron. When we decide to put something on the platform with the sole purpose of getting eyeballs, where does security fit in? Even though the Social Media has its own security and privacy settings, but is it enough?

Varad says, “Confidentiality and Social Media is like an oxymoron. Whatever we publish online has a sole intention of getting viewership and engagement. However, it is necessary to keep the security channels up so that these social accounts are not hacked leading to unwarranted embarrassments.”

She further advices on establishing the best practices while using Social Media which can help organizations to minimize confidentiality and security risks involved.

Social networking sites often contain valuable features along with some features that should be blocked. Multiple layers of protection are now necessary. “Organisations must be able to detect, monitor and control application usage and traf-

fic at gateways and at endpoints. In addition, an association must be made between the application and the end user so that proper access rights can be assigned through a security policy,” stresses Vishak Raman, Senior Regional Director, Fortinet, India & SAARC. “Information is an asset for all enterprises, compromise on information is challenging along with security,” says Kamal Sharma, Group CIO and ITIM SBU Head, Mindlance.

Dell has strict and comprehensive Social Media policies for its employees all over the world. “We ensure that there is no sharing of confidential company information or our customers’ personally identifiable information. Having said that, we encourage all employees to be transparent and responsible while interacting on Social Media,” Krishnakumar informs.

SMBs on Social Media As per AMI’s India Small & Medium Business Market Opportunity Assessment study, almost half the Indian SMBs agree that Social Media is one of the most important information sources for making technology purchase decisions apart from traditional mass media, IT-oriented print media, websites, search engines, referrals and trade associations.

“IN TRADITIONAL IT PRODUCTS, IT HAS NOT YET BECOME THE GAME CHANGER. BUT FOR LIFESTYLE AND TELECOM PRODUCTS THE SOCIAL MEDIA HAS REDEFINED THE WAY BUSINESS IS DONE.” SUSHMITA DAS, COUNTRY MANAGER- INDIA, KOBIAN PTE LTD

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“AN ASSOCIATION MUST BE MADE BETWEEN THE APPLICATION AND THE END USER SO THAT PROPER ACCESS RIGHTS CAN BE ASSIGNED THROUGH A SECURITY POLICY.” VISHAK RAMAN, SENIOR REGIONAL DIRECTOR, FORTINET, INDIA & SAARC.

It further says that Indian small businesses primarily use Social Media for blogging activities, keeping in touch with business partners, advertising their business and marketing/sales activities.

Whereas in the medium business segment (primarily those having 500-999 employees) more than 40% use Social Media as a hiring tool – to find and recruit new employees.

“Among the general social sites, Facebook dominates the landscape with seven in ten SMBs using Social Media having a Facebook profile.

Monster and JobsAhead lead in professional sites while Twitter is the most popular site for blogs/microblogs,” reveals Shradha Suman Rout, Research Associate, AMI-Partners.

Social Media provides SMBs them with an open platform to display their work and entice an audience, start conversations and gain feedback.

It gets them visibility and more connections, as interconnectivity run strong on social networking sites. It is a very cost-effective solution to reach out to the widest possible audience, and has leveled the playing field for organizations with different budgets for advertising and marketing related activities. It also doubles up to be a touch-point for the consumer.

“For SMBs, the business they’re planning to generate could be an outcome of product innovation, internal collaboration, community growth

or decrease in negative commentary on their brand. And all these functions could be performed via Social Media. That is the perspective SMBs should take, while thinking about Social Media ROI,” says Krishnakumar.

“That said, two of the easiest, and most effective ways for small businesses to get engaged in Social Media is to blog and be active on Twitter. We have created guides for SMBs on how to do both via Dell’s Facebook page,” he suggests.

Deveshwar however suggests that before venturing on the Social Media space, SMBs should do a little homework on how they are going to use this platform for their brand awareness and marketing campaigns.

Varad remarks that for SMBs, Social Media has opened up a phenomenal market, which hitherto was not tapped optimally. “I think, SMBs can leverage a lot through this medium. However to benefit from this medium, they will need to remember is that this medium can be best utilized only we listen to the VOC and engage with them, and not just push information.”

She however feels that for SMBs to generate business on the social space, it is pivotal that they establish the brand on the correct forums and have a trust based relationship with their customers.

“SMBs can also leverage industry-specific net-

“SOCIAL NETWORKS ALLOW FOR BETTER CUSTOMER FEEDBACK AND ALLOW THE COMPANY OR BRAND TO TAKE CONTROL OF HOW THEY ARE SEEN BY THE GENERAL PUBLIC.” AJAY KOGTA, COUNTRY MANAGER, INDIAN SUBCONTINENT, STRONTIUM TECHNOLOGY

“SMBS SHOULD DO A LITTLE HOMEWORK ON HOW THEY ARE GOING TO USE THIS PLATFORM FOR THEIR BRAND AWARENESS AND MARKETING CAMPAIGNS.” DEEPAK DEVESHWAR, HEAD-RETAIL & CONSUMER BUSINESS, BUFFALO INC, INDIA

works and even create their own blogs to generate greater buzz about their business. All in all, SMBs should focus on developing a plan, execute, evaluate regularly and revise the plan if objectives are not being met, advises Suchita Vishnoi, Head Corporate Communications, Trend Micro.

For the SMBs a word of caution comes from Rout, “However, one needs to keep in mind the target audience. It is fruitful for e-tailing businesses to use this media. The same cannot be true across every industry, where clients may not be as internet friendly.”

Finally…

Western Digital says it has a very active Facebook presence globally, with a community of close to 67,000 fans in India; and Dell Facebook page has over 4,157,540 followers on Facebook globally, of which more than 1,000,000, it informs are from India. There is no doubt on the popularity of Social Media and businesses definitely gain an edge over others but as Varad puts it, “social networking should be used as a complement and not a replacement for the actual business strategy. More importantly, considering its reach and impact, it must be used responsibly”.

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FEATURE

PIRACY

PIRACY STILL EATING INDIA’S SOFTWARE MARKET Software market has been evolving and growing in importance over hardware in the past couple of years. But this industry is blighted by the plague of piracy with India’s piracy market standing at a whopping 63%, not to mention the ambiguity which is confusing the market with respect to government policies.

BY KARMA NEGI

karma@smechannels.com

40 SME CHANNELS DECEMBER 2012

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D

espite challenging economic conditions, the enterprise software market in India is projected to grow 13.7 percent in 2012, as revenue reaches $3.45 billion USD in 2012, according to Gartner, Inc. India’s enterprise software market is forecast to maintain its strong performance, with an estimated compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14.6 per cent from 2011 to 2016 – the highest growth rate in the world.

India, traditionally dominated by the hardware market, has been over the last couple of years witnessing the share of software revenue steadily climbing. Today, partners are embracing the software sales along with hardware sales with the falling prices of the latter.

“With hardware becoming more and more powerful, opportunities on software front to leverage hardware capabilities lead to faster growth of software. Partner eco system for offerings like network security and storage are matured today to understand customer need and offer the right solution which could be a combination of hardware, software and services based on the specific need,” says Sunil Pillai, Co-Founder and MD, iValue InfoSolutions Pvt Ltd. Somnath Das, Research Manager, AMI-Partners, informs,“In the industry where up sell and cross sell has been accepted as an effective way of marketing and a weapon to increase brand share, vendors are taking extra initiative to augment the trend.”

For example, IBM has started an Accelerator Incentive Program. The intent of this program is to reward the simultaneous sale of eligible IBM Servers and/or Storage with eligible IBM Software licenses to a single end user customer, in the same physical location. It will help to increase cross selling. IBM Business Partners will drive more solution selling and value to our clients. Solution Provider or Resellers must sell an eligible IBM Server and/or Storage model together with IBM Software licenses to an end user customer via a single order.

Much importance is now attached to in terms of evolving to a level where Partners are moving from commodity sales to creating differentiation.

“One way of differentiation is providing solutions, and a solution naturally manifests itself as a combination of technologies as well as domains such as hardware, networking solutions, application software and so on. Within the software adoption by the Partner community there are again various domains ranging from commodity software to the other extreme of customized application.

This is also driven by a customer evolution, where customers are demanding that vendors move

FEATURE

to a position of adding value to them,” remarks Ajay Verma, VP (Asia Pacific South), Dassault Systèmes.

Verma further says that if partners want to be more relevant to their customers then software is the route. Given this – we need to remember the value paradigm. Selling software in a manner where you add value to a customer or use means that the partner needs to have domain understanding, in-depth knowledge of the tool and the ability to help the customers adopt the application and get the business benefit required. Thus there is need for enhanced competence in the partner eco system especially as you move to more specific application software. “At the commodity software level – there is not much value add and hence evolution needs to occur further in the direction of more business critical areas.”

Softwares can broadly be classified into two categories – Business Application Software and System Software like OS and anti-virus. “Almost all IT Resellers sell System Software (OS, AntiVirus Softwares etc) but there are very few who sell Business Application Software end-to-end.

Most of them prefer to work as a Referral Partner in case of Business Application Softwares,” Dinesh K Gupta, MD, Busy Infotech.

Piracy Counterfeit software is what ails this market the most. The global advocate for the software industry, BSA Software Alliance, puts the losses incurred by the software makers in 2011 to nearly $3 billion or about Rs 16,150 crore. Kaspersky pegs India’s piracy rate close to 65-70%.

India market, as we all know, is quite price sensitive. More often than not, people opt for penny pinching on genuine products. “Easy accessibility to pirated software is another reason because of which people prefer to buy it. In India, laws pertaining to software piracy are not stringent because of which people tend to take advantage and increasingly use pirated software,” points out Gupta.

Das of AMI-Partners refers to the high import duty on computers and softwares as the main culprit as it encourages pirated goods to penetrate into the country through International borders.

Shoaib Ahmed, President, Tally Solutions says that piracy is coming down. “There is lot more solution and product players who are reaching the customers and showing the value of their solution. The whole issue has been the challenge of software products to reach out and demonstrate value. And because more and more players are coming on board that is getting addressed. People are realizing there is a value in engaging and that has been a big driving force for the change.”

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PIRACY

Verma too sees a gradual increase in the value of genuine software being bought by customers.

He says there is greater move in a segment of the market – where responsible board of directors are sitting and formulating internal compliance processes, as well as good governance norms for their organizations and these mandate that they comply with all legal rules and regulations as they pertain to IP of other companies.

“Thus the situation is not as perceived or stated of the market not going for genuine products,” he says on an optimistic note.

He however adds that India still has a long way to go when it comes to respect for IP & developing common understanding on usage of legitimate software. “This requires a fair bit of evangelization by the industry such that users recognize the need and value of compliance.” It also mandates at a certain level of delivering the value perceived/ expected by the user of legitimate software.

With respect to security software iValue’s Pillai sees market going for genuine products all the time since there is a tangible value seen by the market through continuous updates to security software to ensure protection against newer threats on an ongoing basis.

Roadblocks A couple of months back as a relief to the domestic software industry, the ex-finance minster Pranab Mukherjee had approved issuance of a circular to avoid multiple level TDS on software. Earlier a 10% tax deduction at source was applicable at

“WITH HARDWARE BECOMING MORE AND MORE POWERFUL, OPPORTUNITIES ON SOFTWARE FRONT TO LEVERAGE HARDWARE CAPABILITIES LEAD TO FASTER GROWTH OF SOFTWARE.” SUNIL PILLAI, CO-FOUNDER AND MD, IVALUE INFOSOLUTIONS PVT LTD

“AT THE COMMODITY SOFTWARE LEVEL – THERE IS NOT MUCH VALUE ADD AND HENCE EVOLUTION NEEDS TO OCCUR FURTHER IN THE DIRECTION OF MORE BUSINESS CRITICAL AREAS.” AJAY VERMA, VP (ASIA PACIFIC SOUTH), DASSAULT SYSTÈMES every level of the software sales distribution chain - from master distributor to reseller and further to retailer. “This was giving way to piracy in the industry,”says Verma.

In an earlier note president of NASSCOM, Som Mittal had said, “Almost 40% of the value of software was getting stuck in TDS.” Ahmed says, “The issue is not whether the business has improved but the issue was that the business would have been killed if we had that kind of taxation.”

“VENDORS SHOULD ENSURE SOME KIND OF VALUE PROPOSITION TO THE CUSTOMERS, RATHER THAN SIMPLY PUTTING PRESSURE ON THEM TO BUY GENUINE PRODUCTS.” SUBBARAM GOWRA, MANAGING PARTNER, GOWRA BITS AND BYTES

“I don’t think that government’s decision with regard to tax deduction at multiple levels has anything to do directly with software piracy unless if you look at it that it has made it easier for the sellers to take the product to the market. Automatically there has been a smoothening of the process,” he adds.

However, the market is still confused as there is a lack of clarity on some policies. “When it comes to taxation, there has been some ambiguity regarding the policies and certain instances of double taxation too. Some of these issues have been resolved. But, I feel that taxation should be simplified in order to facilitate the growth of industry,” laments Gupta.

“We ensure that our distributors adhere to the Tax laws of the land and as such have no issues on this front. From my personal point of view there should be more clarity on taxes on software like AV by authorities so that there is no confusion and loss of business which aids in growing piracy, says Jagannath Patnaik, Director (Channel Sales), Kaspersky Lab – South Asia.

“Tax regime simplification is a constant process as well. The maxim of simplicity of a tax regime leading to better compliance is true and thus while revenue priorities of governments exist – there needs to be consistent set of rules across states, central or any other tax levying entity. This surely is a high priority area,” remarks Verma.

“My personal experience has been very bad with the government. There is no clarity whatsoever,” retorts Subbaram Gowra, Managing Part-

“PIRATED SOFTWARE ACTUALLY LEAVES A CONSUMER WITH INADEQUATE DOCUMENTATION, WHICH PREVENTS THE FULL BENEFIT OF THE SOLUTION.” SOMNATH DAS, RESEARCH MANAGER, AMI-PARTNERS

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ner, Gowra Bits and Bytes.

Another area where still some ambiguity remains is on the classification of software as a product or service. Some believe introduction of GST with clear definition between product and service will help in avoiding double taxation challenges for all. Some list competence as another key challenge for the industry, as customer expect value add.

To curb the menace Dassault suggests the need to making easy access to procurement of legal software. “Cloud, for example, gives immense flexibility to allow users to have legal software in a manner which is appropriate to their needs. There are also technology blocks that need to be built to counter this phenomena.”

Action The software industry is not just watching from the sidelines, rather it is all geared up to fight this menace and safeguard the interests’ of not just the vendors but also the customers.

BSA recently announced the ‘Advantage: Channels’ initiative, in partnership with (TAIT) Trader’s Association of Information & Technology “aimed at increasing public awareness about usage of legal software and educate customer about benefits of using legitimate software and encourage procurement of legal software both in private and public sectors.”

“The Indian copyright law is very strong and powerful and if the government can enforce them then it will encourage the whole market,” avers

“THE ISSUE IS NOT WHETHER THE BUSINESS HAS IMPROVED BUT THE ISSUE WAS THAT THE BUSINESS WOULD HAVE BEEN KILLED IF WE HAD THAT KIND OF TAXATION.” SHOAIB AHMED, PRESIDENT, TALLY SOLUTIONS

Vipin Aggarwal, Country Chairman, Business Software Alliance – India.

One of the programs that BSA is working on is LMR360 (License Management Registry 360) which maintains, manages, and monitor their software inventory in the Cloud.

As per govt. the announcement is not to subject locally made software to tax deduction at multiple levels. the market is still waiting to see the big impact. However, the market is demanding clarity and simplification on taxation.

“IN INDIA, LAWS PERTAINING TO SOFTWARE PIRACY ARE NOT STRINGENT BECAUSE OF WHICH PEOPLE TEND TO TAKE ADVANTAGE AND INCREASINGLY USE PIRATED SOFTWARE.”

“FROM MY PERSONAL POINT OF VIEW THERE SHOULD BE MORE CLARITY ON TAXES ON SOFTWARE LIKE AV BY AUTHORITIES SO THAT THERE IS NO CONFUSION AND LOSS OF BUSINESS WHICH AIDS IN GROWING PIRACY.”

DINESH K GUPTA, MD, BUSY INFOTECH

JAGANNATH PATNAIK, DIRECTOR (CHANNEL SALES), KASPERSKY LAB – SOUTH ASIA

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Gowra emphasizes on the need to change the mindset. “Vendors should ensure some kind of value proposition to the customers, rather than simply putting pressure on them to buy genuine products. They should do something to create an ecosystem which would enable customers to buy software proactively.”

Well, the good news is that software piracy in India has been declining, says BSA. According to its 2011 report the software piracy market in India has been declining and now stands at 63%, down 1% from 2010. “Over the last eight years it has gone down by about 9%. So the piracy market has been declining in India slowly,” informs Aggarwal It is commonsense that using pirated software can leave your computer and data vulnerable to virus attacks and data crash. Some knowingly and others unknowingly use pirated softwares, but eventually might fall victim to security threats.

“A user who uses pirated software is not only a culprit but also a victim,” says Verma. “

Finally A 2010 study by BSA revealed that Indian companies paid just $3 billion to government in taxes and by 2014 it’s estimated it to grow at 15% a year to $5.7 billion. If there were no piracy the Indian government would have received another 30% or nearly a billion dollar in taxes.

Hence apart from vendors’ efforts there is also a need from the government side to enforce the rules stringently and remove any confusion where policy matters are concerned.

“THE INDIAN COPYRIGHT LAW IS VERY STRONG AND POWERFUL AND IF THE GOVERNMENT CAN ENFORCE THEM THEN IT WILL ENCOURAGE THE WHOLE MARKET.” VIPIN AGGARWAL, COUNTRY CHAIR, BUSINESS SOFTWARE ALLIANCE – INDIA

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CISCO

CISCO PARTNER LED CONTINUES TO WORK ON PARTNERS’ GROWTH Recession or no recession, GDP or No GDP, what is important for a good company is to chalk out a positive strategy accommodating, inclusive of all the components attached, and work towards that. It may or may not yield desired result but it pays in the long run. Cisco seems to be adopting a strategy for inclusive growth of its epicentre which is the partners.

BY SANJAY MOHAPATRA sanjay@smechannels.com

D

uring the early part of this month, Cisco organized its second Partner Led Conference for the APJC region in Bangkok, Thailand, wherein, the company invited top channel partners and senior officials of most of the APJC countries that it is present in. The company launched Partner Led last summer.

Everyone knows that Partner-Led initiative is to accelerate growth in the SME/SMB market. It is critical that the programme creates environment by creating right products, services programmes, marketing activities, etc. to scale around the mid-size companies. Cisco finds the entire APJC region a hot spot of SMB companies; especially countries like India, China, Australia, New Zealand and Japan are witnessing good growth in SMB market.

Towards the development of this programme Cisco had earmarked a budget of US$ 75 million globally, which was to be invested on various partner programmes, marketing activities, skill development and product development.

From the commercial market perspective, as far as SMB and mid-market is concerned, Cisco

yields of $10 billion out of its $43 billion revenue.

And from market share perspective 5 Theatres (Asia Pacific, ANZ, Japan, India, China), as Cisco says, FY12 has yielded revenues of $7.3 billion.

Given this background, Partner Led congregation in APJC region is very important. In the opening session of Partner Led, Bangkok, Jaime Vallés, President, APJC revealed that there is enormous opportunities in the APJC growth engine. Cisco will enhance its commitment to the Partner Led go-to-market strategy. The company will focus on partners’ profitability and trust. They will create the frame work which will help to gain more market share. It will offer tools to increase productivity and drive service creation and monetization. Having done so, the company will try to evolve its partner strategy to new business models in FY14 and beyond.

At present Cisco has presence in 16 countries with 46 offices across APJC. It has 16,000 regular employees, 8,000 engineers, two major R&D centers, one of which is present in Bangalore, India.

The company has 16,000 Registered Partners out of which 300 are Gold and Silver certified. It has TACs in Sydney, Bangalore, Beijing, Seoul and

Tokyo and 250+ depots across the APJC region.

The enhanced importance of Cisco in this region is simply because the APJC is increasingly becoming a region of development. The region’s contribution to the global market is immense.

Today, for example, APJC’s GDP contribution is 32 percent to overall global number, which will touch 46 percent in 2020. There is a huge surge in middle class. By 2020 it will be 52 percent in the global heater. The broadband household is every time rising. Today, it is 44 percent which will be 60 percent by 2020. Similarly, the number of mobile subscribers will touch 52 percent by 2020 compared to the global figure.

In this situation Cisco TAM growth is quite high in this region. The market transition is quite high and technology adoption is very quick.

Therefore, there is an opportunity in the markets like cloud services (SaaS, TaaS, HCS, IaaS), smart solutions, virtualization, data analytics, services, etc.

Addressing the partners, Jaime said, “Become the most relevant and trusted partner for APJC business and government leaders by delivering the best ICT solutions and services with value

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and simplicity. The company will think global but build local innovative platforms, build world-class talent and team, innovate one-Cisco GTM models and evolve and innovate its partner ecosystem.”

In order to tap the market opportunity Cisco will emphasize on commercial and medium-sized business, focus on service provider market, invest and win customers in emerging countries, aggressively engage with customers to transform them and increasingly work on cloud front.

The event also emphasized on Cisco services and data centre business. BK Suh, VP, Cisco Services, Asia Pacific emphasized on driving growth, profitability and differentiation through Cisco services business. He said, “Today, services business is accounted for 40 percent of the partners business and 60 percent of their profit so there is a need of making this business more aggressive.”

He emphasized on the partners to be active on monitoring consumption, providing tech support, identifying customer business process

problems, selling new apps and users, renewing subscriptions, expanding subscriptions, preventing churn and forecasting consumption revenue.

As per Suh, the business opportunity is around US$30 billion globally and the partners need to work on their relationship with the customers to maximize their chances.

Under services, Cisco has Cisco Services Partner Program (CSPP), which creates Smart Care portfolio, which can be sold as a Cisco brand or the partners can label that as their own brand.

This programme also accommodates special discounts and incentives to the partners.

Cisco Smart Services simplifies contract management, business intelligence and insights, remote monitoring, assessments and repairs, voice assessments and quality monitoring services, disaster recovery and device diagnostics.

Over all it is an opportunity for the partners to create a bond with the customers.

Speaking on CSPP, Proactive Data Systems’ MD & CEO Rajiv Kumar said, “There is an even greater need today for partners to join hands

with Cisco and work together more strategically.

The new Cisco Services Partner Program is very smartly designed, and is a win-win for the partners and Cisco.”

In order to recognize and encourage the channel partners, to sell services aggressively, Cisco also launched its Annual Smart Service Awards at Partner Led, Bangkok and India’s Central Data Systems Pvt Ltd. was one of the recipients among other APJC services champions.

As far as data centre is concerned, Cisco Partner Led witnessed some high volt prediction and action plans. Andre Smit, MD, APJC Data Centre Sales, in his presentation, said, “The rapid range in the market place is driving data centre architecture. Cisco’s Data Centre APJC data centre business is growing at 57 percent and Partner Led is growing at 74 percent. It means the SMB market is embracing cloud faster than the large enterprises. It is estimated that by 2014, 78 percent of enterprises will depend on private cloud. Today, 56 percent of organizations wish to have desktop virtualization.”

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Stanimira Koleva, MD, Partner Business Group, Cisco Systems (APJC), said, “We have been investing in four major areas consistently.

This is really the next step to increasing the investment. We are looking at enabling some of the business models, which will be cloud capability creation and driving demands together with our partners also, the ecosystem building around the ISVs and consultative partners’ influences to make our solutions more relevant in different verticals. Other area we see is the telecom is grabbing the opportunity relating to some of the new business models’ emergence. Also they are using their footprints to reach to the lower end of the market.

So we would like to invest more on our partners to go into partnerships with telecom players and capture the opportunity.”

She added, “Partner Led is the fastest growing opportunity. The feedback from the partners is extremely positive. They see this as very unique opportunity to grow their business and create more profitable streams for themselves and being relevant to their customers. They have asked us specific things: Help us train more our sales people, help us train our solution architects to be more capable in dealing with more technology trends and deliver support properly. That is exactly we are doing. we are scaling the level of training and the level of joint initiative with our partners. Our priority is also investing in skills development in the region. Combined with our partner community, we are doubling our investment towards partners’ enablement.”

Besides, other senior executives also emphasized on the opportunity on borderless network and collaboration. In his presentation, Dinesh Malkani, Managing Director, Collaboration APJC, highlighted on collaboration market transition, Cisco’s collaboration strategy and advantage and enabling partner growth and profitability.

He said, “There is a seismic market change in the collaboration market. The executives are shifting

to mobile devices and BYOD than sticking to traditional computers and notebooks. Cloud based collaboration and video is impacting all businesses. Therefore, Cisco is working on all fronts to enable the partners to tap the opportunity. Cisco’s end-to-end collaboration architecture unites applications and endpoints.”

On this occasion, Cisco Systems has also launched Partner Plus. This is a new global channel program targeting mid-sized customers. Partners who participate in the program will receive increased preference, investment and support in the form of business accelerators such as incremental incentives, engineering support, marketing and demand generation, sales enablement, and customer intelligence. Partner Plus is a key pillar of Cisco’s Partner Led strategy, which is designed to empower and reward channel partners to lead the sale with small and mid-sized customers.

Updating about changes in 2012 Partner Led initiative, Andrew Sage, VP, WW Partner Led, WW Partner Organization, Cisco Systems, said, “We have brought in changes in two categories.

One is go-to-market category and the other one is products and services side, and both are coming together for maximum benefits of the partners. On the go-to-market side, we implemented Partner Plus, which is a rebate programme for the mid-market focussed partners for the quarterly goal. We never had this kind of programme before. It is very motivating programme. We have opened up our virtual engineers to our partners for the first time, which used to be for supporting our internal sales force.

The adoption of that has been highly successful.

It helps them to further fine tune their presales.

We are just in the process of building capability in creating business intelligence around small customers.”

“On the products and solutions side, we will really focus on all the architectures. We will be

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focussed on building products and solutions specifically for the mid-size customers. We have a purpose build portfolio for small business. But we have made sizable investment in building solutions for specific customers as well with a particular number of employees. We have launched ISA500 series integrated security appliances, which combine highly secure internet, wireless, dual wide-area network (WAN), site-to-site, and remote VPN access with unified threat management (UTM) capabilities. There is a product - Business Edition 3000 (BE 3k) getting manufactured in India and focussed on the emerging market. Our Business Edition 6000 (BE 6k) is also the new addition for the mid-market. It is a UC & UCS product. It can be redundant and each application can run on virtual machine.” As per Andrew, Cisco will make Meraki solutions available to APJC customers soon.

From the products perspective, the company has also launched new collaboration products that include the Cisco SPA232D Multi-Line DECT ATA, RV215W Wireless-N VPN Router with 3G/4G, etc. The company has also announced OnPlus family of cloud-based network management services to help simplify the monitoring, management, and maintenance of small and midsize.

Finally…

There were many revelations from the Partner Led event in Bangkok. The biggest revelation was Cisco’s treatment of India as an important region or as they call Theatre and allowing partners from India to address the global congregation. Second, Cisco’s efforts to enable SMBs will continue to grow in coming times. Its sensitiveness to partners’ growth is the highest priority. Last but not the least, shaking hands with Cisco means you can change your organization to be a most modern and responsive outfit as it has happed with the traditional bank like Krungsri, Thailand.

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EDUCATION AND AWARENESS INITIATIVES TOP AGENDA FOR IBM

As partners look for long-term business alliances, learn techniques to transform themselves, expand further into solutions, software, services, and systems IBM says that it’s happy to help them continue to develop their business across the IBM customer set.

BY KARMA NEGI karma@smechannels.com

I

BM has been one of those few companies who saw the future and molded itself accordingly. It evolved with the market and is no longer a product company, rather a solutions and services company. And as customers look for solutions to help solve their business problems, its efforts are to help the partners position complete business and technology solutions, than just products.

Today, business partners contribute to 20 percent of IBM’s revenue. Earlier this year financial incentives were announced to encourage channel partners to sell systems that combine IBM hardware and software products, and for developing and selling solutions targeting such areas as cloud computing, security and business analytics.

IBM made the announcement of providing IBM Business Partners worldwide with $4 billion in financing for credit-qualified clients over a period of 12 months. This financing, through IBM Global Financing, can make obtaining credit easier and more accessible to enable IBM’s global partner ecosystem and their clients to acquire advanced technologies such as cloud, analytics and PureSystems. IBM also launched a new mobile app as another step to simplify the way IBM’s Business Partners can apply for and secure financing for their clients within minutes via any mobile device -- anytime, anywhere.

“This commitment of $4 billion in financing for IBM’s global ecosystem is designed to eliminate

many of the cost barriers that businesses face today. IBM Global Financing will offer simple, flexible lease and loan packages, some starting at as low as 0 percent for 12 months with no money down, allowing these businesses to acquire the technology and services they need from IBM and those developed by IBM Business Partners, while managing their cash flow more effectively,” explains Sundar N Balasubramanian, Country Manager (STG Channels, SI & ISV), IBM India South Asia.

From an overall IBM strategy, its channel ecosystem plays a very important role. One side the organic growth and the other side the acquisitions, on which IBM has been pretty stressful. But the channel ecosystem is the right glue that puts the things together gives the company a peace of mind.

IBM follows the maxim “We can succeed only when our partners are successful”. Hence, IBM provides support to its channel partners in five domains: marketing, selling, technical expertise, training and collaboration. Financing, Sales tools, technical support, migration factory, STG Labs are some key specific offering. It also runs management workshops with partner CEO to develop deeper management skills to grow their organisation.

With around 1,500 partners in India, IBM’s service network spans the length and breadth of the country including Tier II and Tier III cities. It also

has a wide service coverage network with 270 service partner outlets covering 95 locations across India. There are 19 locations that stock parts and are owned by IBM. Today, partners want to learn techniques to transform themselves from being transactional partners to becoming strategic partners. They are looking at long-term business alliances where they can position the products, services and brand in the marketplace. Some of the partners are focused on the mid-market, but want to expand further into solutions, software, services, and systems. Some are looking to gain entry into the mid-market, while others are new not only to the mid-market but also to working with IBM. Balasubramanian says, “Some of our partners have important business in the mid-market and in large customers and we’re happy to help them continue to develop their business across the IBM customer set.”

Over the last two years, IBM has enhanced its focus around three key pillars – Simplicity, Growth and Profitability. Today, it offers partners the most comprehensive portfolio of solutions across hardware, software and services that they can take to market. In addition, it has also significantly upped the investments in partner training and there has been tremendous focus on certification. Balasubramanian says that the education and awareness initiatives will continue to remain a key focus area for them this year and beyond.

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Recently, a new IBM Cloud Computing Specialty in India was announced in support of the growing cloud computing opportunity.

Broadly, IBM has two types of partners. One is the customer facing and other is the fulfillment oriented, non customer focused (distributors).

Within the customer facing partners, there are three types—Consults and Integrators (global or regional), ISV’s (global and regional) and Resellers.

All partners need to join the IBM PartnerWorld program at as member. PartnerWorld, the IBM Global Business Partner program, is designed to deliver valuable benefits to help partners succeed in the marketplace and strengthen their mutual relationship. Business Partners who invest the most in IBM receive higher value benefits and resources. This investment is recognized through three PartnerWorld membership levels - Member, Advanced and Premier.

To help them scale up the levels IBM provides support to its partners by offering benefits and tools in order to strengthen chances of a profitable business. For example, its IBM PartnerWorld program is designed to offer industry specific resources and benefits that are critical to IBMs success in the market. It also offers ‘business partner education opportunities’ by allowing business partners to purchase the IBM Education Pack online account at a discount. It also facilitates mainline purchases and helps in reselling the IBM

“The skills imparted to IBM partners go a long way in making them competent and also helping them develop broader expertise across a vast range of our products, solutions and services.”

SUNDAR N BALASUBRAMANIAN, COUNTRY MANAGER (STG CHANNELS, SI & ISV), IBM INDIA SOUTH ASIA. Education Pack in bulk. And its training program pack helps partners position Mainline as a onestop shop by providing customers with a total solution.

In order to strengthen its bond with the partner community IBM has various programs like its new enablement framework, through which

partners can scale up their skills under Boot Camp, Fighter Pilot and Top Gun levels. Then there is the Reseller Growth Fund for the top resellers to support them on demand generation activities in their respective locations and among their existing customers. In January 2011, IBM introduced a partner program called “Blue Thunder” designed to recognize customer-facing Business Partners who identify and pursue sales to new customers or new workloads in existing IBM clients.

IBM’s Channel Yatra is a new initiative to strengthen its engagement with partners. It highlights the solutions-centric approach to enable partners deliver greater value to their clients.

Channel Yatra has been rolled out in eight cities covering over 70 key Business Partner CEOs. One of the needs that IBM has to fulfill is enhancing partner skills in positioning and selling higher value. Towards this IBM has launched a first of a kind program ( IBM Grand Master Series) to build sales skills that complement deep technical and product capabilities, The first program in this series was designed in association with Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore for conducting a 2.5 day residential workshop for 70 top partners from geo cities. The workshop was conducted in May, 2012.

IBM rates providing access to training and certification programs as one of the biggest differentiating factors from competitors. “Secondly, dealing with IBM and selling IBM products which are superior to other products in market, is a challenge in itself. The skills imparted to IBM partners go a long way in making them competent and also helping them develop broader expertise across a vast range of our products, solutions and services,” he says.

IBM has also invested in resources to support partners across the country. Its ‘partner relationship managers’ work with the partners on a daily basis through face to face relationship. The ‘partner sales support center facility’ helps partners in terms of leads, lead progression, closure, pricing and other assistance that the partner would need to close a deal. (accessed through toll free line).

And ‘techline’ helps partner in technical queries on the products, pre-sales and post-sales, and to help them address complex customer issues.

(Based in Bangalore and accessible to partners through toll free line) Finally…

To succeed in a highly competitive market, IBM is putting together a deep portfolio of products and expertise and has already announced an expanded set of incentives for business partners offering IBM-based cloud and analytics services.

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DEVASIA KURIAN MANAGING DIRECTOR, MYOPENSOURCESTORE

“USE OF OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE CAN HELP SMES“ Today, the pain point of the SMEs is investment. Open Source software definitely helps minimize expenses and organizations can make significant savings on licensing fees and maintenance fees. SME Channels spoke to Devasia Kurian, Managing Director, myOpenSourceStore to know the utility. Excerpts

What is the role of Open Source technology in the industry today when the things are open standard and affordable?

Open Source is a phenomenon of accessibility and availability that has the potential for modifying/customizing based on contribution from developers and utilizing the same depending upon the requirements. The Open Source technology is aimed at solving specific problems that businesses are encountering, fosters interoperability and spurs innovations and competition that benefits consumers. There is no barrier to entry and this is an attempt to become free from proprietary technology. Open source systems are less expensive than proprietary systems and easier to maintain over the long run than their proprietary counterparts.

With Open Source systems, licensing is a nonissue. Many proprietary system vendors cease supporting older versions of their products and business owners have to upgrade necessarily, which is expensive.

Where can one find the right Open Source software?

There are numerous businesses/individuals offering Open Source and since there is an abundance of resources at user’s disposal and limited understanding of open source model, the enterprises find it difficult to make the right choice. To address the issue of availability and transform and to accelerate the use of Open Source software, myOpenSourceStore offers an integrated platform for top rated open source solutions in a wide range of categories, based on their usage, popularity and capability. The expert team clearly identifies, filters and categorizes these into numerous categories (new categories are added constantly) suited to the specific needs of each user.

Whether Indian enterprises are open to adopt Open Source software?

Enterprises in India have started accepting the advantages of Open Source platforms and

encouraging collaboration. Open standards is a key facilitator for customisation and innovation and the Indian developer community is creating Open Source software for a wide range of applications development. With the increasing adoption of business applications by the Indian small and medium businesses (SMEs) and cost being a key constraint in the adoption of applications development tools, Open Source solution offers an interesting alternative.

The biggest problem that the Open Source software industry is facing in terms of adoption. What needs to be done?

As we see, even though Open Source comes with cost and scalability advantages, the adoption is low. Awareness and support are key issues which have to be tackled. It is easy to download software for free, but that requires support in terms of seamless installation, customization & implementation. Addressing these requirements, myOpenSourceStore provides support to enterprises right

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nies have to work towards creating an end-to-end solution comprising of product selection and support for installation and maintenance. It is important to know how the Open Source Software will be used within the business environment in terms of professional implementation and has to be seen with clear focus.

“WITH OPEN SOURCE SYSTEMS, LICENSING IS A NON-ISSUE. MANY PROPRIETARY SYSTEM VENDORS CEASE SUPPORTING OLDER VERSIONS OF THEIR PRODUCTS AND BUSINESS OWNERS HAVE TO UPGRADE NECESSARILY, WHICH IS EXPENSIVE.� from product selection, installation configuration and maintenance in one platform, thereby accelerating the adoption of Open Source technology.

What are the current trends in terms of verticals/industry segments adopting Open Source?

There is a wide spread acceptance of Open Source today. Organisations and even the public sector/ government bodies are giving a strong push in development, support and promotion of Open Source software to make IT accessible and affordable to all industry verticals and businesses.

The basic software to start with is the operating system itself. A good Linux desktop is as good as windows operating system. Usage of Linux on desktops can save lakhs of rupees for many organisations. For telephony, we have Asterisk, which can support IP PBX in any large organisation or call centre. vtiger is another CRM, which is very powerful and suffice for all enterprise needs. Further ERP requirement can be completely fulfilled by Open ERP. Mozilla browser,

Joomla, Zencart etc. are examples for further open source products.

What about availability of resources in terms of technical support?

To make the installation experience pleasant and seamless, we are backed by a strong Open Source expert community, comprising of Open Source committers located around the globe. On customers demand, the expert team helps in customizing the software to suit the requirements, provides best-practice advice and hands-on assistance with a wide range of technical help to optimize open source software installations and to resolve queries and trouble-shoot issues.

What measures can be taken to drive adoption of Open Source?

To drive the adoption of Open Source, first, the Open Source adoption has to be a part of organizations and CIOs IT strategy and secondly, one has to select the right set of resources. The compa-

Who are responsible for driving the Open Source technology in the market?

Our idea is to establish an environment where organizations move to Open Source not just for cost but for independence and freedom. We continue to broaden its presence and create an environment as Open Source becomes a key element in quality landscape beyond the developer level. Limited budgets and economic conditions are compelling enough to focus on cost reduction and fuel the use and deployment of Open-Source software.

Who will benefit from Open Source technology?

Today, the Open Source technology has evolved a great deal. We see that customers have varied needs and it is difficult to be met either by a single vendor or addressed by a single software. The other aspects are: license and legal aspects, maintenance and up-gradation, customization, and total cost of ownership. Therefore, it clearly amounts to assessing various aspects of cost and productivity. There is growing maturity of the OSS ecosystem and it means that it is now evolved in the enterprise environment, running mission-critical applications. SMEs will be able to use Open Source tools in a powerful and made-to-suit order to propel their businesses. We believe there is a need for companies to collaborate with competitors too since interoperability is vital for the end user to move seamlessly between different technology platforms.

How will SMEs leverage Open Source?

We see a bullish consumption trend among the SMEs in the adoption of Open Source.

Using Open Source software can definitely help minimize expenses and organizations can make significant savings on licensing fees and maintenance fees. SMEs are making significant investments in CRM, customer service and support, open source telephony solution (Asterisk) and business intelligence. Open, transparent and collaborative process that are freely available and implementable within their business model favour SMEs.

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LOKVIR KAPOOR, CEO, PINE LABS

“THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE IS TO CHANGE THE MINDSET AND INTRODUCE TO NEXT-GEN SOLUTIONS” Pine Labs is a leading provider of payment, loyalty, promotion and retail automation systems in India. Moreover, it is a one-stop-shop for payment solutions which revolutionizes the way diverse payment options are accepted at the merchant point of sale. SME channels spoke to Lokvir Kapoor, CEO, Pine Labs, to know about the market opportunity. Excerpts.

What is the current market scenario of payment solutions industry in India?

The Indian retail industry is pegged at US$ 500 billion and is expected to reach US$ 1.3 trillion by 2020. In addition, the organized retail is expected to reach 25% by 2020. A booming retail market with annual transactions worth more than Rs. 2,000,000 crore and growing middle-class with over 300 million people and their increasing disposable income has led the retail market to grow exponentially and in turn the demand for payment solutions. The advent of new retail growth and growing customer awareness allow the payment industry to utilize new technologies to become more dynamic, efficient, and cost-effective. The payment industry is rapidly reaching a point where competition will center on innovations in technology.

and settlement system and solutions. But the trend is changing fast now.

What are the market potential & growth prospects for payment solutions providers in India?

Growing population, rising incomes, urbanization, the advent of modern retail and a consumption-driven society witness tremendous opportunity for growth for the payment technologies industry. The payments industry is continuously seeing rapid growth and technological advancements as the market demands are increasing.

Who are Pine Labs’ target customers?

Pine Labs solutions are wide ranging from payments to loyalty to promotions to petroleum. So the target customers of Pine Labs’ are modern retailer, small or medium retailer, manufacturers, malls, insurance companies, oil retailers, taxi services, quick service restaurant, online retailers’ etc.

What are the challenges faced by payment solutions providers in current market scenario?

Traditionally, in the retail segment in India, the focus on technology investments is low. So the biggest challenge we face is to change the mindset and introduce them to next generation payment

Which sectors are aggressively adopting payment technologies and the rationale behind this trend?

Retailers, both big and SME, are the biggest adopters of payment technologies. Reduced cost of transaction processing, reduced cost of training of cashier, opportunity to offer gift cards or offer

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“ALL OUR SOLUTIONS CAN BE TAILORED AS PER THE CLIENT’S REQUIREMENT. WE HAVE CREATED STATE OF ART SOLUTION WHICH CATERS TO CLIENT’S UNIQUE REQUIREMENT.”

loyalty programs or offer EMI facilities without incremental cost in infrastructure are the edge an innovative payment solutions like Pine Labs Plutus facilitate for the retailers. Hence retailers are adapting payment technologies like PLUTUS to gain competitive advantage through the enhancement of customer service.

How does it benefit merchants, retailers and end consumers?

A POS system like PLUTUS gives retailers and merchants benefits such as reduced costs by primary use of free internet for transaction routing, streamlined cashier operations with a single EDC for all payment types (credit/debit/ gift card/loyalty card/mobile currency) and all banks, safeguards against human error and increases transaction speed as a cashier only swipes card, no data entry is required, increased

redundancy to ensure successful transaction with multiple links to bank servers, increased control at HO, ability to offer value added services like EMI, loyalty etc, Automatic reconciliation and rich insights into customers’ card preferences.

End-customers enjoy a better customer service with faster, seamless and safe mode of payment.

Today, POS solutions like PLUTUS can facilitate a customer with an EMI facility which requires no down payment, no processing fee, no pre-closure charges, no paperwork making this an effective option for those facing a cash inadequacy. It’s a win-win situation for a customer.

What are Pine Lab’s products offering?

Pine Labs is a leading provider of payment, loyalty, promotion and retail automation systems in

India. Pine Labs is a one-stop-shop for payment solutions which revolutionize the way diverse payment options (credit/debit card, EMI, cash or card at customer’s doorstep, gift card etc.) are accepted at the merchant point-of-sale. We offer service that includes integration with the Merchant PoS, network set-up, authorization and settlements, field service and management of pinpad or EDC terminal.

To retain and engage existing customers Pine Labs offers, end-to-end managed loyalty programs, leveraging from its local and international experience to having built and managed some of the largest and most effective loyalty programs in the country and abroad.

Pine Labs innovative promotion facilitates direct and effective medium to run focused promotion campaigns directly reaching targeted customer. Pine Labs retail petroleum solution IRIS helps oil companies exercise full control over operations at the retail outlet. The solution, that has ready interfaces for all the leading dispensers, tank gauging system, OPT’s and other forecourt equipment is running successfully at over 2,500 sites in India and handles millions of transactions every day. Unlike most other systems, IRIS goes beyond back-office automation function and offers loyalty, gift card and customer promotion features that improve the return on investment significantly.

Can it be tailor made to suit the requirement of clients?

Yes, all our solutions can be tailored as per the client’s requirement. We have created state art solution which caters to client’s unique requirement. For example, a client who needs a solutions for its book fair management. A GPRS POS was integrated with a billing server. A client requiring a loyalty solution is given a solution after mapping its customers and other influencing factors. Our solutions are dynamic flexible and robust.

What is Pine Labs’ marketing strategy?

Pine Labs has an extensive and enviable list of loyal customers ranging from India’s leading grocers, departmental stores, insurance companies, telco’s, taxi services, gas stations and unmanned kiosks. Our innovative solutions speak for themselves.

What is Pine Labs’ current turnover and growth prospects for this fiscal year?

We have seen a growth rate of almost 100 percent in the last six months and are confident to grow on this rate in the coming fiscal year.

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TECH CORNER

SAYED NAVED SHAFI, VICE PRESIDENT - SME & CHANNEL BUSINESS, AGC NETWORKS

TOP FIVE 2013 TRENDS FOR IT SMART SMES SMEs today are considered to be the drivers of business and contributors to the GDP of the country. Therefore, pattern of investment in technology is really interesting to watch.

T

he Small and Medium enterprises (SMEs) which were once considered the back benchers of the economy have today become significant contributors to the GDP of respective economies. In a dynamic economy like India, the SME sector’s growth and its contribution to the economy is significant. It is interesting to see that the adoption of the IT solutions amongst the SMEs has been faster than anticipated. While the reasons for this rapid adoption can be many, one of the major reasons is the consistent growth in numerous sectors which has led to increased complexity of business operations for the SME players.

This has opened the minds of the SME players to adopt innovative and cost-effective technological solutions to handle this increased complexity in business operations. SME firms need technology solutions which can optimally utilize the existing resources to increase the efficiency of their operations and the productivity of their employees.

In 2012, the SMEs witnessed acceleration in technology adoption. The technology adoption amongst SMEs cuts across all the verticals; be it healthcare, manufacturing, hospitality or retail as the needs are the same i.e. maximum productivity with minimum resources.

THE CHALLENGES WITH TECHNOLOGY ADOPTION While it is established that technology adoption is an indispensable part of SMEs investment wish

list, there are a plethora of options available for the SME’s to leverage at a convincing cost. However, the roadblock lies in making the SMEs aware about the various innovative solutions which can ease out their operational and functional difficulties. With limited capital and a need to realize returns quicker than larger organizations, SMEs need to be convinced about taking the giant leap of faith into technology adoption. It is the responsibility of technology solution providers to create and promote solutions which help enterprises operate efficiently & effectively and are ‘plug and play’. Most of these SMEs are mostly owner driven. Making them aware of technology & its benefits is doable but convincing them to adopt over their existing system is challenging as at times this adoption can disrupt their way of operating, momentarily though.

Secondly, these SMEs are scattered over a larger geography as compared to the large enterprises which are mostly located in major metro cities.

So building a strong channel network across the country becomes imperative in order to stay close to the target customers.

FUNNELING OPPORTUNITIES FROM THE CHALLENGES Though the challenges faced by the technology providers make an increase in the adoption of ICT look difficult; yet we have observed certain traits which dominated the ICT-SME space in 2012. One of the major trends observed amongst

the OEMs providing solutions to the SMEs is the customization of SME. We have observed that the players today customize large part of their solution offerings in accordance to the SMEs and also their IT budget to make it more affordable and cost effective. This has been one of the innovations that 2012 has witnessed for the SMEs. TRENDING IN 2013 After analyzing the adoption trend in 2012 and various need of the players of the SME business, we believe the following will be the key trends in2013: CLOUD COMPUTING AND ADOPTION OF SAAS BASED APPLICATIONS: Cloud based services, especially the Software as a Service (SaaS) model, are really a godsend for the SMB/SME sector. The firm can utilize plethora of cloud based services such as email, messaging, online storage, CRM, and other collaborative solutions. These SaaS based cost effective solutions would help immensely to improve the overall efficiency of the business operations. As cloud collaboration applications become more powerful and less expensive both private and public cloud based services adoption will gain significant momentum in the SMB sector in the coming years. While storage and CRM applications on public cloud will have significant adoption the analytics and other specific and customized applications developed solely for that firm will see more adoption in the private cloud.

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2013

SMARTPHONE BASED MOBILE APPLICATIONS In a connected world of today, smartphone communication is not an option but has emerged as a standard business tool. The software options and applications available on these devices are large in number and increase productivity for businesses.

There are plenty of applications that are appropriate and useful for SMEs and the mobile handset vendors as well as the mobile communication service providers have substantively started capitalizing on this particular need of this untapped market of SMEs. INCREASING ADOPTION OF UNIFIED COMMUNICATION With the rapid growth in the SME market, many UC solution providers are developing feature rich and low cost UC platforms specifically for this segment. Many of these systems work in conjunction with Voice over the Internet Protocol (VoIP) and allows one to use a telephone, PC or smartphone to access the UC features.

Integrating your communication tools through a UC platform is becoming critical for SMB/ SME players. For example, with the help of a UC solution you would be able to greet the custom-

ers in a more personalized manner as and when they call you because you can see their profile on your computer screen automatically. The UC solution would also share the details about your last interaction with the customer (order, returns, complaints, etc.) which is an important reference point for your interaction.

Overall, in the SMB/SME sector, UC would soon become a key factor in enabling real-time connectivity thereby enhancing employee productivity, increasing collaboration and reducing IT operational costs.

EXPANSION OF VIDEO CONFERENCING SOLUTIONS: Although, video conferencing (VC) is a part of UC, VC adoption would expand much faster in the SMB segment to gain immediate benefits that VC solution provides. Although some of the VC solutions are still too expensive for many SMEs, there are VC players to consider who offer a lot cheaper but feature rich VC solutions. For any SME player, it is always beneficial to connect with customers, prospects, vendors or employees “face to face” via VC than through simply email, telephone or instant messaging. Thus the VC adoption in this space

is bound to accelerate.

CUSTOMIZED BUSINESS APPLICATIONS Apart from the infrastructural and communication technologies, there would be an increased focus from the SMB/SME players to develop customized business applications to enhance customer service and achieve operational excellence. For example, today educational institutes are planning to develop an integrated school/college/university management system consisting of plethora of applications such as distance learning through virtual classrooms, biometric attendance systems, student assessment and tracking system, library management system etc. for achieving seamless coordination between its key stakeholders who might be spread out geographically.

Finally…

SMB/SME sector is fast coming out of the “conservative” mindset when it comes to technology and IT adoption. The judicious adoption and end-to-end implementation of these collaborative solutions would greatly help the SMB players to achieve the next level of operational excellence.

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TIME FOR THE SERVICE PROVIDERS TO PLAY A BIGGER ROLE With the growth in competitiveness in the business, the scale of using applications is increasing beyond one’s imagination. As the integration of applications and processes exceeds the budget of the customers, there is a strong possibility of outsourcing to large players.

BY SANJIB MOHAPATRA info@smechannels.com

W

hen the success of today’s business is completely relying on the effective and efficient utilization of ICT technology, the management of technology processes is becoming an extreme pain point for all business houses. Most of the organizations are trying to enable the employees to reach out to their customers and manage business remotely from any device so that the predictability becomes higher and brings in huge competitive advantage for them. Towards this, technologies like virtualization, cloud computing, hosted services, enterprise mobility, BYOD, etc. are playing a major role. But in this changing environment, traditional business houses–be it small or large- are becoming hard pressed in terms of investing in new age business process, manpower and technology. The earlier role of SI and channel partners is undergoing a drastic change. The role of CIOs and CTOs is becoming different. Their talk across the table with the technology providers is becoming different. The management is not expecting the CIO or CTO to decide on which technology is best for the organization rather the expectation is on deciding the technology which can enable the business and bag more customers. So, the discussion around the table is boiling down on enabling the employees and offering customers easy access to their offering and synchronizing intelligently with the suppliers and business associates.

In order to achieve the desired capability, the situation demands high-end technology infrastructure, which incurs upfront huge cost. Even though the technology vendors are transforming themselves to offer solutions but again they are not quite ready to put up infrastructure – of course they are not supposed to do that or the industry does not work like that. So the vendors are enabling their partners to address the requirement of the customers. But since the requirement of the customers is really huge and evolving in nature they are also finding it difficult to manage the situation. Hence the large service providers are sniffing at the opportunity. More for the reason that, their core business of telecom and mobile solutions for the consumers or for the enterprises, is becoming a low margin game. They have already invested in data centres and they have existing fixed and mobile infrastructure. Anyways ,they are present in the enterprises through their basic service and earned trust from the customers.

With this backdrop, Bharti Airtel, the leading telecom carrier in India, rebranded its portfolio. eight to ten months back. This enables the company to service enterprises of all size around all their requirements including basic telephony to networks to IT infrastructure, applications and management of all infrastructure and processes.

There are two persons basically driving the emerging business of the company within the core leadership - of course with a sizable force of technical, sales and marketing professionals to

support them. These two are Drew Kelton and K Srinivas. While the former is responsible for the creation of entire suite of capability across entire business along with direct business strategy as President - Enterprise Services at Bharti Airtel Ltd., the latter is responsible for the entire indirect go to market strategy as President - Consumer Business at Bharti Airtel Ltd. Bharti Airtel already has well over 188.8m mobile customers and an extensive regional fibre network with 2,200 nodes spanning over 110,000kms. The company has developed a capacity on undersea cables including AAG, i2i, Unity, Hibernia and EASSy in Africa. It offers a range of wholesale MPLS, Ethernet, IP and private leased circuit services with POPs in London, New York, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Sydney, Japan, Paris, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, etc.

And recently, Bharti Airtel has become the first company to have launched LTE TDD-based 4G services in Bengaluru and Kolkata.

Given this backdrop of strong technology capabilities, when there is an opportunity, the leading service provider - Bharti Airtel - finds it a favourable condition to scale up as a value based solution provider.

Drew Kelton, President - Enterprise Services, Bharati Airtel Ltd., says, “We have created a suite of capabilities with products and services which are replicable. We use the go-to-market strategy which is different. We have direct and indirect go -to-market strategy.”

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“I need to know what exactly my customers are doing. Therefore, the biggest role for me is to get under the DNA of what is driving my customers’ business.”

DREW KELTON, PRESIDENT - ENTERPRISE SERVICES, BHARTI AIRTEL LTD. There is a very strong reason for that. One of the greatest capabilities in Bharti Airtel’s growth lies in its deep distribution throughout the country.

So there is no sense to replicate the distribution which is already in place among the mobile community and high-mass consumer community. So what the company is doing is building capability around distribution services around SME and SMB community. On the other side it is servicing 2000 direct enterprise customers in India plus 500 international operators and carriers.

In any organization, one runs a balanced portfolio of maximizing any asset investment they make. So they think of how to invest in infrastructure whether it is undersea cable systems, network mobility or capital assets. And after that they look at supplementary capabilities, to build a proposition around business customers. The challenge with today’s business customers is that they are becoming more demanding. They are looking for much more capability.

Says Kelton, “I want to take some of our offerings and wrap that as service. The business customers traditionally remain on annuity relationship. The customer experience is around longer term engagement. It is around a suite of services that can be extended and we call that as cross sale, up sale and product penetration. It is also around customer services – somehow differentiated. The way I make offer and make the analogy is if you think of FMCG company, they are very strong in their product portfolio in a market place where they meet customers. But my job is just the other way around. I actually need to be narrower in offering but very deep in my capability in services. I need to know what exactly my customers are doing. Therefore, the biggest role for me is to get under the DNA of what is driving my customers’ business.”

“We say that we are not in the B2B business or B2C business, rather in B2B2C business. So I need to know what my B is doing to his C. So if I am talking to a bank then I need to understand

what my bank is doing for his customers. And, that is the difference between a volume matrix - mass market distribution,” he adds.

The other thing is: if you look at the more developed market, in terms of market maturity, the B2B market is de-risking of mass market commoditization because it is much harder to determine that the base infrastructure asset has become commoditized when your whole relationship is around business process.

Kelton adds, “We have to elevate from our basic voice services to a whole lot of services – be it managed services, etc. to avoid that mass market commoditization. So it is about getting maximum returns on the assets that we have been invested on. The reason being any operator in the B2B space traditionally has a box and manage everything himself. Usually in the top end of the customers there is a significant investment into technology and resources to manage that. But we are seeing a transition in the captive IT capability.

It might move towards more hosted managed capability.”

Five years ago one could not convenience the CIO to embrace iPhones and Androids as business tools because you need to manage, control, offer security etc. Unfortunately, the plethora of devices and infiltration of club 18-25 or the new generation of CIOs you cannot stop them from embracing these devices now. So, the whole lot of BOYD policy is coming in now. This brings the issue of security and managing capability as to how do you measure and how do you bifurcate between public and private data, corporate data.

So what it leads to is the transition of a telecom service provider from the physical L1 or L2 infrastructure towards the services integration.

There are of course competition areas with the traditional players but there are high chances of complementary areas.

Today, Airtel is providing hosted solutions which is an interesting race but comes with lot of challenges. Kelton believes that there is a massive opportunity in hosted cloud and virtualization area. What he does not see is the total replication of the current IT spends on future IT spends because the two are converging. The active IT spends will move towards the hosted virtualized environment. The CIOs of today are thinking in terms of how do they address the needs of business tomorrow because they have got a plethora of new potential customers coming in, which do not want to hear about inbuilt, home developed ERP applications. The applications are not flexible and do not have much security and do not go by the compliances. In this situation, Kelton believes that there will be migration to hosted things. The

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telecom service provider moving up the chain is very strong possibility because their capability is going to be a strong enabler. On the other hand, he also believes that they are not going to play the role of top end SIs. So in in nutshell, apart from its basic services, Bharti Aritel is going to offer network integration professional services, including supplementary technology, integration of managed services etc.

Secondly, if the customers wish to put their own technologies including servers, storage, to Airtel data centres - that is also possible. But actually in ideal conditions they wish to move up to the next stage where the company will provide its customers the bill of material of the type of storage and processing they might look for and the company will use its hosted infrastructure services and provide them access. Here the customers can get sufficient scale of technologies and processes.

This will help the customers to manage their requirement dynamically. For example, at the end of the month, the inventory management, or the billing cycle management will have massive spikes. Then one needs to have that size of processer. Here Airtel can help the customers with the required support.

Airtel is already offering some of the Microsoft and Ramco solutions to the SME/SMB customers. They have also started some applications offering for the enterprise customers in the mobility space. In the mobility space, for example, Airtel can manage fleets and sales force inventory management. The company pushes out smart apps to standard devices that allow the remote sales force to enter orders or things of similar kind.

K SRINIVAS,

Finally…

What are the solutions you can provide?

Of course these services are at a nascent stage for Airtel but surely will see further growth. It is not about the percentage of growth but about attacking the market which is traditionally not available to Airtel. Kelton reiterates that Airtel will not compete with SIs rather they will steal a component of that business, which was not to be available to Airtel a few years ago. And, the company hopes to see a double digit growth in its business on blended basis over next several years. As per Kelton, the result is extremely encouraging, which has been pushing the company to continuously evolve the applications.

PRESIDENT, CONSUMER BUSINESS, BHARTI AIRTEL LTD What products do you offer to the customers?

At the very basic level we offer voice products to the customers – be it fixed line voice, PRI, PBX or mobile. Secondly, we are providing data connectivity though internet lease ports or MPLS, VSAT connectivity, and data centres services. Increasingly, as we move forward, people are adopting managed services – be it cloud services or hosted services.

The issue is that many of the medium business do not necessarily have the infrastructure with which to manage their infrastructure. Even if they manage, it would be too expensive. If we can actually provide connectivity and also software in the cloud – virtually be a CIO in the cloud for the SMB/SMEs, it would provide a big business opportunity for us and is also a huge value proposition to the customers. So we have launched our cloud initiative with Microsoft Office 365 and earlier with Ramco around HRMS space. So in a nutshell, we are offering basic voice connectivity, all kinds of data services, managed services and IT applications for the SME customers.

What is your go-to-market approach? Do you provide application or infrastructure?

We are very much uniquely positioned vis-à-vis our competitions. At one side we have got networks ranging from 2G, 3G, 4G, fixed line, DSL, long distance connectivity, sub-marine cables on the other side we have a host of data services and hosted management services. So the combination of all these help us to uniquely place them into bundling. We are definitely not the experts in building IT products but with partnership with companies like Microsoft and Ramco, we can really take comprehensive solutions to our customers. The unique advantages that we offer apart from end-to-end connectivity are our massive distribution reach. Today, we will leverage our distribution reach in a manner by which we will be able to reach out to every small and medium customers in the country.

It makes sense to the customers as some time back I was in Surat with a small businessmen, who is into exports. He has a huge amount of data connectivity. He has a data centre. If he needs to hire a CIO or buy complex solutions or software applications, he needs to buy from various companies. So he needs to deal with five different players. But if you could deal with one person who can take end-to-end responsibility, would be the best thing. As a total proposal, it is not just simplicity and convenience but also it is about providing end-to-end value to the customers. Therefore, it makes tremendous sense to come to us.

We just started few months back. We have got Ramco for HRMS and CRM applications.

Through Microsoft we are offering Office 365. Our intent is to keep identifying and strengthening our application portfolio. We are also offering a lot of mobile applications for the SMEs. For example, we offer vehicle tracking systems. There are systems which enable the companies to monitor various services available today. This is a never ending space. You need to continuously keep listening to the customers, talking to them, identifying as to what are the areas they value. So we have gone to various partners to build those applications.

We do have data centre solution. So if an SME wants to hire a particular data space, leave it to us to manage the entire storage and connectivity. So we can be a CIO on cloud and can also provide infrastructure.

What are the cost benefits that the customers would get?

At the end of the day it is the comprehensive bundle of connectivity, managed services, applications. All these things are put together in a package. So the big deal at the end of the day is providing the bigger value to the customer what he cannot get through individual pieces.

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COMMSCOPE

CAPACITY AND CAPABILITY WILL BE THE WINNING MANTRA Channels market is becoming increasingly important for most of the companies as far as India is concerned. Even those who were in to direct sales model found channel more relevant. Going on these lines, CommScope recently appointed a new channel sales director for India and SAARC to lead its ongoing efforts in developing a high quality partner community.

BY KARMA NEGI karma@smechannels.com

P

rovider of infrastructure solutions for communication networks CommScope, rates the channel partner community in India and SAARC as vibrant and growing at a rapid pace. It says the markets which are dear to it or where performance or technology leadership is appreciated is the top end of the market where the global customers, the multinational organisations, the early adopters of technology are present.

The multinational communications infrastructure company proudly states that when it comes to cabling it is a technology leader, and is always the first to come out with trends which later became standards. “If you look at CommScope’s history we have pioneered or rather wrote the book on structured cabling,” states the channels sales director for India and SAARC Alamuri Sitaramaiah.

Talking about his new role he reveals, “I have responsibility for five primary partnerships: distributors, SI’s (system integrators), installers, alliances and consultants. Each is a strategic lever that I need to play and to leverage to help deliver on the CommScope’s revenue objectives for India.”

“At present we have a lot of traction going on currently with system installers and the distributors.

So, my initial focus will be on streamlining these operations and increasing the covering of these operations i.e. installer operations from a geographic and vertical perspective. And as we

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ALAMURI SITARAMAIAH, DIRECTOR (CHANNEL SALES), INDIA AND SAARC, COMMSCOPE

move along during the course of our next year I will start focusing on alliances, consultancy and SIs.” Sitaramaiah segments India’s structured cabling market into three parts: the high–end market (approx 80-100 million dollars), mid-market ($ 100 million), and $50 million is the lower end market. And, CommScope plays at the high-end and mid-market segment and will be focusing most of the time. He adds, “We will be strengthening our partnership across verticals and geographies, and cover the market from this tiers i.e. the high-end and the mid-market.”

Calling India market as very vibrant market 32

TREND SETTER

despite it being fragmented, Sitaramaiah says that Indian trends also follow global trends very closely. There are early adopters from Indian continent too.

The structured cabling, he says, is more from a future proofing perspective that often customers invest in upcoming trends so as to ensure that their infrastructures are able to carry the new technologies. “In India there is infrastructure to deploy all these technologies. If you see 40G/100G is more in the core of the network. When we talk about the core of networks there are data centers.

This is where the earlier adoption of 40G/100G network will come in along with switching fabrics, and that’s where we will find more use for this kind of infrastructure.”

When it comes to technology adoption he feels it’s a mixed bag. Some people invest in the infrastructure more from a discretionary perspective rather than a well thought out strategy, while the early adopters invested in high-end technologies than the emerging trends and some others take enough thought to that but also balance it well from a cost of ownership perspective. “Increasing deployments of cat 6A cabling systems are happening, especially in the data centers and the intrabuilding network cable in homes where more of 10G migration is coming in on fiber as well as on copper. This is where the trends are headed.

On the data center side we see a lot of migration towards cat6A and OEM 4.5 version.”

On copper vs. fiber Sitaramaiah says the former is here to stay for some while not because copper is cheap and fiber is expensive but probably the cost of deployment of the end devices that’s fitted at the end of the cable is terribly expensive when it comes to fiber. “When it comes to the core of the network or the backbone of the network I see the incidence of copper coming down and eventually it’s going to be more and more of fiber. The core will remain fiber, but the access network will still be predominantly copper.”

With the advent of new technologies like virtualization, cloud computing and big data CommScope too sees itself evolving with these new Technologies.

Finally CommScope’s channel roadmap will primarily focus on capacity of the channels, to execute deals not from a financial perspective alone but also from an installation quality perspective and the capability to execute such deals. “Capacity and capability will be the winning mantra for us to ensure that we have the right channels with us who can not only propose a solution and defend a solution but also deliver a solution as well,” Sitaramaiah concludes.

PRODUCT

REVIEW

ECS A970MA DELUX MOTHERBOARD

TREND MICRO TITANIUM MAXIMUM SECURITY 6.0 VERSION

BY MANAS RANJAN / SATYA SAGAR SINHA info@smechannels.com

TREND MICRO Titanium Maximum Security 6.0 - the most advanced version, which revolutionizes in ensuring maximum security, delivered with optimal performance all-in-one, easy-to-use protection for everything users and their family do online - email, socialize, bank, browse, shop, and more. It provides users with a friendly interface, simple screens, and clear reports.

It encompasses revolutionary features viz. 5GB online storage, mobile device protection for tablets and smartphones, secure document vault, password management, parental control, Titanium is now available for all platforms Android, iOS and is also Windows 8 compatible. All existing previous version users with valid license period can upgrade for free from the official Trend Micro website to the 6.0 version. The Titanium 6.0 assists users in effective social networking protection, mobile device protection, online storage and parental control.

The new upgradation has made strong antivirus protection easy. From the Titanium main console screen, users can easily run antivirus scans, get up-to-the-minute status reports on computer’s security, and use short cuts to features like the Facebook privacy scanner. They can also view the status of protection, including details about the software, online help, and account information.

Titanium Maximum Security protects your data in 5 ways 5 GB Trend Micro SafeSync for secure online storage, Trend Micro DirectPass for password management, Trend Micro Vault to keep confidential files safe, Secure Erase File Shredder to make files permanently unreadable and Data Theft Prevention to prevent hackers from stealing sensitive data.

FEATURES n Online Storage (5 GB) n Trend Micro Vault n Parental Controls n Data Theft Prevention n Web Threat Protection n Social Networking Protection n Detailed Security Reports n Facebook Privacy Scanner n Secure Erase n System Tuner n Personalize Your Titanium

PRICE Titanium 2012 1 Year 1 User is Rs. 1,599/- & Titanium 2012 1 Year 3 Users is Rs.2,499/-

CONTACT Sanjay Kathuria, Neoteric Infomatique, #21/A, Film Center, #68 Tardeo Road, Mumbai-400 034 , Tel: 40859600

OVERALL RATING

ECS’S HIGH-PERFORMANCE Black Series of PC motherboards - ECS A970M-A Delux is ideal for gamers and has very strong PC performance. With AMD AM3 and AM3+ APUs on the core, this board incorporates full Windows 8 support, upgraded user-friendly BIOS, anti-dust shield technology (ADS) and 8-channel HD Audio.

The Anti-Dust Shield (ADS) technology which prevents dust build-up on the motherboard is a very good feature for a country like India. The dust that builds-up on motherboard components is a cause for poor performance.

Further, the ATX format motherboard features 2 PCIe Gen2 x16 slots for high-speed graphics card upgrades and CrossFireX support, as well as 2 PCIe Gen2 x1 slots and 2 PCI slots for other cards. Up to 32 GB of dual channel DDR3 memory can be installed in 4 DIMMs, with a maximum standard speed of 1866 MHz, or up to 2133 MHz for overclockers.

There are 5 SATA 6 Gb/s connectors for high speed disk drives and other storage devices.

From expansion and connectivity perspective the board offers 2 USB 3.0 ports, 8 USB 2.0 ports, Gigabit LAN, and a eSATA 6Gb/s connector for high-capacity portable storage.

There are also 3 internal USB 2.0 headers which can support an additional 6 USB 2.0 ports if required. If that is not all, the motherboard can be used as a charging station for your phone and other devices. n Price: Rs. 6, 175 Warranty: 3 Years Contact: Allyson Wang, Channel Business Unit, Elitegroup Computer Systems Phone: +886-2-2162-1177 ext.26254 Email: karen. chen@ecs.com.tw

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NEW ARRIVALS

PRODUCT

TRANSCEND

TRANSCEND ULTRAFAST ESD200 USB 3.0 PORTABLE SSD NETGEAR TRANSCEND ESD200 is a portable SSD featuring the SuperSpeed USB 3.0 interface that provides 10 times the bandwidth of USB 2.0. It delivers read speed of up to 260MB/s write speed of upto 225MB/s.

The ESD200 includes a free download of the Transcend Elite data management tool that helps increase productivity. Moreover, the ESD200’s One Touch auto-backup button enables users to backup and synchronize data with their notebook or desktop PC. Due to its absence of moving parts, Transcend’s flash-equipped ESD200 SSD runs cool and silent, and can withstand excessive shock or vibration. Taking full advantage of solid-state storage technology, the ESD200 not only offers superior durability and reliability, but is also much smaller and lighter than conventional portable hard drives. Perfect for everyday portability, this credit card sized SSD includes a handy travel pouch to protect the drive’s sleek outer case against scratches during transport n Price: The 128 GB model is for 13,089 INR (approx.) and The 256 GB model is for 23,495 INR (approx.) Warranty: 3-Year Contact: Pankaj Sharma (Distributor), Supertron India Phone: 011 41318277 / 41709019-20/ +91 9311990572 Email: pankaj@ supertronindia.com

NETGEAR PROSECURE UTM25S IDEAL FOR THE SMBs, the NETGEAR ProSecure UTM25S provides two modular slots that fit optional interface cards, enabling IT administrators to tailor the firewall to their specific connectivity requirements. In addition, like other members of the ProSecure UTM family of security appliances, the UTM25S integrates with NETGEAR ReadyNAS network-attached storage systems, giving businesses almost unlimited activity log and quarantine capacity for forensic, regulatory and legal requirements.

As the second entry in the NETGEAR ProSecure UTM S product line, the UTM25S delivers comprehensive Internet security as well as high-speed Internet access through a choice of WAN connections- built-in Ethernet ports, an optional VDSL modem module, or a qualified 3G USB dongle. It also offers a wireless-N access point module and is a best-in-class UTM firewall gateway recommended to support up to 25 users. n Price: Rs. 68,000 Warranty: Lifetime Contact: NETGEAR Technologies Phone: 011-41207446 Website: www.netgear.com

CADYCE

CADYCE TRAVEL ROUTER AND POE INJECTOR CADYCE’ Battery powered 3G/3.75G Wireless N travel router and PoE Injectors - CAPE100I and CA-PE1000I are the latest developments in low-cost power-over-Ethernet injectors that offer users the ability to power any low or high-power POE device over a dedicated Ethernet cable with the data speed up to 100 Mbps and 1000 Mbps.

Further, 150Mbps Wireless N Travel Router is the ideal travel companion with pocket-sized dimensions and powered by its own powerful internal 1700mAh battery, users can work or play for hours on end. It allows users to rapidly set up an Internet connected wireless network in as little time as it takes to plug in their 3G USB router or WAN cable and when finished, this device can be used to create a Wi-Fi hub. n Price: Rs. 5,250/-, Rs. 3,600/- and Rs.4, 100/- respectively for CA-WTR150, CA-PE100I and CA-PE1000I Limited Warranty: One Year Contact:Nacheeket , Mobile : 09595 20 7300, Telephone: 020 – 25454270 / 71

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SME CHAT

AJAY KUMAR CHATTERJEE, M.DIRECTOR, AMTEL COMMUNICATION PVT. LTD., KOLKATA

“CURRENTLY, TELECOM INDUSTRY IS POISED TO TAKE A GIANT LEAP” With enterprise telecom market at the growth trajectory, the channel business in this space seems to be enjoying a good time. To know about the channel play in this market SME Channels spoke to Kolkata based channel partner Ajay Kumar Chatterjee, M.Director, Amtel Communication Pvt. Ltd. Excerpts.

Brief us about your company?

Amtel Communication was incorporated in 1992 and since then the Company has been creating milestones in telecom, access control system, fire detection as well as protection and electronic security products. Amtel has emerged as one of the dominant market players offering total solutions to its customers -be it voice (wire/ wireless), video, access control, fire detection/ protection and security system–applications or networking (wired & wireless) or end-to-end solutions. Today, Amtel is engaged in consulting, designing, implementing and integrating solutions to its valued customers.

ing a strong relationship with our customers.

What kind of solutions and products you are dealing in?

We offer solutions in the field of telecom, video and decurity and fire detection/protection systems.

How do you find telecom market in India?

Telecom is an important factor in India’s growth story. Currently, telecom industry is poised to take a giant leap with introduction of latest technological advancements.

What is your turnover and growth percentage?

Our turnover for the last financial year 2010-2011 was Rs 7 crore, which grew 70% as compared to the previous year i.e. 2009-10.

What kind of telecom solutions you have?

We deal in EPABX, intercom, voice logger, IVRS solution, vedio conference, wireless communication etc.

What is your strength in terms of market reach?

Our key strengths lies in the vast dealer and reseller network base across the region. The prompt and professional after-sales support offered to our customers has enabled us in build-

How do you find Matrix products in terms of its advantages vis-àvis other brands?

Matrix is substance brand. Substance is in the DNA of Matrix solutions. Substance in the form of technology, depth, genuineness and going

beyond the mere outer façade and offerinng more values in all the areas. This is what differentiates Matrix from the lot. Matrix solutions are packed with 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?

The potential and major challenge for Matrix is the aggressive marketing by MNC products, more manpower for wider coverage in government and corporate segments.

What the company needs to do to improve the market share?

The company needs to have products in higher range with lucrative KTS, more manpower to represent in government sector for pre-tendering.

As a partner what kind of products you want to add this year?

This year we plan to add high-end security products to our portfolio.

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NetKey ™ ...Provides a complete, cost effective range of copper and fibre infrastructure solution for voice, data and video applications.

The NetKey™ Flexible Networking System, based on the universal keystone opening, covers all your copper and fibre infrastructure communication needs from the telecommunications room to the work area with the proven quality and reliability you depend on from Panduit.

NetKey™ Copper RJ45 Modules, Cable, and Patch Cords NetKey™ Fibre Modules and Patch Cords Media Distribution System NetKey™ Fibre Trays NetKey™ Audio/Video Modules NetKey Modular Patch Panels ™

NetKey™ Faceplates and Surface Mount Boxes

NetKey™ Copper Cable ■ Category 6 and 5e ■ LSZH and PVC Flame Rating

NetKey™ Termination Tool ■ Fast termination ■ Available from Fluke Networks

Warranty available through PCI Programme.

Visit us at www.panduit.com/ Jayakanthi Kanthraj email: ind-jk@panduit.com Tel No : +91 80 49122106 Bangalore Office: 3rd Floor, Onyx Center # 5, Museum Road Bangalore – 560001 Karnataka. India Tel No : +91 80 49122106 Fax No : +91 80 41464155

Advts.indd 4

Chennai Office: #400, Hot Desk, 3rd Floor, Apeejay Business Centre, Apeejay House.

39/12 Haddows Road, Nungambakkam, Chennai – 600006. India Tel No: +91 44 28238662 / +91 44 28224949 Fax No: +91 44 28262447

Delhi Office: Office No 103, U&I Centre F 41, N. D. South Extension 1, Ring Road, New Delhi -110049. India Tel No : +91 11 40167060 Fax No : +91 11 40167059

Mumbai Office: 312/313, Dynasty Business Park, J.B. Nagar, Andheri Kurla Road, Andheri East, Mumbai - 400059. India Tel No : +91 22 40917106 Fax No : +91 22 40054746

20/02/12 8:37 PM

SMEChannel 121212 Size:22x31(bleed) 21x30 (Trim) 19x28 (Type)

RNI NO: DEL ENG/ 2010/ 31962 Postal Reg. No.: DL-SW-1/4145/10-12

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