March 2016 by SME Channels

PLUS

Kaspersky announces ‘March For Rewards’ for partners /08 www.smechannels.com

india’s first IT magazine for sme business VOLUME 07 | ISSUE 1 | PAGES 80 | MARCH 2016 | RS. 20/-

ANNIVERSARY

ISSUE

WOMEN IN INDIAN IT /47 TOP-30 CHANNEL LEADERs /50 TOP VADs /66 TOP-10 PRODUCTs /76

PLUS

Ricoh India gets over Rs. 300 Crore Govt. Deal /18 www.smechannels.com

india’s first IT magazine for sme business VOLUME 07 | ISSUE 01 | PAGES 80 | FEBRUARY 2016 | RS. 20/-

CHANNEL CHAT/40

CHANNEL TREND /26

CHANNEL TREND /28

Dell: Dell Campassadors to Create Computing Champions in the Campus

Lifesize: Channel partners are like our feet on the street

Avaya : Value-based selling and partners are keys to Avaya’s success

MY EXPERIENCE

EDITORIAL

WELCOME TO A NEW JOURNEY SANJAY MOHAPATRA

sanjay@smechannels.com

IT LOOKS LIKE YESTERDAY ONLY when we started SME Channels magazine six years back. Since 2010, then the industry has changed a lot - so also the partners. There is not much pang among the partners for not experiencing high growth like that of earlier years. Technology wise, it has come to a point when products are becoming gradually irrelevant. Either the partners are selling solution for a particular requirement or selling hosted services. Industries are getting connected, so also the countries and continents. The datacenters are changing its form factor – even people and organizations find their data centers in the cloud. Computing and storage are coming near the work to the edge than the workloads coming to the datacenters. Most of the vendors who used to be in the hardware or appliance based solutions are making their foray into the solutions software solutions and turning the game upside down. And, security is gaining grounds in passing day. Even the enduser organizations are changing faster due to the strong competition from the IT enabled startups. These very pint size organizations are not only winning the race but also forcing the the larger organizations to be acquired or disinvested. Technology like flash, 3D printing, robotics are getting adopted by the organization for better ROI. The IT organizations within the customer organizations are coming under tremendous pressure to adapt to the business growth of those organizations. They are trying to evaluate all possible disruptive technologies and applications to keep their organizations ahead of the curve. Applications like social media and analytics are influencing the customers’ business outcome prompting the partners to invest in these technologies. Virtualization and hybrid cloud are increasingly becoming the source of computing. Therefore, the topic of discussion, what used to be 5-6 years back around the hardware, have completely gotten into software and security. It is completely a new journey now and the partners, to take up the new journey of a connected world, needs a lot of handholding from the vendors. Vendors are becoming very pragmatic in their approach while engaging the partners. All the vendors have changed their programs. Even there has been mergers and demergers among the large organizations in order to show their right positioning in the market. Addressing the merging market, along with our print publication, we have strengthened our online and social media strategy. We would therefore seek the partners and vendors to traverse the journey with us to the future as a companion and complemeting partner.

SME CHANNELS MARCH 2016

Dell XPS 12 PERFECTING THE LAPTOP to tablet experience, the new and innovative XPS 12 2-in-1 is designed to easily switch between laptop and tablet with a magnetic connection that enables one-handed transition. It is the only 2-in-1 device with a 4K Ultra HD display option, with 6 million more pixels than a Full HD display. Packed with high resolution cameras – 8MP world-facing, 5MP user-facing – the XPS 12 allows users to capture their world the way they see it. The device comes with IPS wide-viewing angles, which offers 170° views on a brilliantly bright, 400-nit screen with rich colour – giving users’ a rich multimedia experience be it movies, presentations or photographs. Built with magnesium alloy, the XPS 12 2-in-1 also sports edge-to-edge Corning Gorilla Glass NBT which prevents scratches caused while handling, cleaning or wiping.

SPECIFICATIONS It is the only 2-in-1 device with a 4K Ultra HD display option, with 6 million more pixels FINAL WORDING Powered with 6th generation Intel Core processors and Windows 10, it offers an enhanced user experience. OVERALL RATING

contents

MAR VOLUME 07 ISSUE 01

2016

ER COV RY STO

india’s first IT magazine for sme business

Publisher: Sanjib Mohapatra Editor: Sanjay Mohapatra Asst. Editor: Satinder Kaur Executive Editor: Smruti Chaudhury Sub Editor: Chitresh Sehgal Designer: Ajay Arya Web Designer: Vijay Bakshi Technical Writer: Manas Ranjan Satya Sagar Sinha Lead Visualizer: DPR Choudhary MARKETING Marketing Manager: Hemlata Lalwani 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 / 8587835685 E-mail: Hem@smechannels.com / sanjeev@smechannels.com Bangalore #28/1, 3rd Floor, Sri Lakshmi Krupa, Near Shamanna Park, Model House Street, Basavanagudi, Bangalore - 560004 Ph. No. +91 88618 21044 Mumbai Tahmeed Ansari 2, Ground Floor, Park Paradise, Kay-Bees CHS. Ltd.,Opp. Green Park, Oshiwara, Andheri (west), Mumbai - 400 053. Ph. +91 22 26338546, Fax +91 22 26395581 Mobile: +91 9967 232424 E-mail: Info@smechannels.com Kolkata S Subhendu BC-286, Laxmi Apartment, Kestopur Kolkata-700101 Phone: 9674804389 EDITORIAL OFFICE Delhi: 6/103, (GF) Kaushalya Park, New

Cyber Attacks: Are you prepared? /30 A total number of 22,060, 71,780, 1,30,338, and 49,504 cyber-security incidents including phishing, scanning, spam, malicious code, website intrusion etc were reported to CERT-In during the year 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015 respectively.

Delhi-110016, Phone: 91-11-41657670 / 46151993 editor@smechannels.com Bangalore Bindiya Jadhav #28/1, 3rd Floor, Sri Lakshmi Krupa, Near Shamanna Park, Model House Street, Basavanagudi, Bangalore - 560004 Ph. No. +91 88618 21044 E-Mail bindiya@

SME CHAT

accentinfomedia.com Skype ID: b1diyajadhav

DELL/ 40 Dell Campassadors to Create Computing Champions in the Campus

Printed, Published and Owned by Sanjib Mohapatra Place of Publication: 6/101-102, Kaushalya Park, Hauz Khas

CHANNEL TREND LIFESIZE/ 26 Channel partners are like our feet on the street

SME CHAT MATRIX/ 73 MATRIX strives to offer MORE in everything it does

New Delhi-110016

Phone: 91-11-46151993 / 41055458

more inside Editorial~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 04

Snippets~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 08

tion can be reproduced without the prior

Products~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 76

written permission from the publisher. Subscription: Rs.200 (12 issues) All payments favouring: Accent Info Media Pvt. Ltd.

SME CHANNELS MARCH 2016

locations

flexibility

more control

Traditionally in business, more locations result in lesser control. Not any more. Because there is hardly anything traditional about the futuristic COSEC range of Access Control and Time-Attendance solutions from Matrix. These technological workhorses perform seamlessly across multiple locations - removing all barriers of size, time and distance. They integrate biometrics with RF cards and are engineered to adapt to current and future organisational needs. Thus it is no surprise that Matrix COSEC has been chosen by progressive organisations like Adani, Gujarat Ambuja Exports, Real Image, Sterling and Wilson, Gold’s Gym, Gruh Finance and MRF Tyres.

Functions

Features

 Access Control

 10 to 1 Million Users

 Time-Attendance

 1 to 1,000 Locations

 Visitor Management

 1 to 65,000 Entry Points

 Employee Self-service

 200+ Features

 e-Canteen Management  Roster Management  Web based Management  SAP, ERP and Payroll

Integration

 99 Functional Groups  100+ Reports and Charts  Time, Role and Zone

based Access

 Working Hours, Shifts

and Holidays

 Best-in-class Reporting

 Late-In, Early-Out and

 Centralised Administration,

 SMS and Email Notifications

and Analysis

Control and Monitoring

 Flexible and Scalable

Overtime Policies

 RF, Fingerprint and

Palm Vein Readers

Access Control and Time-Attendance

Enterprise • SME • SMB • SOHO

winner of

Call: +91 95588 19477 | Security@MatrixComSec.com | www.MatrixSecuSol.com

cognito

product design award

SNIPPETS PRODUCT | CHANNEL | CONSULTING | SERVICES

for more log on to smechannels.com

ALTAF HALDE, MANAGING DIRECTOR – SOUTH ASIA, KASPERSKY LAB

Kaspersky announces ‘March For Rewards’ for partners Kaspersky Labs has been showing the way for building robust partner networks. In the past few years, it

has seen aggressive growth, which stems from its solid partners. On Tuesday, 1st March’2016, they

announced ‘March For Rewards’, its newest and very attractive B2B partner scheme.

Especially created for the month of March, it’s a one-of-its-kind program built to capitalize on the strength of its aggressive sales force. The scheme is valid from March 1 – 29, 2016 on the sales of all Kaspersky Lab B2B products and services. The partners are eligible to win handsome rewards in the form of gift vouchers. Announcing the new program, Altaf Halde, Managing Director – South Asia, Kaspersky Lab said, “We greatly value the contribution of our partners in the business. March being financial year end and a month when our partners work very hard,this is a small way to show our appreciation.” Altaf Halde, Managing Director – South Asia, Kaspersky Lab further added, “We hope that our partners will lap up this great opportunity and truly March for Rewards this month!” The program is amongst the most rewarding ones for resellers in the market today. Adding this to Kaspersky Labs’ trusted products is sure to motivate all their brand partners to go into the market with renewed vigour.

Intel Security takes Siemens and BT as Partners Intel Security wakes up to the call of the time and enhances forging partnerships with technology companies along with Siemens and BT. These initiatives build on Intel Security’s commitment to help customers address the increasingly urgent need to shorten response times when advanced targeted

SME CHANNELS MARCH 2016

attacks occur and more easily remediate compromised systems, leading to a simplified and more automated threat defense lifecycle. “In the current security environment, collaboration and integration are more important than ever to create a strong security posture,” said Tom Fountain, Intel Security’s

vice president of Strategy and Business Development. “Our goal is to become our customers’ No. 1 security partner. In doing so, we remain committed to working across the industry to deliver solutions that detect new threats more quickly and enable automated workflows to correct issues as they arise.”

The Intel Security Innovation Alliance technology partnering program accelerates the development of interoperable security products that converge with Intel Security’s integrated, connected security system and reinforce detect, protect and correct processes across the threat defense lifecycle.

THE SMARTEST RANGE FOR THE SMARTEST PEOPLE. GREAT PERFORMANCE

Quad Core, up to 1.83 GHz

INCREDIBLE BATTERY 11 Hour Battery Backup* 5000mAh Marathon battery

INCREDIBLE DISPLAY 29.46cms (11.6) WXGA IPS Display Immersive high resolution display

GREAT CONNECTIVITY 2 USB Ports & HDMI Added Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0

A TRULY MOBILE LAPTOP Light-weight, weighs only 1.1kg

INCREDIBLE SOUND Dual Speakers combined with Realtek ALC5645 Audio Codec for clarity

L1161

The perfect device for beginners BEST BUY `

13,999

ith ed w

oad

Pre -l

LT777 The smartest 2 in 1 for those on the move

BEST BUY ` GREAT PERFORMANCE

17,999

INCREDIBLE BATTERY 8-10 Hour Battery Backup* 9000mAh Marathon battery

Quad Core, up to 1.83 GHz GREAT CONNECTIVITY 1 USB Port & 1 Micro USB Added micro USB port along with 1 USB port

INCREDIBLE TOUCH DISPLAY High Definition Touchscreen Display 29.46cms (11.6) HD IPS touch display

UNIQUE DETACHABLE DESIGN Easy Detachable Screen

ON-THE-GO CONNECTIVITY Inbuilt SIM slot for 3G data access; Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0

Up to 10GB** data free

aded

Pre -lo

with

Comes together with the latest

Intel Inside®. Amazing Experiences Outside.

To know more log on to www.micromaxinfo.com/laptop Intel, the Intel logo, Intel Atom, and Intel Inside are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries. Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others. **Reliance benefits for 8 months with upto 10GB data** and all outgoing calls @30p/min. To know more about the offer visit www.thelaptab.com

*Conditions apply.

SNIPPETS

HCL Infosystems join hands with Symantec over enterprise security solutions HCL Infosystems has announced a strategic alliance with Symantec, a recognized leader in information protection. Under this alliance, HCL Infosystems will leverage its pan-India network of partners to distribute information security solutions from Symantec. With this association, HCL Infosystems will now be the Value Added Distributor (VAD) for the entire portfolio of information security solutions offered by Symantec to customers across

India. Under this partnership HCL Infosystems will provide Symantec with an extensive distribution network, high level of pre and after sales support and end-to-end solutions. It will also enable Symantec to tap into HCL Infosystems’ rich BFSI client base. The alliance consolidates the existing association between the two companies and further leverages respective strengths to provide best-in-class information security solutions to customers in India.

In2IT Technologies bags ‘Future of Odisha’ Award by STPI In2IT Technologies has been bestowed with the ‘Future of Odisha’, top IT/ITes exporter award by the Software Technology Park of India (STPI). In2IT Technologies has constantly been on the success path striving to be abreast of its competition providing capabilities on demand rather than capacities on demand creating a happy client. Rudra Shankar Shatapathy, Group MD and CEO along with Vishal Barapatre, Group CTO, In2IT Technologies accepted the award on behalf of the company. The award was given away by Manoj Panda, Director STPI, Odisha in the presence of Pradeep Kumar Jena, Principal Secretary-Dept. of Electronics &IT, Government of Odisha; Pranab Prakash Das, Minister of State, Independent Charge, DoE& IT, Govt. of Odisha and Omkar Rai, Director General, STPI..

Smartphone Shipments crossed 100 Million Mark in India in 2015: IDC According to International Data Corporation’s (IDC) Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, 25.6 million smartphones were shipped in India in CY 2015 Q4 – up 15.4 percent from 22.2 million units for the same period last year. But, similar to last year, smartphone shipments saw a sequential decline in the last quarter of the year. 2015 Q4 shipments dipped 11.9 percent over previous quarter owing to weaker shipments from key Indian players. However, full calendar year 2015 grew 28.8 percent to 103.6 million units, positioning India as one of the fastest growing smartphone market in Asia Pacific. According to Karthik J, Senior Market Analyst, Client Devices “The online share of smartphone shipments continued to ramp further as 2015 Q4 saw online mega sales from major e-tailers like Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon. Online share spiked to 37.3 percent in 2015 Q4, growing 2.5 times over the same period last year with almost half of the contribution coming from online exclusive models”, added Karthik.

10 SME CHANNELS MARCH 2016

MY POINT

“Revenue from IoT implementation in India for manufacturing will be close to US $ 4 billion by 2020, growth at a CAGR of 20%.” RAMACHANDRAN S, PRINCIPAL RESEARCH MANAGER, IDC

Sakri IT Solutions to distribute ESET Security Solutions According to International Data Corporation’s (IDC) Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, 25.6 million smartphones were shipped in India in CY 2015 Q4 – up 15.4 percent from 22.2 million units for the same period last year. But, similar to last year, smartphone shipments saw a sequential decline in the last quarter of the year. 2015 Q4 shipments dipped 11.9 percent over previous quarter owing to weaker shipments from key Indian players. However, full calendar year 2015 grew 28.8 percent to 103.6 million units, positioning India as one of the fastest growing smartphone market in Asia Pacific. According to Karthik J, Senior Market Analyst, Client Devices “The online share of smartphone shipments continued to ramp further as 2015 Q4 saw online mega sales from major e-tailers like Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon. Online share spiked to 37.3 percent in 2015”, added Karthik.

Zebronics presents new Juke Bar speaker Zebronics has updated its Sound Bar speaker ‘Juke Bar’ with bluetooth feature. Powered with the latest technologies in a sleek and compact design, Zebronics Juke Bar now brings in the suround sound experience without the need of messy wires around you. Zebronics Juke Bar speaker was introduced last year and with its monster sound was a instant hit among the consumers. Now the new model is launched with the convenience of bluetooth. This sound monster bar speaker is perfect companion for your TV. It gives you surround sound experience in movies and music enriching your TV viewing experience. The Juke Bar speaker comes with down firing subwoofer and mid/ high drivers in the bar. The total output of the speaker is 49watts RMS. The speaker is capable of reproducing sound in 40hz-20khz range. Juke bar speaker is designed for remarkable sound clarity and frequency response. It will take your movie watching and music listening experience to whole new level. The speaker also comes in attractive glossy finish panel and digital display. The subwoofer top panel has all the controls for easy access, it also comes with fully functional remote controller.

SNIPPETS

IP-COM Unleashes AC2000 Wireless Controller for SMBs IP-COM the global leader in manufacturing and supplying Commercial networking products and solution launches AC2000 Access Point Controller that provides networking solution for SMB such as Hotels, Hospitals, K-12 schools etc. IP-COM offers complete end to end WLAN Networking Solutions & Equipment for SMB’s and Commercial Establishments. IP-COM ‘s product are best suited to provide solutions to industries such as Hospitality, Real Estate, Hot Spot zones, Corporations, Educational Institutions, Hospitals and Airport. IP-COM is a channel friendly brand and have full fledge operations in India with Local Sales Team and Radington as National distributor. IP-COM AC2000 is an AP controller, specially designed to provide network solution for SMB such as Hotels, Hospitals, K-12 schools etc. Abundant wireless features management including editing AP‘s name, SSID, Security key, RSSI threshold, Client limitation, VLAN, output power, Client isolation, SSID isolation, 5G band steering.

Citrix selects Umbrella Infocare as Specialist Partner for India Citrix has announced the first ‘Citrix Specialist’ partner in India following the launch of the new Citrix Solution Advisor (CSA) program. Based in New Delhi, Umbrella Infocare Pvt. Ltd. was recognized as a CSA certified Mobility Management Specialist. As a recognized Citrix Specialist, Umbrella Infocare Pvt. Ltd. is able to better differentiate capabilities and offerings to ensure customers can optimize their investments in Citrix technologies. Umbrella Infocare Pvt. Ltd. will benefit from access to advanced Citrix technical content and resources, which combined with their sales teams’ ability to demonstrate skills and competencies related to the Citrix portfolio will drive strong financial benefits justifying investments in the program. After being named as India’s first Citrix Specialization partner, Sanjay Agarwal, director, Umbrella Infocare, said: “Our customers are faced with increasingly complex IT challenges every day, meaning our services need to be at an elite level to effectively satisfy their needs. We feel this recognition from Citrix is testament to Umbrella Infocare’s ability to be the leader in providing professional services to businesses that allow them to be productive from any device or location.” Citrix Specializations is the cornerstone of the CSA program, and provides a framework for partners to demonstrate technical competency, end-to-end sales capability, and service delivery to customers. To achieve Specialist status, Umbrella Infocare Pvt. Ltd. was required to complete a series of e-learning courses and the most advanced technical certifications, provide customer testimonies, and demonstrate design and implementation competencies. Eklavya Bhave, head of Partner Strategy & Sales, India & SAARC, Citrix said, “In today’s fastchanging and increasingly specialized technology space, businesses want to work with partners with in-depth technical expertise, and that are leaders in their respective fields.

SMARTPHONE SHIPMENTS CROSSED 100 MILLION MARK IN CY 2015 IN INDIA : IDC ACCORDING TO INTERNATIONAL DATA CORPORATION’S (IDC) QUARTERLY MOBILE PHONE TRACKER, 25.6 MILLION SMARTPHONES WERE SHIPPED IN INDIA IN CY 2015 Q4, UP 15.4 PERCENT FROM 22.2 MILLION UNITS FOR THE SAME PERIOD LAST YEAR. INDIA SMARTPHONE VENDOR’S MARKET SHARE, 2015Q4

Others 31.1%

Source: IDC AP Quarterly Mobile Phone tracker 2015 Q4

12 SME CHANNELS MARCH 2016

ASUS has appointed Marcel Campos as the Marketing Director of the Mobile Division in the country.

Micromax 14.1% Intex 9.4%

Intel has announced the appointment of Nivruti Rai as Intel India Site General Manager. Kaspersky Lab has announce appointment of Maxim Mitrokhin to the position of MD of Kaspersky Lab APac.

Samsung 26.8%

Lava 7.0%

EXECUTIVE MOVEMENT

Lenovo Group 11.6%

IP-COM has announced the appointment of VP Senthil Kumar as new Regional Sales Manager for South India. HID Global has appointed Vishwanath Kulkarni as Director of Sales, Physical Access Control, India, SAARC.

SNIPPETS

Delta brings in Amplon N1-3 kVA Series UPS Delta has announced the launch of its Amplon N 1-3 kVA series uninterruptible power supply (UPS) in India. Delta’s Amplon N series UPS applies the latest technologies and high-quality components designed specifically for mission critical equipment and applications to enhance the overall competency of power protection for small power rating loads. The Amplon N1-3kVA series are single-phase UPS systems with online double-conversion topology that provide a stable and reliable sinewave power supply. Its leading product advantages, such as an output power factor of 0.9 and AC-AC efficiency up to 93%, add more value to a customer’s business operations. These features not only provide secure power protection for a customer’s mission critical devices, but also lower their operating costs.

FORTINET ADVANCES CYBERSECRITY OS FORTI OS Fortinet has announced updates to their FortiOS cybersecurity operating system. FortiOS 5.4 offers new features that enable customers to deploy internal network segmentation for containment and defense against advanced threats. Gartner predicts “that 6.4 billion connected things will be in use worldwide in 2016, up 30% from 2015, and reach 20.8 billion by 2020,”1 exponentially expanding the attack surface and security challenges faced by enterprises. FortiOS removes the complexity of defending against advanced threats. With the latest configuration, analytic capabilities and assisted one-click actions in FortiOS 5.4, enterprises can implement internal segmentation firewalls (ISFW) and Secure Access Architectures to move beyond traditional perimeter defense to stronger layered security strategies. “Organizations are facing an increasingly hostile threat landscape with new and highly sophisticated threats emerging every day. Combating these attacks requires security solutions that can deliver true network segmentation without compromising network performance,” said Michael Xie, founder, President and CTO of Fortinet. “

VMware promotes Digitization and Hybrid Cloud VMware has announced advancements to its cloud management platform with the introduction of VMware vRealize Suite 7 featuring new releases of VMware vRealize Operations and VMware vRealize Log Insight along with VMware vRealize Automation 7 and VMware vRealize Business for Cloud 7. The suite’s new product updates together with pricing and packaging enhancements are designed to help customers readily address the most common use cases VMware has identified in customers’ journey to the cloud. Digitization is disrupting every industry and causing massive changes to traditional businesses and operating models. Organizations are responding by innovating with new online and connected customer experiences by leveraging big data, cloud computing and mobility. These companies are realizing new opportunities and revenue streams by taking on a modern approach to business enabled by technology.

Juniper joins hands with Affirmed Networks NFV solutions Juniper Networks has announced the formation of a technology partnership focused on the development of solutions that help service providers transition quickly and efficiently to a virtualized mobile architecture. The goal of the partnership’s virtualized mobile network reference architecture is to enable wireless service providers to deploy new services faster and at a lower cost than legacy solutions. The reference architecture combines Affirmed Networks’ Mobile Content Cloud virtualized evolved packet core solution (vEPC) with Juniper Networks’ virtualization portfolio, which includes the Juniper Networks vSRX Virtual Firewall, Contrail Cloud Platform and MetaFabric Architecture for data center deployments. Mobile service providers increasingly face new competitive pressures from nimble startups and over-the-top (OTT) providers, requiring a faster pace of innovation and agility than what is typically permitted by traditional networks.

14 SME CHANNELS MARCH 2016

8kpc announces hyper-converged products for the Indian market 8kpc has launched two new hyper-converged infrastructure products in India which disrupt the industry through high performance, scalability and simplicity for business critical workloads. The 8kpc products are priced at less than half the cost in comparison to other systems in the industry and are deployable in an hour. “Our focus is to provide hyper-convergence with a difference. We have developed a pragmatic solution for extraordinary data scaling for the Indian market which will fit well into sectors such as BFSI, Retail, Manufacturing and Healthcare”, says Ram Appalaraju, President and CEO, 8kpc. “For use cases such as VDI and workload consolidation, we are bringing a highly innovative and yet affordable, platform. The converged infrastructure category has been evolving to bring much-needed agility to IT and is seeing global adoption among enterprises at an accelerated rate. According to Gartner, India will be the 2nd largest market and also the second fastest growing market for data center infrastructure in the APac region.

SNIPPETS

Kodak Alaris seeks to expand channel, partnerships network Kodak Alaris in a tactical move to grow and expand its partner network, embarked on another edition of its highly successful Information Management Partnership Yatra. The Yatra, an initiative titled the ‘Kodak Alaris Information Management Partnership Yatra 2016’ kicked off in Sri Lanka this evening, and will then travel through multiple cities in India in the coming months. “Sri Lanka is the pearl of the Indian Ocean, and has historical bonds with India. For Kodak Alaris

India Pvt. Ltd., Sri Lanka is an even more special place because we have forged a solid business partnership with our exclusive distributor – Nine Hearts Imaging, Colombo, over the last one decade”, observed Vivek Naidu, Vice President, Kodak Alaris India, in Colombo today, while declaring the Yatra 2016 open. He observed, that “With their exemplary understanding of the Imaging business, Nine Hearts Imaging have proven to be an able and proficient business partner for us.”

Be aware of Win32/Bayrob Trojan; warns experts Following the security alert from ESET has warned Internet users of a new cyber threat aiming at users’ financial data - Win32/Bayrob Trojan. Win32/Bayrob has been intensely targeting several countries since the middle of December 2015. The malware is distributed via malicious attachment in an email trying to impersonate Amazon. ESET’s Josep Albors detailed the nefarious activities of the Bayrob trojan in ESET official blog. According to Albors, Win32/Bayrob is distributed using a classic attack vector: for example, as a malicious attachment in an email. In some cases, the emails are pretender to be from Amazon (however, the sender’s email address reveals that do not belong to Amazon). The e-mails may have a ZIP file attached with an executable file, which turns out to be a malware file.

Samsung Comes Back to Storage Game with T3 Samsung India’s launch of Portable SSD T3 SSD is not only gives people a quality product but also heralds the comeback of an old-timer storage player. Though this announcement is primarily for the consumers, but looking at the segment they have chosen, it surely will get winks from the B2B community and enterprises. T3 SSD, a premium, palm-sized, external SSD that offers multi-terabyte storage capacity, comes with technologically advanced Samsung’s proprietary Vertical NAND (V-NAND) and SSD TurboWrite technology. The T3 drive provides advanced performance, enabling consumers, content creators and IT professionals, to quickly and easily store & transfer large multimedia content across a variety of devices.

Brocade expands storage networking portfolio Brocade has announced the BROCADE G620, Gen 6 Fibre Channel switch for storage networking. Advancing Brocade’s leadership in FIBRE CHANNEL technology, the new purpose-built and highdensity SAN switch delivers breakthrough performance and scalability designed to support data growth and demanding workloads from mission-critical applications. Fibre Channel fabrics are the common thread that connects organizations to their most critical applications and data.

16 SME CHANNELS MARCH 2016

DIGEST DELL STRENGTHENS DATA PROTECTION PORTFOLIO FOR BUSINESSES Dell has announced a series of new data protection solutions to help organizations better protect business-critical systems, applications, and data – either on premises or in the cloud. The updates to the data protection product portfolio reinforce Dell’s commitment to driving innovation and giving customers the choice and flexibility they need to quickly address evolving backup and recovery needs as they move data and applications to the cloud.

SOPHOS ORGANIZES PARTNER MEETS IN CHENNAI AND KOCHI Sophos has recently hosted meetings in Chennai and Kochi which were attended by more than 250 of its partners in Southern India. Sophos is encouraging its pan-India partners to capture emerging opportunities in the security market with its wide range of solutions and these meetings were on a similar theme to the ‘Discover Sophos’ roadshows that the company conducted earlier in India and around the globe. The purpose of these meets is to share Sophos’ strong focus on providing integrated security for mid-market enterprises.

HCL INFOSYSTEMS, AVAYA SIGN STRATEGIC ALLIANCE HCL Infosystems has announced a strategic alliance with Avaya, a global leader in business communications software, systems and services, to help businesses and organizations in India accelerate their digital transformation strategies. Under this alliance, HCL Infosystems will offer Avaya’s complete portfolio of customer and team engagement and data networking solutions and services to its customers across different industry sectors.

LENOVO STRENGTHENS ITS CHANNEL PARTNER RELATIONSHIP Lenovo has recently hosted a seven-city exclusive Channel Partner meet as part of its ThinkServer launch – ThinkServer TS140, an entry-level Tower server, and ThinkServer RD450-an entry-level 2U rack server. This multi-city event saw enthusiastic participation from over 500 commercial Channel Partners. With Channel Partner meets, Lenovo aims to educate its Partners about its robust enterprise solutions portfolio ranging from entry-level to high-end servers. Lenovo is constantly looking for newer ways to engage with partners. These partner meets form a critical part of the company’s customer-centric approach to help fashion products based on customer feedback to meet specific business needs.

SNIPPETS

Avaya to Drive Digital Transformation Strategies

ZTE Introduces Spro Plus Smart Projector

Avaya is all ready to showcase its cloud-enabled solutions designed to help public and privatesector organizations achieve their digital transformation objectives at the second annual Avaya Technology Forum 2016 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The three-day event will strip away industry hype and dive into the real challenges facing today’s business and technology leaders. The Avaya Technology Forum will feature keynote presentations from Avaya’s global leadership team, industry experts, and key technology partners. Customers for the Middle East, Africa, India and China will learn more about Avaya’s development of smart applications, which can be tailored for specific vertical industries and sectors, helping organizations transition to the smart digital world. Through in-depth technical sessions and tailored expert engagement, ATF 2016 provides a unique opportunity for attendees to experience how Avaya’s solutions and services are addressing the challenges facing today’s industry leaders.

Ricoh India gets over Rs. 300 Crore Govt. Deal

ZTE Mobile Devices has unveiled the Spro Plus portable smart projector, following the acclaimed Spro 2. Spro Plus is a new category of the Spro family, and ZTE aims to provide a high level of entertainment and business opportunities for users. Spro Plus helps business associates and friends meet anywhere at any time, with its leading voice conference, projection, touchscreen and innovative visual design features. The external USB camera also allows for multiparty video communication via applications like Skype. “The Spro Plus is ZTE Mobile Devices’ latest example of igniting digital life with imagination,” said Adam Zeng, CEO, ZTE Mobile Devices. “We’re proud of the Spro Plus, which showcases a pioneering technology as a first-rate product and delivers an even more intuitive user experience. This allows our users to have unlimited business and entertainment opportunities.” One of the Spro Plus’ highlights is a larger, 8.4-inch Android AMOLED touch-screen with 2K resolution, paired with a 12100mAH battery for an enhanced user experience. The Spro Plus will be available in both a Wi-Fi-only version as well as a Wi-Fi and 4G LTE version. Spro Plus helps users work smart and play hard. Its leading visual capabilities include its vertical and horizontal keystone correction, which is its ability to project onto any place in any direction without distorting the image. Its autofocus keeps the image sharp and clear. This is all achieved by its stylish, circular design. Michael Mauser, President of HARMAN’s Lifestyle Division, said, “We’re very excited to be partnering with ZTE on the Spro Plus. Our engineers have done an outstanding job of developing the JBL Audio system to make the Spro Plus truly amazing. We expect the Spro Plus to be a very strong performer in the marketplace.”

Ricoh India has announced that it has signed an Order worth Rs. 344 Crores (Rupees Three Hundred and Forty Four Crores only) from Kerala State Electronics Development Corporation Ltd (KELTRON ) for Supply, Installation and Commissioning of Computer Hardware, Connected Accessories, Software, Maintenance of Equipment(s) and provision of Computer Education Services in 2000 Government & Government Aided High Schools in the State of Odisha on Five (05) Years BOOT Model Project under ICT @ School Scheme. Speaking on the occasion, Manoj Kumar : Managing Director and CEO, Ricoh India said, “We are honoured to be associated with this prestigious project and work along with the government of Odisha and KELTRON. Government Schools of Odisha for 5 years.

Digital Ocean to open a datacenter in India

IBM, VMware sign strategic pact to drive Hybrid Cloud Adoption

DigitalOcean DigitalOcean has catered to the developer community by offering on-demand cloud computing resources that can be deployed in seconds at a great price point. In 2015 DigitalOcean became the 2nd largest hosting company in the world, as per Netcraft, a cloud infrastructure research firm. Considering the number of software developers throughout India will grow to over 5 million by the year 2018 – surpassing the number of developers in the United States – it’s clear that the region is one of the most important technology markets in the world. DigitalOcean is planning to have an initial investment of up to $5M to build out it’s local facility and operation in 2016.

IBM and VMware, Inc. has announced a strategic partnership designed to help enterprises take better advantage of the cloud’s speed and economics. The new agreement will enable enterprise customers to easily extend their existing workloads, as they are, from their on-premises software-defined data center to the cloud. IBM and VMware have jointly designed an architecture and cloud offering that will enable customers to automatically provision pre-configured VMware SDDC environments, consisting of VMware vSphere, NSX and Virtual SAN on the IBM Cloud. With this SDDC environment in place, customers will be able to deploy workloads in this hybrid cloud environment without modification.

18 SME CHANNELS MARCH 2016

SNIPPETS

Microsoft betting big on ‘Internet of Things’ Microsoft has believed in strong partnerships to create opportunity across the ecosystem, while also creating an open and interoperable environment to fuel innovation. Aligned with this vision, Microsoft has united with other industry leaders to create Open Connectivity Foundation (OCF) which is committed to furthering industry standards for the Internet of Things. Microsoft joins the world’s largest open IoT standard group with other founding members such as Cisco, Electrolux, General Electric, Intel, Qualcomm, Samsung and others. Together, their goal is to accelerate industry innovation for all of the users, ultimately benefiting billions of people around the world. The OCF will create a set of open specifications and protocols to enable devices from a variety of manufactures to securely and seamlessly interact.

Lifesize all set to revolutionize Video Conferencing market Lifesize has confirmed that it has split from Logitech and is operating as a fully independent company. Backed by $17.5 million in funding from three prominent Silicon Valley venture firms – Redpoint Ventures, Sutter Hill Ventures and Meritech Capital Partners – the company is focused on winning new customers as a high-growth cloud-based video collaboration and meeting platform company, and tackling the $7 billion global conferencing market head-on. Logitech will retain a meaningful interest in Lifesize moving forward. “No other company in the industry has Lifesize’s global distribution, channel relationships and unrivaled product differentiation,” said Jeff Brody, partner at Redpoint Ventures. “It is obvious to us that the enterprise-grade reliability coupled with its unique hardware advantage will keep fueling the company’s remarkable growth.

DIGISOL expands product portfolio with DG-FS1510HPE PoE+ Switch DIGISOL the networking brand of Smartlink Network Systems Ltd. has introduced its 8 Port Fast Ethernet POE Lite-Managed switch. The DG-FS1510HPE is a intelligent network manageable switch designed for network environments that require higher POE wattage and easy for installation. It provides 8 10/100Mbps Fast EthernetPoE+ Ports and 2 Combo GE ports (RJ-45/SFP). It supports VLAN, SNMPv1, Port Mirroring and Port Trunking. It’s a great entry level managed switch with 5.6Gbps switching capacity. The device also has two Combo Gigabit (RJ45/SFP) ports for uplink flexibility, allowing copper or fiber uplinks port for high speed uplinks to servers or backbones. IEEE 802.1w Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol provides a loop free network and redundant links to the core network with rapid convergence, to ensure faster recovery from failed links, enhancing overall network stability and reliability. IEEE802.3ad Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP) increases bandwidth by automatically aggregating several physical links together as a logical trunk and providing load balancing and fault tolerance for uplink connections. It also supports SNMP to be managed and controlled by SNMP network station.

WD announces lucrative program for partners Intending to offer a comprehensive lineup of benefits for the security and surveillance channel network, Western Digital has announced the myWD Certified Surveillance Storage Provider Program. The myWD Certified Surveillance Storage Provider Program is a tailor-made initiative that aims to offer training, sales support, value added benefits and incentives to security and surveillance system integrators, installers, solution and service providers to help them enhance their business opportunities and profitability. The announcement comes as a recent report by Research and Markets anticipates the global video surveillance storage market to grow at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 22.41% to reach USD $18.28 billion by 2020.

20 SME CHANNELS MARCH 2016

Here’s what GIGABYTE planning for India in 2016 In a bid to further consolidate its leadership position in the Indian DIY (Do It Yourself) PC market, GIGABYTE Technology (India) Pvt. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards, is embarking on an ambitious plan for 2016. The plan involves enhanced and focused sales and marketing initiatives targeting specific high-growth market segments and categories in the broader PC market for 2016. This year, GIGABYTE intends to significantly strengthen and widen its market base in the gaming motherboard category. Accordingly, a major chunk of its marketing initiatives will be focused on the gaming segment, targeting gamers in tier 2 and tier 3 cities. “The gaming segment in India is becoming more vibrant with each passing year, with many gamers graduating from casual to serious gamers, more platforms to exhibit gaming features, and more events and contests with active participation from gaming hardware and software companies,“ Sunil Grewal, Director at GIGABYTE Technology (India) Pvt. Ltd., explained.“ Gaming related activities are now blooming even in tier 2 and tier 3 cities, which a couple of years back was restricted to only top tier cities.“

SNIPPETS

NEC working on 5G communication NEC has announced it has developed a prototype of A4-sized massive-element Active Antenna System (AAS) for 5G small cell base stations. The low-SHF band-compatible AAS combines the antenna and RF components through the use of a newly developed highdensity printed circuit board and an IC that integrates the high radio frequency circuit with the digital circuit, achieving the practical compact size. In addition, the new AAS has achieved fully-digitized operation of antenna beam control and MIMO precoding. This improves the precision of beam forming and achieves high spectral efficiency even when a user distribution is lopsided within a cell or under conditions where there are frequent user movements within a cell, thus contributing to the provision of high-capacity communications.

BUSY PARTNER CONNECT 2016 ENDS ON A SUCCESSFUL NOTE BUSY Infotech has organized “BUSY Partner Connect 2016” at Crowne Plaza hotel, Rohini, New Delhi. Around 140 qualified BUSY Partners from across the globe attended the meet and made it a successful event. The program was focused on helping partners gain a better understanding of the company’s direction and to expand both their personal and professional network. The programme aimed to connect Product and Solution Partners with an integrated network of business relationships which was a great value addition for Channel Partners. To achieve its goal of establishing BUSY as the Enterprise Solution of Choice for SMEs, the company is aiming to expand its Solution Partner network across different geographies. Thanks to its Solution Partners, BUSY has been implemented at number of big enterprises in the recent past. Speaking on the occasion, Dinesh Kumar Gupta, Managing Director, Busy Infotech Pvt Ltd said, “BUSY has been recognized as one of the most popular Business Accounting Software in India, South Asia, Middle East Asia and Africa. We are sure that through this Partner Connect programme, we would be able to interact with our partners more closely and bring in more value in our relationships.” “Our goal is to establish BUSY as Enterprise Solution of Choice for SMEs and we have always striven hard to achieve this goal.”Dinesh Kumar Gupta further added.

Spirent commences Channel Emulation Platform Spirent Communications has announced the launch of Spirent Vertex Channel Emulator, which delivers an unprecedented level of scalability and modularity for wireless RF testing. Vertex units can scale in the field from two to 32 channels, to address a wide range of uses from basic RF device tests to complex MIMO beamforming base station antenna tests. Vertex addresses the high density channel requirements that the market has been struggling to meet, and supports configurations to evaluate future technologies such as 5G. Spirent Vertex provides immediate advantages for users focusing on MIMO Beamforming, Carrier Aggregation and MIMO OTA, which are evolving rapidly to deliver enhanced service coverage and improved QoE for mobile users. Vertex simplifies complex test setups by minimizing the amount of hardware needed, providing an intuitive and easy-to-use graphical user interface and using fieldupgradeable RF modules for various test configurations.

ALE delights exclusive resellers with Phuket trip Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise resellers reaped the rewards of their hard work last week, with sixteen resellers from India heading to Phuket as winners in the vendor’s SMB Champions League 2015. The SMB Champions League was launched last year and recognises independent resellers who are performing ‘exceptionally’. The program recognises partners under two categories – biggest achievers and fastest achievers – for their overall business performance in driving sales for the Alcatel-Lucent OpenTouch Suite for SMB. Concepts & Devices, Nebula Infomatique, Vodacom Technologies, Ascent Networks, AOS SYSTEMS, BPL Telecom,Aikon Telecom, B2U Corporate Solutions were Indian winners achieving highest revenue, with Technocare Telecom, SHARANYA TELETRONICS, Pentagon Network Solutions, Universal Solutions, ONLINE IT SOLUTIONS, Speedo Communications, Simtech Communications, Creative Telecom winning for fastest growth. The top partners in each category had the chance to win quarterly rewards, with the ultimate award being a fully-paid trip to Phuket.

22 SME CHANNELS MARCH 2016

HP inspires PSPs to explore new possibilities HP has announced that it will exhibit the industry’s broadest portfolio of digital printing solutions at drupa 2016, including new advancements that demonstrate how HP digital print technology enables print service providers (PSPs) to reinvent their possibilities. The company also today unveiled HP PrintOS, a cloud-based operating system that reinvents how customers manage print production. The revolutionary new platform will make its worldwide debut at drupa 2016. For the first time in drupa history, the HP Graphics Solutions Business is hosting the tradeshow’s largest exhibit in hall 17 and the world’s biggest digital printing showcase for the eleven day event. In keeping with the evolving landscape of drupa, HP will display its latest technology for the general commercial printing segment, in addition to new hardware and solutions for labels and packaging, large-format and sign and display application areas. Featuring a suite of intuitive web-based and mobile applications, PrintOS helps simplify and automate print production.

GIGABYTE Technology (India) Pvt. Ltd. Website: www.gigabyte.in; Toll-Free: 1800-22-0966; www.facebook.com/GIGABYTEindia Gujarat: 98642 30150; Mumbai: 99677 18653; Rest of Maharashtra: 99677 18653; Goa: 99677 18653; Chhattisgarh 99677 18653; Madhya Pradesh: 99100 86976; Uttar Pradesh: 99583 72672; New Delhi, Haryana, Uttarakhand: 99100 86976; Punjab, Chandigarh and Jammu & Kashmir: 99100 86976; Rajasthan: 99100 86976; Bihar, Jharkhand: 90075 45577; Orissa: 99030 52251; North East: 97076 42785; West Bengal: 97485 02710; Karnataka: 94482 93439; Andhra Pradesh, Telangana: 90405 06080; Tamil Nadu: 74117 74666; Kerala: 98950 99231

CHANNEL GUIDE

KONICA MINOLTA

LEVERAGING PARTNERS’ STRENGTHS Konica Minolta works on the principle of creating universal design to make sure that the comfort level of everyone is completely met.

BY SATINDER KAUR skaur@smechannels.com

eing one of the leading brands in print technology, Konica Minolta is acknowledged in the market for pioneering several technologies and for the environment friendly approach that it implies in its works. In an exclusive chat with SME Channel, V. Balakrishnan, EGM Marketing, Konica Minolta reveals more on channel strategy, opportunities and future plans.

Exploring newer horizons -Education Adding opportunity for the partners to create more margins and strengthening its market presence beyond its traditional printing solutions business, Konica Minolta has recently forayed into enterprise application (software) business by launching Educo ERP for the education sector. Konica Minolta is not about a single product, for them the recent launch is a part of company’s vertical strategy for ringing growth to the education sector. Company’s objective is to double the revenue that it is already getting from education, that’s the first step. Konica Minolta is in the process of transforming itself from a manufacturing company to a Customer Process Centric company. It is constantly looking at opportunities to add value to the core processes of its customers. Konica Minolta is celebrating 2016 ar as “The Year of Synergy” where it want to harness all of its capabilities to deliver new value to its customers.

24 SME CHANNELS MARCH 2016

V. BALAKRISHNAN, EGM MARKETING, KONICA MINOLTA During the course of the years, it is expected that Konica Minolta will be launching a host of other products (four more products are in the kitty, which are ready for the launch).

Opportunities for Partners The channel of distribution is defined as the most efficient and effective manner in which to place a product into the hands of the customer. When asked about Konica Minolta’s channel structuring, V Balakrishnan says, “Channel will be primarily, to leverage collaboration as the history of company tells you. And within the industry we are known as the most channel friendly company, whether it comes to being clear in our policies, or making sure that settlements are done on time. We have a very good reputation. We would translate the same into this segment. There would be defined territories, and defined segments, based on the partner’s capabilities.” If a partner says: This geography is where he is very good at, where he would like to be that is fine for Konica Minolta. If the partner comes and tells the company no, he doesn’t want to get into a geography, these are these 40 institutions where he would like to be the primary face, it is also fine for Konica. So that way the company is flexible - the plans are also flexible for them. It is purely based on leveraging each other’s strengths. Konica Minolta as a company has always been channel centric. It believes that collaboration is the key,

“KONICA MINOLTA IS CELEBRATING 2016 AR AS “THE YEAR OF SYNERGY” WHERE IT WANT TO HARNESS ALL OF ITS CAPABILITIES TO DELIVER NEW VALUE TO ITS CUSTOMERS. ” without which no organization can grow. V Balakrishnan further adds, “We need to leverage each other’s strengths and we are open to it.”

Marketing Strategy As per the Balakrishnan, the company will pursue by-modal go to market strategy where they will not only engage the channel partners but also, where need be, they will engage their direct sales force. However, it is a plus for the partners who are already engaged with the vendor on the hardware front as they would get additional opportunity of creating revenue by selling software from the same vendor without much of change in their relationship and comfort level.

Delta Ultron HPH Series best-in-class, energy-efficient UPS With the best-in-class combination of maximum available power, energy efficiency, high availability and flexibility, HPH is an ideal choice for datacenters as well as for industries involved in factory equipment, communication systems, computer network systems, medical systems, monitoring systems and more. Thanks to its best-in-class power performance and efficiency, the award-winning Ultron HPH series UPS won the “Silver Award” at the China International Industry Fair and “Product of the Year” from IT 168, the professional IT field website. In India, the HPH series also received the “Most Energy Efficient UPS” from SME Channel Connect Award. "Facilitating increased energy efficiency as well as ultimate availability, the Ultron HPH is an ideal solution for customers to achieve Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) optimization." says Mr. Suhas Joshi, Vice-President, Delta Power Solutions (India) Pvt. Ltd. With fully rated power (kVA=kW), leading AC-AC efficiency up to 96%, low harmonic pollution (iTHD<3%), digital signal processor (DSP) based technology, small footprint for better space utilization, Delta Ultron HPH is best suited for SMB segment.

Highlights for HPH series UPS are: Greater Flexibility

Ultimate Availability

Energy Efficiency:

The Ultron HPH series can be optimally deployed as standalone, N+X or hot stand-by configurations.

Besides high energy efficiency, the Ultron HPH series UPS also offers high system availability resulting from its wide input voltage range of -40% to +20%, key component redundancy and superior front-access serviceability. For the new models 60-120kVA, the advanced swappable interior architecture can isolate failures and significantly reduce maintenance time and cost.

High Energy Efficiency With three level IGBT topology, the Ultron HPH features 96% AC-AC efficiency and 99% efficiency in ECO mode. The Ultron HPH delivers fully rated power (output power factor=1, kVA=kW) providing maximum power capacity to the load without derating the UPS.

A synchronized multiple bus that achieves 2N reliability level is also available for 60-120kVA models. The series offers capacity expansion up to 4 units (up to 480kVA) without requiring extra hardware. The adjustable charging current and battery voltage help to adapt to different types of batteries, and the flexible battery quantity optimizes your battery investment. The Ultron HPH offers the right features to meet your specific requirements.

CHANNEL TREND

LIFESIZE

FOCUSING ON PARTNERS THAT ARE SMB-ORIENTED The demand for Video communications in business is growing, which is trigering the growth of partners. With Lifesize coming in with new vigour, naturally the partners’ opportunity becoming bigger. BY SATINDER KAUR skaur@smechannels.com

raditionally, enterprises had to buy separate solutions for the conference room camera, bridging equipment, video conferencing, and sharing presentations. Lifesize is the only company that combines all of those functions, and more, into one integrated service. The company’s focus remains on developing market-leading technology that delivers easy-to-use and scalable video communications to every person and every conference room in an organization. The combination of features, such as chat and recording into one application, are intuitive and custombuilt to meet customer needs. Since the launch of Lifesize Cloud, the company has added more than 2,000 paid customers – including Twilio, Survey Monkey, Omnicom Group and Evolution Gaming – to the service. In India, WHO, JPL, Reliance, Aircel are some of its exclusive clients.

Lifesize’s Vision Lifesize’s Regional Director (India and SAARC) Gagan Verma said, “The company is targeting mid level firms in the small and medium businesses segment. We are seeing a good response to the service in Asia Pacific and India region.”

Affordability is the key Simple, Easy Scalable and flexible are the three key points. The market dynamics are changing and today people want more and more features with a

26 SME CHANNELS MARCH 2016

GAGAN VERMA, REGIONAL DIRECTOR- INDIA & SAARC LIFESIZE lesser cost. Gagan added, “If you ask from all the parameters from the economical perspective, we are much better than an offer and ROI of more than 50 % in comparison to the conventional legacy of video conferencing. Lifesize Solutions are priced at an affordable level and addresses the user’s need to connect across a range of devices. Other than video conferencing; we are also offering audio conferencing as well as recording everything at the click of a button. When people tend to use our solution, they will expand further”.

Plans for Channel Partners LifeSize don’t sell directly. Channel partners are like company’s feet on the street and it has 70-80 data channel partners. Gagan further added, “We plan to increase our channel structure. It is important for an item to sell and today their understanding of the cloud is also very high. Their attitude should be positive and right. We are planning a new channel programme for our partners. We are focusing on partners that are SMB-oriented, and we are expanding to tier-II and tier-III cities as well. The USP of our business model is that we don’t compete with our partners. We permit partners to grow their own businesses in the video conferencing space as they seek the value of Lifesize Cloud.”

Road Ahead Backed by $17.5 million in funding from three

“BACKED BY $17.5 MILLION IN FUNDING FROM THREE PROMINENT SILICON VALLEY VENTURE FIRMS LIFESIZE IS COMPLETELY FOCUSED ON WINNING NEW CUSTOMERS.” prominent Silicon Valley venture firms – Redpoint Ventures, Sutter Hill Ventures and Meritech Capital Partners – Lifesize is completely focused on winning new customers as a high-growth cloud-based video collaboration and meeting platform company, and tackling the $7 billion global conferencing market head-on. Lifesize has plans to use this infusion of capital to: l Drive accelerated demand generation and customer acquisition l Invest in engineering headcount to bolster its leadership position with its integrated SaaS-based software and hardware technology l Further strengthen the alignment of its brand and the market leadership of its cloud-based services

CHANNEL TREND

AVAYA

VALUE-BASED SELLING FOR PARTNERS ARE KEYS TO AVAYA’S SUCCESS Avaya is the only vendor that delivers an enterprise, end-to-end, automated network architecture in the market today. Its SDN-Fx architecture is the first to deliver automation and programmability from the network core to the user edge, providing “connect anything, anywhere” simplicity – the perfect platform for building Internet of Things strategies and to underpin smart transformation. BY SATINDER KAUR skaur@smechannels.com

vaya’s origins are in innovation – the objective of the spin-off from Lucent Technologies back in 2000 was to give the people who knew the business best the flexibility and focus to accelerate innovation and improve operations. So it has always been focused on innovating business communications. Avaya’s status as a private company has also allowed Avaya to transition very quickly from a product company to a software/services provider to a cloud-based solutions provider as the market has shifted.

Betting big on innovation By spring time 2016 all Avaya products will become Software capable of being ran on a virtualized environment with the option of being acquired based on a consumption model as private or public cloud setup. This is a making Avaya’s innovation available to all types of customers across the globe, thus playing a crucial role in the digital transformation journey going on in all markets. Avaya is the only vendor that delivers an enterprise, end-to-end, automated network architecture in the market today. Its SDN-Fx architecture is the first to deliver

28 SME CHANNELS MARCH 2016

automation and programmability from the network core to the user edge, providing “connect anything, anywhere” simplicity – the perfect platform for building Internet of Things strategies and to underpin smart transformation. To take another example, Gartner has identified the “ambient user experience,” in which the customer experience seamlessly flows across different devices and interaction channels as the user moves from one place to another, as a key technology trend for the future. Avaya announced last year, with Plantronics, the ability to move a session from a mobile device and transition it to its video conferencing solution based on Scopia technology. This way it has already started the journey toward the ambient user experience.

Plan to invest in software Avaya today is a software company: software and services accounted for over 71% of company’s total revenue in fiscal 2015 and by April 2016, it is planning to offer all of solutions in an “as-a-service” model – the only vendor in this space that is able to do so. The number one driver for the move

towards software is Avaya’s customers, who are pushing it to be in that space. However, Avaya is not abandoning the current hardware business or partners that want to work with it in hardware space; Avaya is still going to provide continuous support for hardware. On the other side of the portfolio, Avaya is incredibly proud of its work in softwaredefined networking through its Fabric Connect SDN switch technology. It has tackled some of the world’s most challenging networks – its network powers the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, and powered the most recent Winter Olympics.

Game plan for Channel Partners Fadi Moubarak, Channel Director, Asia, Middle East and Afrcia, Avaya says, “As we continue to evolve into a solutions and services company, it is strategically important for us to reflect this transformation to the channel partners we work with. Value-based selling and the ability of channel partners to not only understand the IT requirements of our customers but their business outcomes, is key for us. Whether it is a large organization with a solid IT team, or smaller cus-

AVAYA

CHANNEL TREND

FADI MOUBARAK, CHANNEL DIRECTOR, ASIA, MIDDLE EAST AND AFRCIA, AVAYA

“TODAY, WE ARE THE ONLY COMPANY THAT SPECIALIZES IN COMPLEX BUSINESS COMMUNICATIONS WITH OPEN AND MOBILE SOFTWARE PLATFORMS AND THE NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE TO MEET UNDERLYING NEEDS.”

tomers with limited or no in-house technology support, we work with our partners to transform the conversation from a product and discount-led selling approach to a value and outcomes-based one. This is a process that will not only show value in the immediate short term, but will surely also differentiate our partners as they expand into new solutions and new verticals.” Avaya is working with its channel partners to give them the ammunition they need to go after vertical industry accounts, such as packaged solutions that have been proven enterprise-ready. All of the above is complemented with an upgrade of Avaya’s traditional pre-sales and post sales trainings to be made more solution oriented v/s product oriented, i.e. special focus on how to

deploy and support a solution rather than one product at a time. In addition, Avaya’s rebate programs are also being re-designed to reward partners adopting the above described value based selling approach. Fadi Moubarak further excerpts, “We’ve worked with partners to enable them to be there for customers who are increasingly moving from premises-based IT operations to cloud-based services. Many Avaya partners are now able to offer a cloud-based service through a wholesaler or distributor, or may be launching their own service based on Avaya Customer and Team Engagement solutions for enterprises or midmarket companies.”

Message for Partners...

Fadi Moubarak said, “Value-based selling and the ability of channel partners to not only understand the IT requirements of our customers but their business outcomes, is key for us. Whether it is a large organization with a solid IT team, or smaller customers with limited or no in-house technology support, we work with our partners to transform the conversation from products and discounts led selling approach to value and outcomes based one.” The most highly required skills at present is related to mobility, cloud, security, and networking. Besides this, Enabling transformation, understanding the big picture, and recognising the business challenges faced by organisations in the region are all very important attributes for the channel.

SME CHANNELS 29 MARCH 2016

COVER STORY

CYBER ATTACKS ARE YOU

PREPARED? A total number of 22,060, 71,780, 1,30,338, and 49,504 cyber-security incidents including phishing, scanning, spam, malicious code, website intrusion etc were reported to CERT-In during the year 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015 respectively. BY SATINDER KAUR skaur@smechannels.com

yber-Security is a key concern as it becomes a crucial element of the network, specially when networks grow in complexity especially managing numerous partners, suppliers, consultants, vendors and growing employees across various locations. Data Security is critical for Client information, payment information, bank account details, IP details – all of this information can be hard to replace and potentially dangerous if it falls into the wrong hands. Data lost due to disasters such as a flood or fire is crushing, but losing it to hackers or a malware infection can have much greater consequences. Hence, installation of Content Security Software is very crucial in this aspect. Sharing his thoughts, Altaf Halde, Managing Director - South Asia, Kaspersky Lab says, “IT Security is not a destination it is a journey! Enterprises today are faced with a hyper-

30 SME CHANNELS FEBRUARY 2016

aggressive threat environment, risking their data privacy and business continuity. Traditional IT security defences can’t keep pace.” According to Pravin Srinivasan, Lead, Security Architecture Sales, Cisco India & SAARC , “For a digitized world, security should be embedded into and across the extended network, from the data center and service provide network”. Despite the stringent security measures taken by organizations, several firms fail to safeguard critical data. According to Symantec’s Internet Security Threat Report (ISTR) 2015, India ranks number three globally in terms of detections for malicious activity, making information security a boardroom discussion rather than just an IT need. Norton by Symantec recently released a report titled Norton Cyber Security Insights Report which revealed that in 2015, an estimated 113 million Indians lost about Rs. 16,558 on an average to cybercrime. Understand-

ing the need for security, Rajeev Sreedhar, Director – Channel Sales (India & SAARC), Intel Security, “As the threat landscape becomes increasingly complex, the need for security too is becoming a critical factor for organisations. In such a scenario the channel partners play a key role in bridging the gap and become trusted advisors for customers in their security purchase decision.”

Trends influencing cyber security market... India is now the cynosure in the world wide scenario of cyber threats, owing to its technological advancements and the growing popularity of applications and mobile devices. Cyber attackers are growing both in terms of the number of attacks and level of sophistication, such as ‘targeted attacks’ and ‘advanced persistent threats’. It is critical for vendors and partners to be able to integrate security into their offerings to customers and provide

COVER STORY

SME CHANNELS 31 FEBRUARY 2016

COVER STORY

“IT SECURITY IS NOT A DESTINATION IT IS A JOURNEY! ENTERPRISES TODAY ARE FACING A HYPER-AGGRESSIVE THREAT ENVIRONMENT, RISKING DATA PRIVACY & BUSINESS CONTINUITY.” ALTAF HALDE, MD - SOUTH ASIA, KASPERSKY LAB

assurance against cyber threats. This is becoming more and more important as a criterion when customers evaluate different options. tWe the reason that every channel partner is willing to add a full suite of cyber security offerings to their portfolio that can meet all of their customer’s requirements, instead of a piecemeal approach with only a few security products. According to, Amit Nath ,Head of Asia Pacific (Corporate Business) F-Secure opines, “The rise of Internet of Things, which enables communication between machines, raises the possibility of appliances being manipulated by hackers. The widespread use of machine-tomachine (M2M) communication is only likely to boost the possibility of information misuse.” In general, the following trends are driving the adoption for security solutions in India: l Focus on vision of Digital India and Smart cities initiative will boost security spending: Cyber security will be applicable for securing broadband highways, universal access to phones, and the Public Internet Access program under the anvil of National Rural Internet Mission. l The mega trends in IT; IoT, cloud, and mobility, also drive security. l Mobile first economy is driving adoption of security solutions for endpoint security in India. Intel Security Labs research has seen an uptick in attacks of ransomware aimed at mobile

devices as more business shifts to mobile, and with the adoption of BYOD. l With the spectacular rise of ecommerce in India, the focus will be on creating secure transaction platforms so that confidential data of consumers can be secured from cyber threats

The Preferred Target… Small and medium-sized businesses often have less adequate security practices and resources. Attackers are increasingly targeting smaller businesses that have a relationship with a larger company. Symantec’s ISTR Vol. 20 stated that small businesses in India have been prone to twice as many phishing and virus-bearing emails compared to their larger counterparts. In the PwC’s recent Global State of Information Security Survey 2015, it is found that small firms, with annual revenues less than $100 million, cut security spending by 20% in 2014, while medium – those with revenues of $100 million to $999 million – and big companies increased security investments by 5%.Keeping this evolving scenario in mind, Ganesan Arumugam, Director – Partner & Commercial Sales, India, Symantec excerpts, “We offer focused solutions to SMEs. The key to the growth of any business is aiding customer needs and we equip partners to focus not only on providing core security, but also Managed services, Threat protec-

“THE RISE OF IOT RAISES THE POSSIBILITY OF APPLIANCES BEING MANIPULATED BY HACKERS.” AMIT NATH , HEAD OF APAC (CORPORATE BUSINESS) F-SECURE

32 SME CHANNELS FEBRUARY 2016

“FOR A DIGITIZED WORLD, SECURITY SHOULD BE EMBEDDED INTO AND ACROSS THE EXTENDED NETWORK, FROM THE DATA CENTER AND SERVICE PROVIDER NETWORK.” PRAVIN SRINIVASAN, LEAD, SECURITY ARCHITECTURE SALES, CISCO INDIA & SAARC

tion and Cloud Solutions. This provides partners a broader portfolio and wider range to engage with Symantec, resulting in increased revenue.” Experts say there are ways SMEs can improve their security without going beyond their budget. Things could improve this year as more SMEs are on the cloud, giving them orders of magnitude better resilience and security.

Cyber attacks Vs IT security Market… The level of cyber-attacks in the country has increased tremendously with more aimed at lucrative targets like financial services and IT organizations. In 2015, we saw larger, more mature organizations in India focus on risk-based approaches to security spending, while smaller and midmarket organizations continue to ramp up their efforts to incrementally improve their security posture. As per Gartner, the global cyber security market is estimated to grow to $170 billion (USD) by 2020, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 9.8 percent from 2015 to 2020. In India, Gartner says that the security market has grown to 8.3% in 2015. Security spending

Everything you do on your computer-faster.

550

520

Capacity: 240 to 960GB

Capacity: 120 to 480GB

SanDisk Solid State Drives

For enquiry, please contact

Product Manager:ŏ *'1.ŏŇĊāŏĉĉĈĊćĊĀĀĆĂČŏđŏDelhiŏġŏ 1. 2ŏ /%& ŏŇĊāŏĊĈāāĈăăĉĉĀČŏđŏMumbai - Gorakhnath Sutar +91 9004607866, đŏChennaiŏġŏ +$ ċŏ (!!)ŏŇĊāŏĊĉąĀĊĊąĊĉĀČŏđŏBangaloreŏġŏ *%0 ŏŇĊāŏĊĊĀāāĂąĈāĈČŏđŏHyderabad - Naveen Agarwal +91 9848208636, đŏAhmedabadŏġŏ $ (%*ŏ * $%ŏŇĊāŏĊĉĂąąĊĊĈąĊČŏđŏPuneŏġŏ * %,ŏ *'ŏŇĊāŏĊĊĂāĀāăĂĊĊČŏđŏKolkata - Debapriya Das +91 9836129296

COVER STORY

“WE EQUIP PARTNERS TO FOCUS NOT ONLY ON PROVIDING CORE SECURITY, BUT ALSO MANAGED SERVICES, THREAT PROTECTION AND CLOUD SOLUTIONS.” GANESAN ARUMUGAM, DIRECTOR – PARTNER & COMMERCIAL SALES, INDIA, SYMANTEC

will continue to grow in 2016 when revenue is projected to reach $1.23 billion.

Opportunity for Partners…. Channel partners play a key role in bridging the gap and become trusted advisors for customers in their security purchase decision. Partners can help customers to formulate a good incident response process, no matter how much money companies spend on security; no organization is 100% secure from breaches. Increasing number of cyber attacks certainly influences the demand of security solutions. But what truly is an opportunity for the channel partners is the power of the human connect and trust factor. They can also reach out to customers in areas where internet penetration is nil or slow. In accordance with the types of attacks, eScan partners are getting tied up with multiple organizations that are looking for securing their network and protect their confidential data from being breached. Sunil Kripalani, Senior Vice President – Global Sales & Marketing, eScan informs, “Every month the partners are approached by new SMEs/ Enterprises that are looking for IT security to stay safe and secure the

organizations’ digital assets.”

Partner’s preparedness… Over the years, the role of a partner has evolved from being a sales enabler to real custodian. Given the constantly evolving needs of customers, a partner is empowered to play the role of an advisor to customers on deployment of adequate solutions and services. Fortinet has invested greatly to provide increased marketing support to its channel partners with leadership content and telemarketing skills to provide qualified leads for extending sales reach and profitability. Shedding more light on this, Jitendra Ghughal, National Channel Manager, SAARC, Fortinet informs, “Fortinet has assigned a dedicated Channel Account Manager in each region for major partner accounts. These account representatives provide Fortinet a great deal of focus and its partners the peace of mind knowing Fortinet is fully dedicated to driving their business.” As far as Sophos is concerned, it understands the need to continually assess baseline security needs and quality of security posture and readiness of security teams at resource-constrained businesses to mitigate risks from potential attacks and

“AS THE THREAT LANDSCAPE BECOMES INCREASINGLY COMPLEX, THE NEED FOR SECURITY TOO IS BECOMING A CRITICAL FACTOR FOR ORGANISATIONS.” RAJEEV SREEDHAR, DIRECTOR – CHANNEL SALES (INDIA & SAARC), INTEL SECURITY

34 SME CHANNELS FEBRUARY 2016

“EVERY MONTH THE PARTNERS ARE APPROACHED BY NEW SMES LOOKING FOR IT SECURITY TO STAY SAFE AND SECURE THE ORGANIZATIONS’ DIGITAL ASSETS.” SUNIL KRIPALANI, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT – GLOBAL SALES & MARKETING, ESCAN

data breach incidents. Adding more information to this, Sunil Sharma, VP Sales- India & SAARC, Sophos excerpts, “We are committed to maximize business growth for partners and enable them with a wide range of support methods and means including sales & marketing support, deployment assistance, visibility & intelligence metrics, rebates and incentives. Additionally, we conduct regular meetings with our partners to assess on ground conditions and keep partners updated with the company’s growth strategy and product announcements.”

At the end… The most effective way to confront today’s dynamic threat landscape, evolving business models and considerable complexity is to make security as pervasive as the Internet of Everything itself – extending to wherever employees are and wherever data is. Enterprises need to build a security architecture that protects during the entire attack continuum: it should be capable of stopping threats before they enter, detect and block threats during their execution and take automated remedial actions after an attack is detected to clean it up and ensure it does not happen again.

COVER STORY

CISCO

FROM EMPOWERING PARTNERS

TO POWERED BY PARTNERS Not many vendors on the earth do care so much for the partners, as does by Cisco. Its 2016 Partner Summit at San Diego, particularly, not only had it flaunted on the backdrop but also the underlying message from all the leaders was meaning the same unequivocally. BY: SANJAY MOHAPATRA Sanjay@smechannels.com

osting nearly 1200+ partner organizations from all regions across the world, Cisco Partner Summit 2016 took off on 1st March at the San Diego Conference Center, city of San Diego, the historic bay city in California, USA only to become a glorious chapter in the history of Cisco events. The reason behind this statement is that this event was at its best for its transparency and clarity of communications of the senior leadership at Cisco. Even though there was not much excitement from the innovation point of view except the launch of DNA, but it was surely very refreshing event as it saw confidence building strategic statements from the senior leaderships, which were

36 SME CHANNELS MARCH 2016

mostly around connected world, digital marketing strategy, software strategy and even security strategy. This was not marked though by many but to me Wendy Bahr, Senior Vice President, Global Partner Organization, Cisco, opening the event does mean a lot about the intent of the company in terms of putting the partners ahead. Otherwise the marketing leads opens the session and anchors the show – at least for the opening day. With her jocular demeanor, when she managed the gigantic stage, it could only show her growing stature and the stature of the partners’ importance. Calling the partners for action around exceeding the customers’ expectation, she said, “The partners need to ask how Cisco strategy is relevant to them

and how it is profitable and relevant in today’s digital market. How we have to adapt to the technology differently and how we think about the business model differently and most importantly, how we market together differently. With the wave of change, how we measure success in terms of profitability, margin, customer satisfaction, so and so forth.” “We have a set of bench marks of our success though but are they enough. To win and grow, we need some new benchmarks. It represents success in this digital opportunity.” Cisco is more concerned now about securing the customers’ digital assets and second is selling more solutions and professional services to drive great value. Wendy highlighted some of the points where the focus should be riveted including sell-

CISCO

COVER STORY

you. We are going to align our programs for our mutual growth and incentives because if you win we win.”

Alignment.

Chuck Robbins, CEO, Cisco, hailing Pankaj Patel, EVP- Development, Cisco for his contribution and selflessness

ing security to carve success in digital world, selling solutions and professional services for driving value, so also to look at hybrid IT for speed and agility. Wendy said that today, the customers have to deal with multiple vendors in security for the best of breed but Cisco not only offers the best of the breed security but also security comes integrated with its solutions, which can protect the network - end-to-end. Partners who have been indulged into it are most profitable partners. Even the Cisco internal study says that, the No.1 driver for the Cisco’s partner profitability was security. It is the profit maximizer as it ensures high margin services. Another aspect of Cisco partnership is obviously the solution selling. Wendy pointed out that Cisco has average profitable partners’ category and most profitable partners’ category. With selling solutions - including vertical solutions along with professional services - a typical partner generates about 21% of revenue; whereas most profitable partners earn up to 72%. When the company talks about delivering cloud and hybrid IT, a typical average partner generates 18% of revenue whereas a most profitable partner earns 52% of revenue. Finally, a typical average partner earns 16% of revenue from the line of the business whereas most profitable partner earns 50% revenue selling outside corporate IT. So, the point Wendy made is that the partners and Cisco both have to adapt to how they are going to market differently as the opportunity is abundant. Giving the example, she said we renovated our headquarters campus and our Toronto office in order to save cost and offer better work experience. In our Toronto office, we teamed up with Philips lighting for the digital ceiling. We took five networks and combined that to one network and we saved 10% in Capex and a huge amount in Opex. We now have single secure IP network which controls lighting, heating and

cooling. And above all it became easy to manage. I can imagine why a customer would not have that kind of conversation.” Alluding to digitization, Wendy mentioned, “For many company’s customers’ experience becomes the competitive differentiator. So think about sales, marketing, customer center and e-commerce function, we wanted an integrated view of customer activities in all these functions, which give them visibility and hopefully drive intimacy among the workforce.” So digitization is a massive opportunity that Cisco brings to the table, which was never seen before, so also IOT and Analytics. Network was not so important earlier as it is now. So in order to take advantage and drive better profitability and growth, there has to be combining of new benchmark with the traditional benchmark. She said, “I am a pretty pragmatic person. I always think about what and how - so what Cisco is doing to evolve and how the partners can evolve to capture the opportunities. It starts with us. We have to adapt and evolve too. So based on the partners’ feedback, Cisco is adapting its partner strategy to give the best program, resources and experience. And there are three value principles attached to the Cisco’s evolution of partner strategy i.e. simplicity, alignment and how to evolve to exchange value.”

Simplicity Giving a paraphrase she said, “Anyone can make something complex, it takes real skill to make something simple”. So the heart of our programme is simplifying our programs. The speed we are acquiring companies and driving portfolio we must absolutely get to a holistic program representing partners, services and software which are easier to use and exchange values in better ways. That is my commitment. It is going to be journey. My promise is that there will be no surprises but frequent and transparent communications with

She maintained, “We have to do more to align 20,000 people get up at Cisco and sell with all of their people in sales and marketing to drive demand to accelerate growth. When you align your sales and marketing people in the same core area, you drive 400% revenue growth. That is a big number. But the challenge is that we have such a broad portfolio! You might say we are not sure where the top priorities are for Cisco. So you need to keep in mind that it is security, software, datacenter, digital ready network that you have to focus on.” “We have a massive opportunity to upgrade our collective install base and we have an exciting news to tell you how we are going to do that. We have got strategies with geo region priorities, which are aligned with our corporate strategy. And we have to do a better job in aligning our teams to go to market with the ecosystem partners in a simpler, faster and easier way.”

Evolving and Exchanging Value. She added, “I personally value that the foundation of this relationship lies in both the partners feeling the mutual value exchange and benefiting equally – creating a balance on both the sides. So as you adapt and evolve with new capabilities to take on the world, we are going to evolve and exchange value with you. And value comes in many forms – in incentives, enablement, expertise and assets.”

Engage: Apart from the above all she called the partners to access Cisco’s digital marketing tools and support, event to customize it or personalize it as per their requirement in the region. Leveraging the digital marketing strategy, she encouraged the partners to connect with the customers through social media and engage in faster decision making process. She added, “What if you had a simple and integrated view of your marketing funds – automatic claiming and reimbursement process!” She revealed about Cisco’s launching of ‘Partner Engage’ that week - the digital marketing services. This will involve analytics to create the best in class campaign for the customers. It comes in 12 languages and available globally to every partner. It is built on the new partner central platform and represents simplicity in aligning our marketing teams and exchange values in new and different ways. She quipped, “I am pretty excited about it. Our marketing team have done a great job.”

SME CHANNELS 37 MARCH 2016

COVER STORY

CISCO

CHUCK ROBBINS, CEO, CISCO

“THE WORLD IS MOVING ON AT A PACE WHICH WE CANNOT EVEN FATHOM.”

WENDY BAHR, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, GLOBAL PARTNER ORGANIZATION, CISCO.

“BASED ON THE PARTNERS’ FEEDBACK, CISCO IS ADAPTING ITS PARTNER STRATEGY TO GIVE THE BEST PROGRAM, RESOURCES AND EXPERIENCE.”

Value Incentive Programme. There are 10,000 SKUs in VIP. She said, “In the past, we had 4600 SKUs for security in VIP and we had 7 different pay outs levels. Now we have four categories in four account levels. It is simpler and easier for you to understand how we deliver value.” Similarly, for 2016, Cisco is creating different role for the partners under its software partner programme. For example, coming May 1st the company is unveiling the role of lifecycle adviser role. Another role that the company is launching is software integrator role. This is about programmability, integration and API management and DevOps. Chuck Robins, CEO, Cisco, said, “The world is moving on at a pace which we cannot even fathom. The geopolitical dynamics is impacting our business every day. The micro economics shifts that are occurring, not to mention the technology transitions and above all, the customers have changing expectations. And one thing I can see that if we work together they can achieve their business priorities.” “I am here for last 29 years and have never seen anything so fast as it impacts our business now. At the same time, we are seeing massive transformation – the digital transformation we are talking about. In just next 4 years from 18 billion devices to 50 billion devices will be connected. Cities around the world are going to embrace these tran-

38 SME CHANNELS MARCH 2016

sition and those who are strong are going to do it now regardless of the dynamics of the economy and political systems,” he added. The IT organizations are under tremendous pressure now because they have to move faster with the growth of the business. The CEOs of the organizations are finding no clues as to how six people organization from the garage are able to rip their business. They are not able to understand what is happening. As per Chuck, here Cisco can help them by offering them the best technologies. Cisco’s customer experience centre in San Jose, finds at least 200 customers’ footfalls in last 2 quarter. The average number of attendees per customer is 13 and 70 % of the attendees are from outside of IT organizations. Chuck said, “To me that is astonishing. This speaks volume about what is happening with our customer base. It really defines how we have to change the way we think about engaging with our customers and where they are focused on and we can help them in driveing the outcome. It is not happening in the companies only; it is happening in the countries around the world.” “We have country digitization efforts underway in France, Germany, Italy, UK, India, Mexico, China, etc. And, they fundamentally belief that the technology is going to be at the heart of their GDP growth for next decade, it is going to be at the heart of job creation, drive innovations and

start-ups. In last two months I have met 17 heads of states. They want to understand Cisco and how the technology giant can help them take advantage of the technology. When they think about how Cisco can help the countries around the world to evolve, Cisco has to evolve itself. Chuck maintained, “We have the tremendous history – together all of us – of bringing value to our customers. Let us get everybody connected. We have enabled e-commerce, we have enabled customer service and those are very important foundation enablers. When we started convergence. we converged technologies to IP and we together provide value to the customers and as a result of those technologies all running on a common protocol on internet. We deal with voice and video on the service providers’ space. We converge wired and wireless networks. We deal with data center. We just have done applications integrated with infrastructure.” Now it is about continuing with connected devices from 18 billion to 52 billion in next four years and 100s of billions in next decade. Those connections will be convergence of protocols too. Cisco and its partners have to understand the insights of these connections as to what value these connections can bring. As per Chuck, the moment they connect those insights to the real business problems that the customers have and

CISCO

that is where things will be changed and it will be a kind of walking to the future. He said, “We see customers bringing people outside IT, we see CEOs bring top tier executives and these are healthcare companies, insurance companies, elevator companies, financial companies. They are coming in to understand how technology is fundamentally changing the business. And they are not thinking technology as the cost center any more but as part of their strategy. So when they are thinking about their future of business, they actually are looking for different things from the future partners. They are looking for companies who understand, who have vision and who have scale. Because when they are talking about connecting thousands of mining operations or millions of elevators, they need a company and a set of partners and an ecosystem, who can bring software assets, services capability, hardware and solutions. And that is the opportunity is ahead of all of us.” “Our team came up with the notion that there is not going to be datacenters but remote centers for

data. So instead of bringing data to the computing assets, we have to bring the computing assets to the data, which is completely different way of thinking about how it is going to be architected in the future, which says network is going to be more important than ever before,” Chuck quipped. “And there is a small issue around security and it is going to be everywhere. And we have customers who have bought the best of breed boxes. We need to build an enterprise based on perimeter. So we buy boxes to fill the castle. Our castle is being very distributed now and we need to have an architecture for security as customers now realize that more and more and more. And I am so proud of what our team has done with the Sourcefire acquisition and integration; so also with OpenDNS and our internal innovations.” So, the basis of Cisco’s technology coverage is its acquisitions over the years – to be specific 192 companies that the company has acquired and the latest ones are Jasper, the IoT platform and CliQr Technologies, the cloud technology enabler. Besides, ever since Chuck assumed the new role,

he has been insistence on execution of capability building with a faster speed. Chuck says, “Cisco spends around US$ 6 billion on R&D and leverage the acquisition capabilities in order to go faster. We have over US$2 billion invested on 100+ startups and 40 funds around the world.” Cisco also developed the code development last year along with the big webscale teams and the team has done the amazing job. Hailing Pankaj Patel, EVP- Development, Cisco as responsible for all the futuristic developments, Chuck termed him as selfless person who does not care about himself but only about the company and the partners.

Finally… Chuck believes that the relationship between the partners and Cisco is poised on trust and powered by trust more than anything else, which is the biggest asset for both the partners to carry the work forward faster and faster.

LAUNCHING

PlugPC 2

COVER STORY

Convert Your

HDMI TV

World’s Smallest PC

into

SMART TV + PC

30% Cherry trail Processor

More Performance with

GIGABIT

Wireless Lan ( Dual Band )

12 Core GPU USB 3.0 & more

Call For Free Demo

1800 200 2444

Intel Atom QC 1.84GHz

Wi-Fi Gigabite(100/1000)

2GB RAM

Bluetooth 4.0

32GB Storage

3 Years Warranty

Coming Soon

Available with:

Visit Us

www.rdp.in

6799 /-

7899 /-

www.rdp.online

RDP Workstations Pvt. Ltd. #403, Ashoka Capitol, Opp: KBR Park, Road no-2, Banjara Hills, Hyderabad - 500034, TS. 040-6457 1110.

SME CHANNELS 39 MARCH 2016

SME CHAT

RITU GUPTA, DIRECTOR, MARKETING, CONSUMER AND SMALL BUSINESS, DELL INDIA

DELL CAMPASSADORS TO CREATE COMPUTING CHAMPIONS IN THE CAMPUS In a bid to spread computing education among the budding technocrats and entrepreneurs in the institutes, Dell has started its Campassadors programe. SME Channels spoke to Ritu Gupta, Director, Marketing, Consumer and Small Business, Dell India to know its spread and impact in the country. Excerpts…

What is the rationale behind creating Dell Campassadors Program? India is a rapidly evolving, knowledge-driven economy. The current generation has a growing interest towards understanding the potential that technology holds. They are advocates of personal PC education and technology usage in day to day activities. The Dell Campassadors program is a part of our youth outreach program, which also includes the Back to School, Back to College and Dell Champs campaigns. The Campassador programme reaches out to a segment of technology users which holds the potential to leverage its power in both their personal and professional growth i.e. the college going youth. Through the programme, Dell appoints Campassadors who represent the brand on their campuses and showcase the use of technology in everyday life, using peer to peer engagement to learn and share through computing. These Campassadors engage with their fellow students on campus, through various activities in order to spread PC learning and education among this particular segment of technology users.

40 SME CHANNELS MARCH 2016

How many institutes and how many cities have you covered under this programme? Dell has appointed Campassadors for 43 colleges in 17 cities all over the country. Each college under the Campassadors programme has two Campassadors that represent the brand on their respective campuses. 2015 was the first year of the programme and we had 86 Campassadors that actively participated in all on campus activities under the programme and were successful in helping their peers to understand the new routes that PC education can open in an individual’s professional and personal lives. What are the achievements of this year? To mark the end of the first year of the Dell Campassadors program, 20 of the top Campassadors from around the country were invited for a felicitation event in Bangalore. This provided a platform where Campassadors from different parts of the country came together to share their experiences and also gain insights from their counterparts. The Campassadors also had the opportunity to interact with the brand on many

“WITH THIS ENGAGEMENT PROGRAM WE WANT TO CREATE A DEEPER CONNECT WITH THE YOUTH.” levels including sessions with various company personnel. The Campassadors met with several Dell leaders from HR, R&D and Social Media & Marketing, and had interactive discussions on invention, innovation and the power of social media. This was done with the focus to further empower the young minds in the room to go and follow their dreams and to fuel their entrepreneurial spirit. It was a successful first year of Dell Campassadors and we saw participation on a large scale, both on campus as well as social media platforms. What is the road map of this programme? Campassadors will continue to be a part of our youth outreach programme this year. Dell believes that the youth is where our next wave technology users will come from, and we will continue to engage with college youth to inspire them to adopt personal technology that can play a key role in their overall development. (To read the complete story log onto www. smechannels.com)

BUDGET 2016

BUDGET 2016 GOOD FOR IT SECTOR

BUT

NOT GOOD ENOUGH Apart from clear reforms for the common man and attempts to spur the rural economy, the Budget does address the problems of the corporate sector, but only partially. With long term visions, the budget comes across as realistic and futuristic, but in the current IT scenario, it is being perceived as but a mixed bag. BY CHITRESH SEHGAL csehgal@smechannels.com

n 29th February, Finance Minister Mr. Arun Jaitley announced the Modi government’s Budget for the fiscal year 2016, which encountered mixed reactions from key players in the IT sector across the country. The key highlights of the budget show a clear shift in the focus from urban to rural growth with hopes that a budding agricultural sector will in turn become a catalyst for the economy heralding towards an all-inclusive growth. Most IT majors both domestic and international were appreciable of the budget. Keeping the Make in India vision of the NDA Government, the budget aims at establishing technology as the backbone of the Indian economy. With an attempt to bridge the gap between the haves and have-nots, it seeks to adhere to the FM’s 9 pillars of Digital India. The Budget vies to transform the economy into knowledge based providing tax exemptions and support for startup businesses, digital literacy to rural India, recapitalization of banks, backing to domestic

42 SME CHANNELS MARCH 2016

manufacturing. The common man benefits from tax relief in HRA. However, going in detail, some unmet expectations from the corporate sector are perceived as cavities which might slow down or hinder the efficiency of Finance Ministers economic model for the fiscal year. The budget only partially attempts to transform the electronics sector from assembly centric to a manufacturing one with preferential duty not extended to some vital laptop/ notebook components. A reduction in incentives towards R&D initiative could also decelerate the growth of the IT sector while the fact that GST wasn’t removed came as a bitter blow. While trying to make the budget all inclusive and universally acceptable, the finance ministry might have fallen short of its perceived vision and it remains to be seen if the execution model is good enough to back the reforms the budget aims to implement. With clear emphasis on transparency and accountability, the policy makers have taken a firm step forward in hopes of restructuring and reviving the economy. Key players praised the

budget for advocating transformation through digital integration with digital literacy key to schemes like Digital India and Startup India. According to Vivekanand Venugopal, Vice President and GM, Hitachi Data Systems India, “ As a key aspect of PM Modi’s Digital India initiative, the proposals announced by the finance minister on e-governance entails using technology to speed up governance decisions and plans. Our greatest opportunity is to help achieve the government’s vision of using technology for citizen services to create collaboration, flexibility and productivity. We believe, the budget will help India to take-off on a faster growth trajectory and create a digitally connected India.” With more than 6 crore people to be touched, the government needs to implement a steady and effective PPP model. MN Vidyashankar, President IESA was full of praise for the policies, “Government has shown great intent in promoting the start-up ecosystem in India. With Government’s announcement to promote women entrepreneurship, and entrepre-

BUDGET 2016

neurship in the SC/ST category, we will have an immense role to play along with MSME in making this initiative successful.” On the economic front, policies like extension of timeline for the Section 10AA of SEZ Act till 2020, widening the scope of Section 80JJAA by bringing in the Services sector, reduction of holding period for investment in unlisted companies will work in easing out set up and business operations across the private sector. These reforms are expected to boost the already burgeoning start up eco system in the country. “The Government of India’s Union Budget 2016 has offered tax exemptions for small business units with a turnover of up to Rs 2 crore (up from the earlier exemption limit of 1 crore), which will act as a stimulus for these units to expand their business. Close to 60% of SMBs report anticipating an increase in their IT spending up to 9% in the coming quarters.” commented Partha Sarathi Sengupta, AVP at AMI-Partners. “Spurred by the ‘Digital India’ revolution, the SMB sector is poised to act as a catalyst to bring about socio-economic

transformation.” added Sengupta. This was echoed by Ganesh S, CEO and MD, Dun & Bradstreet Technologies, “On the corporate tax front, a start has been made in removal of exemptions the full details of which are yet to be analyzed. New manufacturing companies have been given an option of incorporating at a 25% tax rate (without availing exemptions) which is a good step to attract and encourage investment in a fairly neutral basis. Also in terms of reducing tax disputes a number of steps have been announced, which are welcome. If the spirit behind these announcements is carried forward in implementation, it will be a huge boost to the ease of doing business.” According to Altaf Halde, Managing Director - South Asia, Kaspersky Lab, “The overall Union Budget 2016-17 is encouraging for the common man, especially the tax relief in HRA. Start-ups getting 100% tax exemption for 3 years except MAT is again a good call taken by the government, as this will entice budding entrepreneurs to start their own business. Besides, it will also help

in creation of more and more jobs in the country. Overall, it’s a balanced and realistic budget in difficult times.” In the budget, the nation’s leaders also realized the importance of information technology in facilitating good governance and ease of public and private operations across the country. Adopting technological means across SMBs, digitalization of land records, e-applications and e-assessments will go a long way in streamlining public administration and interaction with ministries and departments. Ashraf-el-Arman, MD, Xerox India welcomed this decision saying, “The Government plans to establish a digital depository of School Leaving Certificates, College Degrees, Academic Awards and Mark sheets for easy access for students, institutions and employers. We believe there is an opportunity for us to collaborate with the government, institutions and employers and work with them in the vision of creating a Digital Depository in India.” Emphasis on IT is also highlighted in nation-

SME CHANNELS 43 MARCH 2016

BUDGET 2016

ARUN JAITLEY, FINANCE MINISTER

MOHAN REDDY, CHAIRMAN, NASSCOM

KOICHIRO KOIDE, MD, NEC (INDIA)

“THE GOVERNMENT ACKNOWLEDGES THE ROLE OF TAXPAYERS IN NATION BUILDING. EACH RUPEE OF TAX CONTRIBUTES TOWARDS THE GOVERNMENT’S EFFORTS TO PROVIDE BETTER INFRASTRUCTURE, RURAL REVIVAL AND SOCIAL WELL-BEING.“

“BUDGET 2016 ONLY PARTIALLY COVERS THESE PRIORITIES. EXTENSION OF SECTION 10AA FOR SEZ UNITS TILL 2020 IS A POSITIVE OUTCOME THOUGH THE IMPOSITION OF MAT ON START UPS WILL NOT ALLOW THE FULL IMPACT OF THE BENEFITS TO BE REALIZED”

“THE BUDGET HAS LAID OUT BIG INVESTMENTS FOR THE INFRASTRUCTURE SECTOR WHICH IS A POSITIVE IN THE TRANSFORMATION OF INDIA. WE HOPE THAT GOVERNMENT’S ONGOING REFORM PROGRAMME WILL ALSO RESULT IN THE PASSING OF THE GST BILL SOON”

wide implementation of schemes like Universal ID (Aadhaar Card) and Universal Account Number (UAN for PF transfers), which will prove immensely beneficial for citizens over time. The government also aims at improving infrastructure in the smaller, lesser developed cities which otherwise have the potential to become major commercial hubs. Zakir Rangwala, Country Head at ESS Distribution, echoed the ideology saying, “This budget’s allocation of Rs 1282 Cr to Digital India Program, Telecommunications and Electronic Industries and Rs 7205 Cr allocation to Smart Cities & Atal Mission for Rejuvenation & Urban Transformation (AMRUT) look impressive.” He added, “As an IT Company, we are happy to see that the new budget brings technology into various sectors

from agriculture to education to healthcare and infrastructure, and rural areas are targeted equally as the urban centers.” According to the PM, digitalization is the key to modernization of India. The Union government supports this stance and promotes inherence of digital media through points like tax exemptions on phone bills and data usage, e-filling of return for higher income groups and implementation of Electronic Verification Code (EVC) for digitally signing official documents. Points like e-registering, online public forums and electronic income tax assessments aim to make tasks like public grievance and redressal, tax hearings completely paperless. The government hopes to touch more than 60 million people with its initiative to implement digital literacy and this tough task

demands marked improvements in the current IT infrastructure of the country, something that the budget does address. Koichiro Koide, MD, NEC (India) praised the approach, “The Budget has laid out big investments for the infrastructure sector which is a positive in the transformation of India. The statutory backing for Aadhaar will reduce leakage and ensure targeted disbursal of subsidies to the needy, eventually driving financial inclusion. We hope that government’s ongoing reform programme will also result in the passing of the Goods and Services Tax bill soon, which in turn will contribute to the ease of doing business in India”. Various aforementioned points make the implementation of Information Technology inevitable across both public and private sectors.

44 SME CHANNELS MARCH 2016

BUDGET 2016

RAJESH AGARWAL, CO-FOUNDER, MICROMAX

ARUN JAITLEY, FINANCE MINISTER

“THE PROPOSAL ON REDUCTION IN EXCISE DUTY ON INPUTS, PARTS AND COMPONENTS, SUBPARTS FOR MANUFACTURE OF CHARGER/ADAPTER, BATTERY AND WIRED HEADSETS/ SPEAKERS, BEING EXEMPTED FROM 12.5% TO NIL IS A WELCOME MOVE.”

THE OVERALL UNION BUDGET 2016-17 IS ENCOURAGING FOR THE COMMON MAN, ESPECIALLY THE TAX RELIEF IN HRA. START-UPS GETTING 100% TAX EXEMPTION FOR 3 YEARS EXCEPT MAT IS AGAIN A GOOD CALL TAKEN BY THE GOVERNMENT.“

The budget reiterates the 7.6% GDP growth rate for the country and provides a slew of incentives for the rural, agricultural sector to enable inclusive growth. However, in the backdrop of global economic volatility, there are unmet expectations on policy announcements that enable ease of doing business for our sector. Mohan Reddy, Chairman, NASSCOM said “Our wish list for Budget 2016 included three key priorities – policy bottlenecks including ease of business; nurturing start-ups, products and ecommerce sector; and clarifications on transfer pricing to enable inward investments in India. Budget 2016 only partially covers these priorities. Extension of Section 10AA for SEZ units till 2020 is a positive outcome though the imposition of MAT on start ups will not allow the full impact of the

benefits to be realized” Rajesh Agarwal, Co-Founder, Micromax Informatics Ltd. said, “Make in India continues to be an important agenda for the government as the new manufacturing companies are going to reap benefits in the segment. The proposal on reduction in excise duty on inputs, parts and components, subparts for manufacture of charger/adapter, battery and wired headsets/speakers of mobile phone, being exempted from 12.5% to nil is a welcome move and will eventually promote the manufacturing of these components domestically.” The private sector, though bound to play a huge part in the implementation of government policies, is perceived to have been left a little wanting in the budget. Concerns like dual taxes levied on IT and software services, higher

46 SME CHANNELS MARCH 2016

tax burdens for domestic investors, continued imposition of Minimum Alternative Tax, and insufficient backing of R&D in the IT sector are some factors that will hinder the growth of the sector at a warranted rate. S. Rajendran, CMO ACER India reiterated this mixed feeling, “Keeping the fiscal deficit target intact sends a reassuring message to the international community on the government’s rectitude for prudence in managing the economy. One did expect some good income tax relief for the salaried class; that’s been a letdown. And on IT hardware like PCs, the focus on enabling manufacturing, while encouraging, falls short of its scope by excluding PC products and limiting it to rather insignificant things like batteries and adaptors”. Hoping for special exemptions and relief from CGT, many players in the sector were left a bit disappointed. Mahesh Lingareddy, Founder & Chairman, Smartron, India was slightly critical of the budget, “To boost the morale of entrepreneurs, the capital gain tax could have been exempted for investment in upcoming industries. Keeping in mind the employees of an organization, the taxes should have been deferred for the Employee Stock Option Plan (ESOP) to buy the vested stocks. Also, the taxes should have been waived for five years for start-ups on revenue of 1000 cr rather than 25 cr.” This perceived shortcoming of the budget was duly reiterated across the sector. M. P. Vijay Kumar, CFO, Sify Technologies shared the feeling, “Capital asset formation is not happening and we are not seeing many measures in that direction. Exports are key. With present exchange rates and the ‘Make in India’ campaign, exports should have been given some thrust. We cannot bank on present oil prices to support our forex needs in long run. As profit is already after tax and there is dividend tax of 20%, another tax in the hands of the individual is unwarranted. It will also impact HNIs investing in start-ups / encouraging enterprise.” In all, the budget seeks to adhere to new technologies and innovations in order to achieve modernization across the country. However, with a shift in focus towards financial restructuring at the grassroots level, many concerns on the enterprise level appear to have been overlooked. Although the budget provides plenty of opportunity for IT companies to grow with implementation of technology among various sectors, a few unaddressed concerns and policies could prove unwanted hurdles, thus leaving the sector somewhat unsatisfied with the Budget 2016.

WOMEN IN INDIAN IT

THE LEADING LADY

ARATI NAIK COO, SMARTLINK NETWORK SYSTEMS LTD

strengths. What I also practice is taking constructive feedback; be it from internal people, partners or end-consumer, taking feedback and acting on it makes for effective working in any organisation. Lastly and most importantly, for Smartlink its people are its strength and as a leader, it motivates me every day to do better with them and for them. Core Strength Honestly speaking, a good leader can be defined by various different parameters. Theodore Roosevelt said, “In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.” Being decisive and taking correct action is most important in leading any organisation and my ability to take quick decision, I believe is one of my core

Greatest Achievement so far Our main focus was to position DIGISOL as a major brand in the mid-market segment and in short span of time DIGISOL has succeeded in capturing a good market share with visibility and availability across the country. We emerged as a strong player in Home and SOHO segment and got good market share for broadband routing. Over the last year, we man-

aged to get a good foothold in wireless segment and did significantly well in the data switching market in India due to our end-to-end solution offering while strengthening our focus on the Government, Education and BFSI segments. Vision on Indian IT We have drawn up a road map that will focus on high potential verticals and the company will deploy significant resources to capture opportunities and make strategic investments to improve its competitiveness in the marketplace. DIGISOL wants to be one of the key drivers of the digital India with the range of products like Routers, Network switching CCTV cameras and IP Surveillance solutions. The core strength of DISISOL is ‘Networking’ and networking is an integral part of making digitally connected India a reality.

THE LEADING LADY

DAISY CHITTILAPILLY DIRECTOR, PARTNER ORGANIZATION, CISCO INDIA AND SAARC

Core Strength Brené Brown says “It’s not about winning. It’s not about losing. It’s about the courage to show up when there are no guarantees.” And I feel that’s the most important characteristic for any leader to be successful. If the choice is between comfort and courage or between the side-lines and making a difference; I prefer the latter..

Greatest Achievement so far While there are several milestones, one thing that excites me the most is enabling my team members. In this era of high performing knowledge workers, it is also critical to build a holistic, conducive work environment so the team remains self-driven and motivated. I believe leadership is about enabling the team, setting a vision and driving the team towards achieving that vision. A good manager consistently strives to empower her team, while at the same time instilling a sense of accountability in the team members. Major Decisions Partnerships are more important now than ever. There’s a challenge and opportunity in front of us and we have to change the way we do things. Over the years, I have realized that part-

ners prefer to work with a vendor who invests in their overall growth. In addition to this, partners want to move into new markets and expect the vendor to help them move up the value chain. It’s also the vendor’s responsibility to create new market leads, generate demand and enable partners to capitalize on new market opportunities. Vision on Indian IT In India we are seeing the rapid convergence of mobile, social, data and cloud which is in turn driving the digital disruption in the country. Already today you can book a cab from your phone, do a money transfer over Whatsapp or order groceries online. The Internet of Everything and the enabling of digital disruption is the biggest disruption today.

SME CHANNELS 47 MARCH 2016

WOMEN IN INDIAN IT

THE LEADING LADY

K V SUDHA EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, DEVELOPMENT ENGINEERING, DELL

Core Strength I believe that operational excellence that is subject to continuous improvement and team work are my core tenets. Greatest Achievement so far I think my biggest achievement is to have worked as a developer in complex projects in the domain of defense and safety critical systems. I am one of the very few developers to have programmed in

Ada language – which is an object-oriented highlevel computer programming language. Additionally, on the technical side, I am an early adopter and champion of Test automation. Managerially, I have built development and test teams in India from scratch and achieved the capability to incubate and deliver new products. I have also been involved in bringing customer focus to engineering along with the culture of innovation. Major Decisions Some key strategic initiatives undertaken under my leadership post coming to a consensus with relevant teams are as below l Investing in capability development of team as well as lab infrastructure which transformed our group from being a test execution focused team to being a center of excellence for enter-

prise validation. l Investing in a customer experience center within the engineering lab, bringing in the customer focus to engineering Vision on Indian IT I have been fortunate to be one of the early birds in the Indian IT industry and have seen the landscape change from the country being known for IT services to being a hub for e-commerce/mcommerce start-ups of today. I can segment my views into three categories. l First is talent; there has been an increase in the availability of senior technical talent, which was a problem in the past. l Second is the innovation aspect. . l Thirdly, we have the addressable market. Indians have been very good adopters of technology.

THE LEADING LADY

KIRANMAI DUTT PENDYALA CORPORATE VP, HUMAN RESOURCES, AMD GREATER ASIA 500 Company but being based in Hyderabad and being a Director on the board, I consider as a wonderful recognition of my contribution to the organization, and a testimony of my competence and character. I firmly believe that nothing comes served on a platter. One needs to have the confidence to step up and be a player to reckon with by delivering against all odds, so that one is not only noticed, but also recognised and rewarded.

Core Strength I believe that passion, focus on deliverables, and taking the team along have helped me be successful as a leader, with my core strengths being the underlying values of integrity and fairness. Greatest Achievement so far Rising to the Layer 3 Leadership role of a Fortune

48 SME CHANNELS MARCH 2016

Major Decisions Crafting the horizontal and focusing on its significance among multiple business verticals, in order to build synergy among diverse business groups, is considered to be a very relevant and significant process. In the complex matrix structures multinational companies’ deal with, this is instrumental in creating harmony. This constant focus encourages collaborators and moves the

organization towards building a robust culture and healthy talent retention. Vision on Indian IT The Indian IT market has grown rapidly in the last two decades, and is currently on the path of consolidation, given shrinking margins and profitability. The IT services and engineering talent from India has made its mark across the globe. As the saying goes, ‘The proof of the pudding is in its eating’ – several of Indian IT Services majors such as TCS, Infosys, Wipro, Cognizant and Tech Mahindra, offer IT talent and IT services for a majority of Fortune 500 Companies. Similarly, the ‘Make in India’ campaign by the Government of India is creating the right ripples of excitement in the landscape, to broaden the start up hunger among millennials in India, and also tap into the potential for building the right ecosystem.

WOMEN IN INDIAN IT

THE LEADING LADY

SUCHITA VISHNOI DIRECTOR - MARKETING (INDIA & SAARC), TREND MICRO

Core Strength I’m a results driven marketing strategist with record achievement in targeting niche B2B & B2C audiences for IT products & services using conventional & new age Marketing tools & Media. My core strengthens lies in my deep understanding of Marketing processes, ROI & Revenue driven execution. At Trend Micro, I currently drive Commercial & Channel Marketing for India & SAARC region.

Greatest Achievement so far I’ve been instrumental so far in driving company’s introduction of Cloud & Virtualization Security within India and to be an advocate of Trend Micro’s Leadership in Cloud Security. Owing to my experience, my achievement lies in being the key resource to plan & drive all Value & Volume Marketing Plans for India & the SAARC region and also in establishing specialisation in all facets of Marketing, Corporate Communication, Media Relations, Sales Promotion & Lead Generation Programs, Brand promotion, Research & Strategic Planning. Major Decisions The overall planning, developing and execution of End user brand building & demand generation programs across Enterprise, MB, SB & Consumer segments has certainly helped us move the

ladder. Furthermore, planning and execution of the go to market strategies and campaigns across segments from initialization to evaluation with results metrics measurement has also contributed significantly in yielding timely results. Vision on Indian IT The Indian IT sector is faced with a lot of challenges; however, the up side of it is that the solutions to these challenges fall within our capabilities. Much has been said about how cybercriminals creatively devise ways to lock in even the most unlikely of targets. Next generation technologies in IT market landscape will also be seen as viable targets. The continuing growth of smartconnected home devices will drive cyber attackers to use unpatched vulnerabilities as a way to stage a full-blown attack.

THE LEADING LADY

SYAMALA LANKA GLOBAL DELIVERY HEAD AT WELLS FARGO INDIA SOLUTIONS.

Core Strength Goal Orientation and Conviction Greatest Achievement so far More than 24 years of in-depth experience in managing Solution Delivery, Operations, Managed Services, and Transformation Initiatives, I successfully managed large-scale signature programs of complex business processes, tech-

nology landscape and industry specific solutions across the verticals like healthcare, manufacturing, energy and utilities. A strong people leader with strategic focus, I have led and managed large teams across geographies in true global technology delivery models. I have extensive knowledge of various engagement models, transition methodologies and delivery of business value and performance excellence. I have passionately driven delivery excellence initiatives that increased predictability of technology delivery, and improved the end-customer value and satisfaction. Major Decisions l Initiating customer engagements based on trust and credibility, have enabled long running relationships with customers over years l Creating Shared services models helped orga-

nization not just reap the benefit of efficiency gain, but also better and forward looking operating models l Delivery excellence initiatives have resulted in cultural shift in the way large organizations worked, beyond improving the quality of services Vision on Indian IT India remains an attractive market for IT with huge access to talent and infrastructure. With rapidly evolving digital technologies and mushrooming tech startups, we are certainly in for massive growth in Information Technology. Areas such as Internet of Things (IoT), Cloud, Big Data & Analytics have become important than ever; However - quality over cost, Innovation over traditional offerings, business knowledge over pure technical capability are driving decisions big time.

SME CHANNELS 49 MARCH 2016

TOP-30 CHANNEL LEADERS

LEADER

ALTAF HALDE MANAGING DIRECTOR - SOUTH ASIA, KASPERSKY LAB

“We would like to increase our presence in Class A & B cities too with our cloud offering”

Core strength as a leader To get the best vision you need lots of ideas, and people’s support. I believe my strength really lies in motivating my external team of partners as well as internal staff members to perform their best and produce results that are in line with the company’s growth expectations. I am collaborative in my approach, and believe in leading by example – I believe I am passionate about the vision, in turn, inspires my team to get on-board.

Distinctive Decision Making Trust and commitment are very important to keep our partners engaged and motivated. We have been able to gain channel confidence due to our strong channel policies, deal registration mechanism, incentives etc. With minimal channel conflicts, we have been able to assure good bottom line for our partners. This has attracted a lot of new partners and consequently helped us increase our market footprint

Channel Vision for 2016 Our focus is on growing our Enterprise business while at the same time we aim to strike balance between SMB run-rate business and enterprise cases as both are equally important to achieve numbers. In Metros, we have specific focus on new offerings – Cybersecurity training, Security Intelligence Services, Solutions for Data Centre, Systems Management, Encryption & Virtualization Security.

LEADER

ANAND KADUR VP – CLOUD, APAC & MIDDLE EAST, ASPECT SOFTWARE

“we at Aspect are working on in terms of strategy, portfolio and positioning, providing the service in a way the consumer desires it and lastly, doing so on the Cloud so that they do more with less.” Core Strength as a Leader My strengths include structured organizational thinking in the sense that I look at a problem in an analytical way. A problem is never too small or too big. I am extremely structured in the way I look at the problem and work towards a small step that will eventually lead to a bigger resolution. This is my biggest strength. The other strength would be empowering people and doing the right thing. I am very principled too.

50 SME CHANNELS MARCH 2016

Distinctive Decision Making I handle a highly diverse region spread not just geographically, but also culturally and economically. Each region is in different cycle of economic growth & thus in different cycle of technology adoption. Each of these regions has separate set of laws, regulations and guidelines when it comes to communications & consumer engagement. The challenge is to be able to deliver cost effective solutions that can be used across all of these geographies.

Channel Vision for 2016 The future of any industry is dependent on being able to adequately answer the queries of customers and ultimately, the satisfaction of customers. The only reason you would contact a call center or avail of self-service is because you are looking for an answer to your query. There is a need to connect users to our enterprise data via a ‘help myself model’ that’s going to consist of omni selfservice, app-based, and context-based, with the flexibility for the consumer.

TOP-30 CHANNEL LEADERS

LEADER

ANIL SETHI DIRECTOR & GENERAL MANAGER, CHANNELS, DELL INDIA

“Our goal is to keep growing channel and outpace the market, which we are succeeding at.”

Core Strength as a leader Over the course of the last 20 years in the IT industry, I have been involved in building and managing businesses for several OEMs. In all these years, I have had the opportunity to interact and meet with business leaders from across various verticals and organization that have enabled me to build strong relationships.

Distinctive Decision Making We are taking initiatives to build the channel ecosystem in India and the industry at large. At Dell, we are investing and working with a few select partner organizations to make them investor ready, in order to make it easier for them to infuse funds in their organizations to drive growth, target new customer segments and technology areas. We see increased channel partner participation in our business in 2016.

Channel Vision for 2016 Our channel strategy has been very stable since we began the PartnerDirect program more than half a decade ago. It will continue to be based on partner feedback and remain focused on winning in the data center, investing in training, being easy to do business with, and being a long-term partner. We wish to work jointly with partners on territory planning, account mapping, and developing a strategy to grow together..

LEADER

ARUN ISAC HEAD (SOUTH REGION ) & COUNTRY MANAGER (CHANNEL) , FUJITSU INDIA.

“We have opened six new offices in India during 2015/16 to increase our geo expansion plan and all the new markets have dedicated Fujitsu sales team present in the respective locations.” Core strength as a leader Meticulous planning and most importantly working along with the team to enable them and help them achieve their goals. Distinctive Decision Making Channel partners have helped Fujitsu India immensely to offer its products and solutions to a market which was not will informed about brand FUJITSU and it’s strengths. Our decision to focus only on key partners based on their area

of expertise and offer exclusive support to them, was a win – win situation for both the parties. We also enabled the same set of partners with an incentive program rated among the best in the industry, worldwide. It was important to allow the key partners to service the products they sell and with this intention we are currently enabling our key channel partners to become an Authorized Service Provider for Fujitsu in India .

Channel Vision for 2016 Fujitsu is focusing on regional expansion as well as the defined verticals. Our presence in these markets has helped us to add new partners and the base is increasing. We will be consolidating the partner community into ‘Fujitsu select experts’ and ‘select partners’ and enable them with our global channel offerings. Our vertical practice is also an attraction for partners having competency in the same area with a host of service (application and infrastructure service).

SME CHANNELS 51 MARCH 2016

TOP-30 CHANNEL LEADERS

LEADER

BALAJI RAJAGOPALAN EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, TECHNOLOGY, CHANNELS & INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS, XEROX INDIA

“ In 2016, we are planning to engage more closely with our partners, conduct more regional activation programs in order to reach out to a larger audience.” Core strength as a leader As a leader, I believe it is key to ensure that your team is performing at their best and are well motivated, to go beyond what is required of them, at times. We believe that together we have been able to achieve success in FY15 and in the current fiscal year will push ourselves further, to increase coverage and grow our revenues.

Distinctive Decision Making We have brought in several changes to ensure a smoother running of the business and increase efficiency. We let go of certain programs and introduced new ones which carried potential to add further value to our internal and extended teams. We also introduced smart pricing structure to drive growth and increase sales.

Channel Vision for 2016 We have brought in new trainings and initiatives for our channel partners to ensure that they are better equipped and ready to go to the market and engage with customers. We have also incentivized the sales processes to further motivate the partners and drive them to deliver the best when they are out in the market. Very recently, we also took select channel partners for a two day trip to Phuket.

LEADER

CHIRADEEP RAO CHANNEL’S HEAD INDIA, AVAYA

“Our major plans for this year include; enhancing business coverage in the tier-2 cities across the country.”

Core Strength as a Leader With my role as the Channel Head for Avaya India, I strongly believe in team work & collaboration. For me, collaboration can play as a driving force for the development of the company. At Avaya we function in a scenario where multiple stakeholders come together to perform and deliver to achieve company’s objectives. As a leader, I constantly aim to align myself to the needs of the organization

52 SME CHANNELS MARCH 2016

Distinctive Decision Making I believe that team work plays a very critical role in the growth of an organization especially from a channel organization’s perspective. Effective team work within an organization’s departments such as; sales, channel, pre-sales and product, results in a much higher productivity and lower transactional time loss. It also helps in winning more business while providing a unified view to partners and customers.

Channel Vision for 2016 Our major plans for this year include; enhancing business coverage in the tier-2 cities across the country. We are actively signing partnership deals in order to get a greater coverage for customers at both enterprise level and mid-market segment in top 8 cities in the country. In addition to this, we are also working with some selected experienced SIs and SPs to cater to requirements of the large state and central government projects including the Smart city initiative.

TOP-30 CHANNEL LEADERS

LEADER

DAISY CHITTILAPILLY DIRECTOR, PARTNER ORGANIZATION, CISCO INDIA AND SAARC

“India will remain the world’s fastest growing IT market in 2016 and we expect this to continue drive growth for Cisco and our partners.” Core Strength as a leader Brené Brown says “It’s not about winning. It’s not about losing. It’s about the courage to show up when there are no guarantees.” And I feel that’s the most important characteristic for any leader to be successful. If the choice is between comfort and courage or between the side-lines and making a difference; I prefer the latter. Distinctive Decision Making

Partnerships are more important now than ever. We believe in empowering our partners to move up the value chain to become a solutions provider in their own right. Over the past few quarters, we have significantly increased our channel efforts to augment partner capabilities by providing leading practices, tools, and knowledge transfer, which in turn enable them to have more repeatable, successful, and profitable customer engagements..

Channel Vision for 2016 In India we are seeing the rapid convergence of mobile, social, data and cloud which is in turn driving the digital disruption in the country. Already today you can book a cab from your phone, do a money transfer over Whatsapp or order groceries online. The IOE and the enabling of digital disruption is the biggest disruption today. We expect all the above things to continue drive growth for Cisco and our partners.

LEADER

EKLAVYA BHAVE HEAD – PARTNER STRATEGY & SALES (INDIA & SAARC), CITRIX

“we expect a lot of growth for our existing and new partners. I am also working with our partners to help them achieve advanced Citrix technical expertise through “Citrix Specialist program” Core strength as a leader With my role as the Channel Head for Avaya India, I strongly believe in team work & collaboration. For me, collaboration can play as a driving force for the development of the company. At Avaya we function in a scenario where multiple stakeholders come together to perform and deliver to achieve company’s objectives. As a leader, I constantly aim to align myself to the needs of the organization

SME CHANNELS 53 MARCH 2016

TOP-30 CHANNEL LEADERS

LEADER

GANESAN ARUMUGAM DIRECTOR – PARTNER & COMMERCIAL SALES, INDIA, SYMANTEC

“The key to the growth of any business is aiding customer needs. We will equip partners to focus not only on providing core security, but also Managed Services, Threat protection and Cloud solutions.” Core strength as a leader I consider myself as a team player and work very closely with each team member, and follow an open door policy with them. I believe in mentoring and coaching the team to ensure success of the team as well as the individual. In this regard, it is important to entrust the team with responsibilities and guide them successfully to execute them.

Distinctive Decision Making In the last few quarters, we have increased our partner portfolio manifold. Very recently, we entered into a strategic alliance with HCL Infosystems which enables us to leverage their pan-India network of partners in tier 1 and tier 2 cities along with an access to its rich BFSI client base.

Channel Vision for 2016 Our plan going forward is to work directly with selected partners who are loyal, committed and ready to invest with Symantec. We aim to foster mutually beneficial relationships much deeper than just short term or periodic alliances. We are increasing our investments with distributors to nurture the partners outside managed partner list.

LEADER

HARSH VARDHAN G EXECUTIVE VP -GLOBAL MARKETING & ALLIANCES, RAMCO SYSTEMS

“Going forward, we wish to continue on the path of nurturing our partnership ecosystem, while consistently furthering ourselves in geographical markets across the world.” Core Strength as a Leader I am an adventurous marketer. I strongly believe that business development is the core of everything I do and this strategy lets me explore newer frontiers. A strong passion for connecting, engaging and influencing people across levels and cultures, has made me what I am today. At Ramco, I manage a team of like-minded people who utilize their creative intelligence to process complexities and arrive at solutions.

54 SME CHANNELS MARCH 2016

Distinctive Decision Making Ramco’s revenue has shown a steady upward trend for the last several quarters. 6 continuous quarters of profit in an industry where most SaaS companies are yet to turn profitable is indeed a true testimony of the thrust on being a marketsavvy global player. Through this focused approach, we’ve been successful in tapping into newer markets and expand our existing clientele.

Channel Vision for 2016 We will continue to further strengthen our market presence to capitalize on enormous opportunities that lie ahead of us. In terms of business, we have increased our thrust in the Logistics industry with notable client wins across the globe. With our end-to-end Logistics solution, coupled with the benefits of Cloud, Mobility and In-memory Optimization, Ramco Logistics makes a compelling offering for the market.

TOP-30 CHANNEL LEADERS

LEADER

KARTIK SACHDEVA MARKETING HEAD-SOLAR, SU KAM

“We are also planning to empanel all the system integrators of the Indian solar industry because we believe in scaling bigger heights, not individually but by taking the people with us.” Core Strength as a leader The ability to motivate my team. A leader is nothing without the team. To run a company successfully, it is very important to work together as a team. This has been the strategy of our founder, Mr Kunwer Sachdev, who is an extra-ordinary motivation speaker. And this is the culture at Su-Kam. We are a one big family.

Distinctive Decision Making Our decision to focus heavily on marketing has helped to grow our business. We have realized that marketing a product is as important as creating it at the first place. We are having a huge dealership network of over 30,000 across India and we will be empanelling a total of 50,000 dealers Pan-India. Su-Kam has always been making innovative and technologically advanced products.

Channel Vision for 2016 As a power solution providing company our focus is in the solar sector which has a tremendous potential in the Indian market. In 2016-17, we are targeting at least 200 Cr in the field of Solar Generation and harnessing in the domestic market. We are also planning to empanel all the system integrators of the Indian solar industry because we believe in scaling bigger heights, not individually but by taking the people with us.

LEADER

KHWAJA SAIFUDDIN SENIOR SALES DIRECTOR, SOUTH ASIA, MIDDLE EAST, AND AFRICA, WESTERN DIGITAL

“We will be introducing new solutions and technology, especially storage for SMBs and large enterprises.”

Core strength as a leader The very essence of leadership is that your vision translates to an exciting future for the people around you and a character which inspires confidence. Effective leadership is about going out of your way to boost the self-esteem of your personnel. Hierarchy does not make leaders; instead accountability credibility, ability and influence go a long way in determining her or his effectiveness. A leader needs to make constant efforts to prove one’s skills .

Distinctive Decision Making While working with WD, I was able to introduce some key initiatives at WD for Indian market, the most recent is the myWD Certified Surveillance Storage Provider Program which is designed to provide comprehensive benefits for the security and surveillance channel network. Also, other programs such as WD ki Pathshala (channel education program), WD Partner League (regional channel cricket league) followed by WD Master Blaster.

Channel Vision for 2016 We would also like to be a part of the govt’s Digital India initiative and the vision of developing 100 smart cities in future. We ensure that we maintain strong bonds with our current channel partners, as well as continuously reach out to new ones so as to increase our presence across the country, not just in tier I and tier II cities but also in tier III cities.

SME CHANNELS 55 MARCH 2016

TOP-30 CHANNEL LEADERS

LEADER

MANOJ KHADKIKAR HEAD CHANNEL SOLUTIONS GROUP, ZICOM

“The industry will see renewed focus on “Make in India” and hence an emergence of local suppliers and manufacturers, leading to a faster adoption of technology and a growth of niche system integrators.” Core strength as a leader To understand the channel dynamics thoroughly and also the process driven approach. Experienced in building channel eco-system, team player and an ability to identify & maximize the potential of team members are the core strength as a leader..

Distinctive Decision Making I have been able to put a structure of engagement with clear GTM (go to market) strategies for different verticals and solutions. Having an experience in managing channels for two decades, I have been able to identify, align and develop distributors & channels having the right mindset and enthusiasm to achieve common goals. Apart from this I have also been involved in ideating and delivering services and solutions

Channel Vision for 2016 In 2016, we will see some key game changers becoming mainstream. Services will overshadow products. Therefore the market will shift from product selling to a solution based selling. The industry will see renewed focus on “Make in India” and hence an emergence of local suppliers and manufacturers, leading to a faster adoption of technology and a growth of niche system integrators.

LEADER

PANKAJ GAUBA COUNTRY MANAGER, CHANNELS (INDIA AND SAARC), AUTODESK.

“The biggest strategy shift that we have introduced this year, is the transition to a subscription based model in which most standalone products will be available only as Subscription.” Core Strength as a Leader My core strength has been communication. Being articulate in a channels environment is most critical as you define the tone of business to a larger community. Strong communication also helps you to connect with people and learn from them in an ever-dynamic channel environment.

56 SME CHANNELS MARCH 2016

Distinctive Decision Making Quick & correct decision-making is foundational to any business growth. Over the years we have expanded our presence in the country by growing our partner base and investing in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities under our Territory Expansion Initiative.

Channel Vision for 2016 New licenses for majority of our products will be available for multi-year, annual, or quarterly terms. Active Maintenance Plan agreements on previously purchased perpetual licenses will continue to be renewable. This will have significant impact on the business models associated with Autodesk, including the channel partners and customers. With the new changes, it is now possible for designers to work across integrated desktop, cloud and mobile platforms.

TOP-30 CHANNEL LEADERS

LEADER

PINAKI CHATTERJEE DIRECTOR SALES INDIA & SAARC AT IP-COM NETWORK

“ in 2016 we will bring in another 5-7 value added distributors and then focus on SI enablement through SI roadshows and training” Core Strength as a leader Leadership is all about creating opportunities for everyone around, contributing to others and your own team, your company and your customers, people are assets and organizations are build up and grow due to people working for it. For me the first thing I ensure is to work along and not just order. I belief in sharing credit and work as team, every one working for a common goal is as important as the leader himself. .

Distinctive Decision Making After I join an organization I first analyse how it can benefit our customers, then analyse where is the gap or pain and then position accordingly. I identify this gap and fit IP-COM at this position and created strategies around this idea, in no time we started getting positive responses, currently most people will trust and belief on what they see as consistent and in line with their concerns.

Channel Vision for 2016 We had already place our National Distributor as Redington who is one of the top two, now we have around 20 value added distributors across the country, in 2016 we will bring in another 5-7 value added distributors and then focus on SI enablement through SI roadshows and training, we are also expanding our team in India and in coming future we are also planning to have development Centre if everything goes fine.

LEADER

PRAVEEN SAHAI VP CHANNELS OF EMC INDIA

“We will continue to enhance our partnerships and technology ecosystems, including enhancing existing products and roadmaps and our commitment to long term support for all current products” Core strength as a leader Channel partners are one of the key pillars of our Go-to-market strategy in India and we have more than 800 partners in India spread across over 40+ cities. We have been innovating our partner engagement with Focussed and Growth partner approach and also launched new initiatives and programs such as Preferred Distribution and the new Business Partner Program (BPP).

Distinctive Decision Making EMC India keeps a sharp focus for all its partners based on a 3P channel philosophy – Profitability, Pipeline and Performance. It understands that the channel community is the key to build customer confidence. For EMC, Channel enablement is the key to success and we work towards developing best practices and efficient models to create a competent channel workforce. Therefore the strategy is simple.

Channel Vision for 2016 At EMC India channels, we have Priority initiatives and a Phased initiative approach for 2016. As part of our Priority Initiatives, we will be focussing on driving growth in the mid market segment through our robust focus and growth partners. We also plan to expand via 8- new city distributor led initiative. Vertical focus has been key for EMC and we shall to go deep with our Tier 1 partners and expand our focus on sectors like Government, BFSI & Telecom.

SME CHANNELS 57 MARCH 2016

TOP-30 CHANNEL LEADERS

LEADER

RAJESH GUPTA COUNTRY MANAGER, INDIA & SAARC, SANDISK CORPORATION

“Technology is getting penetrated in every nook and corner of the country, this exemplary development in technology percolation is motivating us to strengthen our relationship with channel partners in 2016” Core strength as a leader The industry knowledge that I have gained through my experience of over two and half decades has helped me enormously in steering SanDisk’s development towards growth and nurturing the brand to become the market leader in South Asia region.

Distinctive Decision Making Under my supervision, my teams have conceptualised and delivered multiple brand and consumer campaigns which has led to top-ofthe-mind brand recall amongst consumers and gradually increasing sales for our wide array of storage products. On the marketing front, SanDisk has always gone extra miles to engage with our customers pan India through brand campaigns, PR and Social Media.

Channel Vision for 2016 Technology is getting penetrated in every nook and corner of the country, thus increasing the demand for storage solutions at a tremendous pace. This exemplary development in technology percolation is motivating us to strengthen our relationship with channel partners in 2016 through various training programme. Our channel partners will help us in establishing our footprint not just in Tier-I but also in Tier-II regions.

LEADER

RAJKUMAR RISHI SENIOR DIRECTOR, CONSUMER GTM, PPS, HP INDIA

“We will keep increasing our reach in the market so the focus there would be a mix of metro towns as well as tier 2 and tier 3 towns.”

Core Strength as a Leader Core strength of the leader would be customer experience and partner experience. This is made sure that our entire focus is on the sales support, the branding of our stores. The entire product features are created to get the consumers to our partners.

58 SME CHANNELS MARCH 2016

Distinctive Decision Making We had two focus areas- consumer and partnership. We work on two firm principles, enhanced consumer experience and to provide partner experience. Whenever we bring in a product or we do a channel policy we keep these things in mind that is it going to provide product consumer experience or is it going to provide product partner experience. .

Channel Vision for 2016 Our focus would be ease of doing business with HP, the second focus would be of making sure that the growth opportunities for partners, so that would be to engage partners in the entire range of HP products as well as maximizing cash flow for the partners.

TOP-30 CHANNEL LEADERS

LEADER

RAMESH NARASIMHAN SAARC CHANNEL LEAD AT JUNIPER NETWORKS

“we expect immense growth especially with regard to the digitization policies and campaigns that have been initiated in the country.” Core Strength as a leader In terms of my leadership style, I’ve always placed a strong emphasis on a strong collaborative ethos, to build consensus with all the respective stakeholders from across the enterprise in order to create success. I’m a strong believer in creating a work environment in which everyone feels a sense of purpose, a sense of engagement, where each respective stakeholder draws on their desire to act because it’s part of one’s job.

Distinctive Decision Making Through constant engagement with our partners, we have focused our resources on elements that fuel the business of building industry-leading networking and cloud solutions, which ultimately allows us to put a strong focus on accelerating the growth of our partners. For example, Juniper partners aren’t required to choose us as a primary vendor; they can therefore make vendor selections based on their specific customer needs .

Channel Vision for 2016 The channel has always represented a great proportion of our business, and we count on our entire partner ecosystem to help us get the best solutions in the hands of customers. On this front we expect immense growth especially with regard to digitization policies and campaigns that have been initiated in the country. In addition, the move towards cloud-based service delivery architectures, automation and performance.

LEADER

S.P. RANJAN GENERAL MANAGER- SALES, BUSY INFOTECH

“We are strengthening our channel support systems so that our partner can reach us instantly which in turn will reduce the turn around time of channel support.”

Core strength as a leader Commitment, positive attitude & intuition is my core strength. I believe in leading by example which in turn reflects on my team’s performance. I make sure that my team is aware of the fact that I am always available for them to look upon in times of adversities. My commitment towards my current role and future promises has always motivated me to work hard till the mission is accomplished. I feel it is all the more important to create positive vibes in and around you.

Distinctive Decision Making First thing I believe in is trust your organization, trust the brand and own the process. The decisions I have taken towards channel management and brand awareness by expanding the channel network and by constantly motivating the channel and my team has resulted in vertical growth of the organization I analyze the situation / problem and make sure that the decisions are taken based on the merits of the situation.

Channel Vision for 2016 We are planning to implement a master channel partner (MCP) model across all territories. The basic role of these partners would be to develop and nurture a channel under them. Me and my team will hand hold the MCP’s during this initiative. We are also expanding our team to cover more regions. We are strengthening our channel support systems so that our partner can reach us instantly which in turn will reduce the turn around time of channel support.

SME CHANNELS 59 MARCH 2016

TOP-30 CHANNEL LEADERS

LEADER

SAGAR GOSALIA SR. VICE PRESIDENT – MARKETING & SALES, MATRIX COMSEC

“Our plans is to increasing focus to three kinds of customers – SOHO, mid and large enterprises and try to get channel for each of these”

Core strength as a leader As a leader I have worked towards converting complex tasks into simple, executable daily activities for frontline.

Distinctive Decision Making Along with converting complex tasks into simple, executable daily activities many positive practices, as listed below, have helped the organization grow and increase its presence in India. The practices include consistency in building policies and dealings with partners, customers, etc, a clear vision on where one wants to be tomorrow and concentrating more on the right inputs instead of worrying solely about the outcomes.

Channel Vision for 2016 We are a 100% channel company, meaning we do not deal with direct sales of our products and solutions. For future growth in the channel market, our plans include catering to three kinds of customers – SOHO, mid and large enterprises and try to get channel for each of these. Channels for product domains are Video Surveillance, TimeAttendance, Access Control and Telecom.

LEADER

SANJAY ZADOO COUNTRY MANAGER CHANNEL AT EMERSON NETWORK POWER (INDIA)

“we are looking at working with companies across sectors like banking, financial services, IT/ITES, manufacturing, retail and automobiles”

Core Strength as a Leader Being associated with some large and renowned distribution companies in the past, I have worked closely with the partner community. Over the years I have closely monitored and nurtured a close relationship with the channel community and this has helped me make a connect and understand our partner’s needs. I believe, my strength is my experience in coming out with solutions by understanding the issues they face at a micro level.

60 SME CHANNELS MARCH 2016

Distinctive Decision Making Technology is evolving and so are business trends. This is one of the reasons organizations today are constantly forced to adapt to the changing market scenario. We believe in evolving our offerings and solutions for our customers on a timely basis and this is one of the reasons we are seen today, as a leading provider for critical infrastructure technologies and life cycle services for information and communications technology systems.

Channel Vision for 2016 As every business is slowly gravitating towards becoming a digital business, decision-makers are looking to improve both the efficiency and effectiveness of their overall IT environment as well as network infrastructure. To this effect, India and China are today seeing a huge surge in demand from enterprises for state of art network infrastructure. The ongoing initiatives like the Digital India and Make in India campaigns, has opened up new market opportunities for us.

TOP-30 CHANNEL LEADERS

LEADER

SANKET KULKARNI CHANNEL HEAD – CONSUMER & MOBILITY BUSINESS, D-LINK (INDIA) LTD.

“In 2016 our focus will be to reach-out to customers in smaller pockets of the country like C & D class cities, as they hold huge potential.”

Core Strength as a leader In my opinion, ones professional or personal wellbeing is determined by an individual’s integrity. Having started by professional journey over 15 years back, it is integrity that has helped me deliver desired output under most trying circumstances. Over the years industries across various verticals has witnessed a plethora of changes, young workforce bring in new ideas and ever evolving market dynamics.

Distinctive Decision Making In the past I have been associated with D-Link for close to 4 years. Talking about the role & association, I believe for any leader to be successful & deliver desired result, it is essential to have a clear business oriented approach. In Sales quick decision making is crucial, and like they say –time lost is business lost. These are some of the key points that one needs to take into account while devising a sales strategy.

Channel Vision for 2016 D-Link at present has a strong distribution network with a healthy mix of National distributor, Business distributor & Channel partner. We have over 500 dealers and 5,000 resellers catering to the networking needs of customers present across the length & breadth of the country. Engaging with these distributors/ partners at regular intervals continues to be top priority for us at D-Link.

LEADER

SHARAD GUPTA CHANNEL DIRECTOR, INDIA, VERITAS

“We are planning to have wide variety of courses and certifications for our channel partners that will help us build the skill base to support our growth and expansion plans.” Core strength as a leader I am a learner and this approach arms me with new techniques and inputs that I can use to help others with. Putting myself in another person’s shoes enables me to better understand their perspective and this often helps me to find creative solutions to adapt to different situations. Instinctively people know that I care about them. They are encouraged to experiment new things, reach for their goals, and learn to fall and fail, and then try again.

Distinctive Decision Making With strong experience in the IT industry, I am well acquainted with the pulse of channel ecosystem. Since joining Veritas two months ago, I have strategized and executed the channel engagement plan, by focusing on leading solution providers, nurturing the existing partner base and handpicking the key future potential partners, who can leverage our solutions and offerings.

Channel Vision for 2016 Our refreshed partner program was based on extensive partner feedback and is designed to further reward information management partners focused on growing their business with Veritas. We are confident that a strong partner ecosystem will serve to support the growth of our business and we will continue to invest in the right mix of partners – to enable them to be even more successful by having a strong product portfolio, training and focus on key verticals.

SME CHANNELS 61 MARCH 2016

TOP-30 CHANNEL LEADERS

LEADER

SHRIDHAR GARGE HEAD - CHANNELS, ALLIANCES & PROGRAMS AT NVIDIA, INDIA

“With over 200 partners from India in NPN, we look forward to increase our depth of engagement and help them grow with us.”

Core strength as a leader ‘Seek First to Understand, then to be Understood’ – an important virtue mentioned by Stephen Covey has been my core strength. I believe that a good partner manager must be able to put the partner’s agenda before his/her own. We always strive to imbibe this principle in our team as we build robust partnerships for NVIDIA in India.

Distinctive Decision Making As NVIDIA transforms itself from a chip company to a platform player, building partnerships is increasingly critical. India was an early mover on this initiative. Today, our direct connect with over 400 partners helps us stay closer to the market place than what we were. This has tremendously helped us to gain partner’s mindshare and leverage that to communicate NVIDIA’s core value proposition as a platform player to the market.

Channel Vision for 2016 The NVIDIA Partner Network (NPN) is a competency based framework which encompasses the different types of ecosystem players that we work with viz. OEMs, SI/VAR, Distributors etc. What differentiates NPN is its ability to allow partners to contribute to the network, improving the value of information and resources available to member partners. We look forward to increase our depth of engagement and help them .

LEADER

SRIKANTH DORANADULA SENIOR DIRECTOR AND HEAD, ALLIANCES & CHANNELS, ORACLE INDIA

“Our existing traditional businesses will continue the way it is – and growing strong”

Core Strength as a Leader I have always believed that a leader is as strong as his team. “Hire people who are smarter than you” has been my mantra in building a stronger team, don’t micro manage, but believe in the abilities of your team. Be directional and strategic, that is what makes one a successful people manager. Once you have built strong team, then the next step is to manage the team, ensure that their efforts are aligned in the right direction.

62 SME CHANNELS MARCH 2016

Distinctive Decision Making In a geography like India, one definitely needs to leverage on the partner network to address the kind of opportunities existing across geographies. We envisaged sometime back that Cloud is going to be the future, so we invested and started working with partners to build expertise on ensuring that they are able to successfully pitch solutions across SaaS, PaaS and IaaS.

Channel Vision for 2016 We, no doubt, want to increase our Clould partner network and we will continue to invest and build a robust partner network in this area. Our existing traditional businesses will continue the way it is – and growing strong.

TOP-30 CHANNEL LEADERS

LEADER

SUMIT BEHL CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER, SPARSH

“Our plan for 2016 would be to increase our reach in those states where we are not present or not working in a focused way.”

Core Strength as a leader A Good leader creates a vision, a picture of future, of where they want to take their organizations. Leaders can improve both the quality and acceptance of the vision by partnering with peers, executive team,key employees throughout the organization or outside consultants. As leader you should inspire people to perform best, not necessarily every time you need to set big examples even small example can be source of inspiration.

Distinctive Decision Making Vision, sincerity & clarity of thoughts are very important to succeed in the market. If you are clear on your vision of where you want to reach and make sincere efforts, results are bound to come. Also to succeed in the market you need to choose right people who can live up to the company’s value and ambition be it a channel partner or an employee.

Channel Vision for 2016 We will be fortify and strengthen our strong zone first and then gradually move on to strengthen weak territories and increase our presence. The later part our strategy would be increase our dealer base along with exploring out new channels for generating additional revenues.

LEADER

TEJAS GOENKA EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, TALLY SOLUTIONS

“will drive the two clear objectives we have – better experiences for our customers, and greater growth for our partners.”

Core strength as a leader This is a tough question! Honestly speaking, all the work is done by our highly capable team, they are the ones that have gotten us here, and are the ones that will take us forward. If I were to say something, I would probably say that I have the ability to step into shoes of our customers, and of our partners – something I learned from my parents – this helps me help the team take the right decisions for our customers and our partners before we do what is right for the company.

Distinctive Decision Making All our decisions are very heavily skewed towards doing what is right for the customer, and doing what is right for the partner over what is right for Tally. This is what we believe has allowed us to stand tall even after 3 decades, and is the one principle that will help us remain for the next many decades.

Channel Vision for 2016 Our approach for 2016 is on three legs – the first is that we think there is a lot of growth potential for us and our partners in cities beyond the metros and mini-metros and we will be focussing heavily there; the second is that we believe that there are several strong IT partners out there that haven’t been working so closely with us.; and the third is to continue to invest in the capability of our partners.

SME CHANNELS 63 MARCH 2016

TOP-30 CHANNEL LEADERS

LEADER

VISHAL PAREKH MARKETING DIRECTOR, KINGSTON TECHNOLOGY – INDIA

“We plan to grown both, with new verticals and new geographies in 2016.”

Core strength as a leader My strength lies in the top class skillset and dedication that the teams bring to the boardroom. It is definitely the team’s focussed efforts and the brand’s values and vision that pave way for the growth. I am happy that we could inculcate a sense of Purpose have been consistent in keeping our Values above all. We have a channel-friendly model and work closely with the partners to make sure they benefit from market leadership.

Distinctive Decision Making We believe in strengthening and supporting our partners as they play a key role in sustaining and expanding the brand’s presence in the country. From past few years we have not only improved our presence on ecommerce sites but also we are growing much more offline. We have been strong with our media presence, out of the box promotions and other marketing innovations are helping us grow tremendously.

Channel Vision for 2016 We plan to grown both, with new verticals and new geographies in 2016. Being the market leaders, we will continue to equip our channel partners with useful tools and first-hand information about technologies and market changes that give them edge over competition. This year, we also have strong plans to cater to a broader customer base and to get newer products that will add value to the users.

LEADER

VISHWANATH KULKARNI DIRECTOR OF SALES, INDIA AND SAARC, HID GLOBAL

“We are looking at launching the next gen controllers for the SME market within India and also build strong capabilities for regional distributors and partners.”

Core Strength as a Leader My core strengths as a leader include, external awareness, Vision - Managing Long term, short term and mid-term goals, partnering, focus on Technology and decisiveness Distinctive Decision Making The Indian government has a huge focus on Smart Cities and Digital India mission towards part of their major urban develop ment programs. We also see huge enterprise focus around

64 SME CHANNELS MARCH 2016

IoT. At the same time, HID Global is also focusing on building the brand presence and bringing in new technologies especially in identity and access management, citizen identification and Internet of Things (IoT). We are also focusing on increasing the partner base at the regional level. We already have a very broad based strategy in terms of channel expansion in Tier I cities. For Tier II and Tier III cities, we are taking a more focused channel approach by building their capabilities as per the current market demand.

Channel Vision for 2016 As we do more with our smartphones and increasingly demand anywhere/anytime on-line access, there is the opportunity to better protect these activities while creating a more satisfying, mobile-centric security experience at home, in the office, on the road and online. Currently there is a wide gap between security planning and user compliance, advancements in the security experience will play a vital role in closing this gap.

Next-generation Security for Next-generation Networks

Future-Ready Security

For Any Business

Industry Firsts

 Bandwidth Management

 Government & Manufacturing

 Patented Layer -8 Identity Security

 Firewall

 Education

 On-Appliance WAF

 Email Protection

 Healthcare

 On-Appliance Logging and Reporting

 SPAM Protection

 Banking & Finance

 ISO 20000:2011 certied customer

 On-Appliance Reporting

 Industrial Networks/Critical

Infrastructure

 FleXi Ports

support And More!

 Retail

 IPS  VPN

Increasing attack surface, growing sophistication of cyber-attacks and deperimeterization has meant traditional network security appliances can no longer safeguard networks from cyber threats. What businesses and organizations need is an advanced security solution that strikes perfect balance between the three drivers of business success – Security, Connectivity and Productivity. The Cyberoam NG Series of Firewalls/UTMs is congured with future-ready features, which meet the diverse security needs of businesses, helping them achieve global standards of compliance and securely leverage the full spectrum of digital benets.

Introducing Synchronized Security to the world of IT security Now you can link your rewall and your endpoints to combine their intelligence and identify compromised systems in your network with Security HeartbeatTM . To get Security Heartbeat, all you need is the feature-packed and newly launched Sophos Firewall OS (SF-OS) and Sophos Cloud Enduser Protection. Existing Cyberoam customers can upgrade to the SF-OS as their path to get Security Heartbeat.* *Available on select NG Series models.

See how it works at: sophos.com/heartbeat

Contact your nearest Sophos|Cyberoam representative to know more.

TOP VADS

M.TECH SOLUTIONS (INDIA)

VISIONARY BHAVIN BHATT

REGIONAL DIRECTOR INDIA & SAARC, M.TECH

EMPLOYEES

Not Available PRODUCTS & SOLUTIONS Allot, Arista ,BackBox, Blue Coat, Citrix, Elfiq, HP Fortify, HP TippingPoint, Imperva, Lumension, MobileIron,Nutanix ,PaloAlto, Proofpoint, Riverbed, RSA, SSH, Skybox ,SolarWinds, Tufin ,Vormetric ,WatchDox and in process to add few more to provide end to end solutions to Indian market.

FOCUSED VERTICALS: IT & ITeS, Bank / Fin, Telecom, Govt, BPO, Education, Media & Design, Engg Serv, MFG, Pharma & Medical

.Tech is a leading cyber security and network performance solutions provider. Established in May 2002, M.Tech is headquartered in Singapore and has a network of 32 offices in 17 countries, namely in Singapore, Australia,Cambodia, China (including Hong Kong), India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Myanmar, New Zealand,Philippines, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, United Kingdom and Vietnam to provide on-site sales, marketing as well as technical support to our reseller partners.

TURNOVER Last 3 years

66 SME CHANNELS MARCH 2016

MR.Bhavin Bhatt

MR Srinath NR

+91 9686602661

+91 9886124855

bhavinb@mtechpro.com

srinathnr@mtechpro.com

FY 2014

FY 2015

Bangalore Office - Head Office

M.Tech Solutions (India) Pvt. Ltd.

CONTACT DETAILS

FY 2016

TOP VADS

INFLOW TECHNOLOGIES

VISIONARY BYJU PILLAI

PRESIDENT & CEO, INFLOW TECHNOLOGIES

EMPLOYEES

230

PRODUCTS & SOLUTIONS Information Security, Networking, AIDC & POS, Infrastructure & Application Software, Storage Management and Electronic Security products & related Services

FOCUSED VERTICALS: Telecom, Information Technology, Automobile, Government, Health Care, Petroleum, BFSI etc.

TURNOVER

800+ Cr

FY 2014

FY 2015

1200+ Cr

650+ Cr

Last 3 years

FY 2016

ounded in 2005 , Inflow Technologies is a niche player in the IT Infrastructure Distribution & Services industry providing Value Added Distribution in Information Security, Networking, AIDC & POS, Infrastructure & Application Software, Storage Management and Electronic Security products & related Services in South Asia with revenue run rate of 1200+ crores. Inflow has a direct relationship with 40 Global Technology vendors & is headquartered in Bangalore with presence in 16 locations. Inflow operates through 3 Business Units with a total team strength of 230 including 20% technical (Pre & Field).

CONTACT DETAILS Inflow Technologies Pvt. Ltd, Inflow House, # 33 & 34, Indiranagar 1st stage, Off 100 feet road, Bangalore – 560038, India. +91 80 41265151

SME CHANNELS 67 MARCH 2016

TOP VADS

SAVERA MARKETING AGENCY

VISIONARY GOPAL PANSARI DIRECTOR, SAVERA MARKETING

EMPLOYEES

200+ PRODUCTS & SOLUTIONS Savera Marketing deals in Retail and Distribution of IT Hardware and Accessories like Laptops and its Accessories, Desktop Computers, Peripherals, Accessories, Printers (Laser, Deskjet, Inkjet, Dot-matrix), All in One Projectors, Networking Products and their own brand Manzana products - high quality audio and music accessories.

FOCUSED VERTICALS: We have focus on: l Security surveillance l Manzana - high quality audio and music accessories. l All IT products

MR.Pinaki Samiron Dhara +91 9967980006, 022-26879427

68 SME CHANNELS MARCH 2016

FY 2014

FY 2015

225 Cr

Last 3 years

190 Cr

CONTACT DETAILS

TURNOVER

175 Cr

avera Marketing Agency is one of the fastest growing IT distribution house in India. The company is engaged in marketing and distribution of various types of IT products, and is a key distribution market player with a nationwide reach, robust product portfolio and superior service in India. Formed as a local company in 2004, Savera continues its evolution today by striving for excellence with its products and services. From a humble beginning as a hardware dealer and service organization, Savera experienced significant growth by achieving a high level of customer satisfaction and staying on top of the technology curve.

FY 2016

TOP VADS

COMGUARD

VISIONARY HARISH RAI

COUNTRY MANAGER, COMGUARD

EMPLOYEES

60+

PRODUCTS & SOLUTIONS Antivirus, Application Delivery Solutions, Application Security, Data Protection Solution, Dns/Dhcp and Ipam(Ddi), Email Security, Endpoint Encryption, Identity And Access Management, Intelligent Network Solutions, Intrusion Prevention Systems, Privilege Identity Management, Secure Configuration Management, Security Incident & Event management, Single Sign On (SSO), Unified Threat Management, Vulnerability Management & Fraud Prevention.

FOCUSED VERTICALS: Focus verticals are Enterprise, SME/SMB, BFSI, Telecom, E-commerce & Govt sector.

TURNOVER

FY 2014

FY 2015

last 3 years

he part of spectrum group, Comguard Infosol is one spot solution for all information technology needs. It started with vision to improve information technology security standards in India. Comguard Infosol maintaining the highest level of authorization in it security products with best in class partner, top-level manufactures and emerging it security companies like Kaspersky, GFI, Acunetix, array networks, BlueCat, GateProtect, Sangoma, airtight, Ghangor cloud, EnGenius, Yealink, Niksun, content keeper, winmagic, nnt, Ironkey, Landesk, qct & Intel DCM.

CONTACT DETAILS Mumbai Office Address: MBC Centre, Ground Floor, 143/A Ghodbunder Road, Opp. Cine Wonder Mall, Kapur Bawdi, Thane,

FY 2016

Mumbai, Maharashtra, India 400607 Tel No. : +91 22 61934800 I Fax: +91 22 61934801 IWebsite: www.comguard.in I Email: info@comguard.in

SME CHANNELS 69 MARCH 2016

TOP VADS

INSPIRA ENTERPRISE

VISIONARY MANOJ KANODIA CEO, INSPIRA ENTERPRISE

EMPLOYEES

121

PRODUCTS & SOLUTIONS Network Transformation, Wireless & BYOD, Data Centers, Campus LAN & WAN, Surveillance, Cloud Computing, Cloud Security, Managed Security Services, Unified Communications & Collaboration, Virtualization – Server, Storage & Network Functions, Healthcare Solutions, Data Analytics & Business Intelligence, SDN, IoT, Contact Centre Solutions, Big Data.

FOCUSED VERTICALS: Government Institutes (Central Ministries & State Departments), Defense, Public Sector Undertakings, BFSI, IT/ ITeS, Healthcare, Telecom & Enterprise verticals.

FY 2014

FY 2015

Last 3 years

CONTACT DETAILS

TURNOVER

Inspira is a leading IT solution provider that helps clients maximize their performance by leveraging best talents having technical expertise & domain wide experience, innovative management philosophy and comprehensive portfolio of services. Inspira is ISO 9001:2008, ISO/IEC 27001:2013 & ITIL Certified company catering to customers in the Government Institutes (Central Ministries & State Departments), Defense, Public Sector Undertakings, Banking Financial Services Insurance, IT/ ITeS, Healthcare, Telecom & Enterprise verticals.

Address: 23, Level 2, Kalpataru Square, Kondivita Lane, Ramakrishna Mandir Road, Off Andheri Kurla Road, Andheri (East), Mumbai 400059 +91 22 4056 9999 I Fax: +91 22 4056 9966 I Email: sales@inspira.co.in I Website: www.inspira.co.in

70 SME CHANNELS MARCH 2016

FY 2016

TOP VADS

ELEMENT14

VISIONARY RAVI PAGAR

REGIONAL DIRECTOR ASEAN, INDIA, KOREA & JAPAN

EMPLOYEES

200

PRODUCTS & SOLUTIONS element14 is the Asian Pacific trading brand of global electronics distributor Premier Farnell plc and deals with a diverse range of products from control and switch gear solutions to lighting products and semiconductors. element14 is also one of the largest distributors of the Raspberry Pi series in India.

FOCUSED VERTICALS: Automation, Lighting, Semiconductors, Sensors, IT and Electronics Industry

TURNOVER

FY 2014

FY 2015

Last 3 years

FY 2016

remier Farnell plc (LSE:pfl) is a global leader in high service distribution of technology products and solutions for electronic system design, production, maintenance and repair. Trading as Farnell element14 in Europe, Newark element14 in North America and element14 across Asia Pacific, it had sales last year of £960m, the Group is supported by a global supply chain of more than 3,000 suppliers and an inventory profile developed to anticipate and meet its customers’ needs. Premier Farnell works to bring to market development kits in a variety of applications, enabling it to support the customer from design concept through to production.

CONTACT DETAILS Christina Loh PR Manager, APAC Tel: + 65 6671 8769 I Email: cloh@element14.com

SME CHANNELS 71 MARCH 2016

TOP VADS

TRANSITION SYSTEMS

VISIONARY UNNI KRISHNAN. R TRANSITION SYSTEMS

EMPLOYEES

105

PRODUCTS & SOLUTIONS Network, Security & VOIP

FOCUSED VERTICALS: All verticals …we work with partners only (we are Value-added distributors)

Website: http://www.transition-asia.com/locations.html

72 SME CHANNELS MARCH 2016

FY 2014

FY 2015

Last 3 years

CONTACT DETAILS

TURNOVER

tarted in 2004, Transition Systems India (TSI) is the regional arm of Transition Systems Asia focused on providing information security, networking solution and VOIP solutions to its customers and partners apart from providing value added services and support. TSI has its presence in most of the major cities in India including Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai , Pune & Hyderabad and plans to expand its operations across the country. Transition Systems India carries an impressive array of products and solutions to cater to the ever growing demands of its partners and customers which address their needs in network infrastructure, wireless, security, applications/ bandwidth management and optimization solutions and VOIP solutions.

FY 2016

SME CHAT

NILESH NANDKUMAR KHAJINDAR, DIRECTOR, EN-KAY SERVICES

MATRIX STRIVES TO OFFER MORE IN EVERYTHING IT DOES Telecom market is growing big way more into IP, Gateway & solution driven by technology enhancement with customised solutions.

Brief us about your company? Established in 2004, En-kay Services is dedicated to provide customer satisfaction in telecom and security products. A team of qualified personnel cater to each and every requirement of our customers, further aiding in enhancing customer satisfaction. What is your turnover and growth percentage? With the total turnover of 3 Crores last year we are targeting at a growth of 20%-30% this year. What kind of solutions and products you are dealing in? We offer telecom solutions in Gateways like IP-GSM with TDM and security solutions that include Time-Attendance, Access Control and CCTV systems. We also provide Call Centre solutions with IVR & CRM integration. Furthermore, we do cater to any type of integration in telecom, information technologies & security surveillance. What kind of telecom solutions you have? We offer a range of Gateways, integration with various platforms & IP calling with audio/video features.

How do you find Matrix products in terms of its advantages vis-àvis other brands? Matrix is a brand that stands for ‘SUBSTANCE’ in terms of technology, depth, genuineness and going beyond the mere outer façade & offering more values in all areas. This is what differentiates Matrix from its competitors. It strives to offer MORE in everything it does – technology, applications, functions, features, performance, flexibility, reliability and support. Matrix positioning is based on offering more of these true, inherent values which customers expect from infrastructure solutions. The company provides specific solutions with heavy focus on quality and customer service. Key differentiators lie in providing pre-sales, postsales and R&D support. Most importantly, Matrix has an in-house manufacturing unit and R&D Centre to offer quick turnaround for clients. As a partner what kind of products you want to add this year? We are focusing on adding more in the IP segment with Video phones, UC in telecom, SAMAS in integration with various cameras for added features, in order to be at par with latest technology developments.

“MATRIX’S KEY DIFFERENTIATORS LIE IN PROVIDING PRE-SALES, POSTSALES AND R&D SUPPORT.”

RANGE OF TELECOM AND SECURITY SYSTEMS n EPABX System n Digital EPABX System n Matrix EPABX System n Panasonic EPABX System n Security Camera n Wired Phone n Cordless Phone n Fax Machine n Caller Id Phone n Intercom System n Corded Telephones n Digital Video Recorder n Fingerprint Access Control n Time Attendance System n Building Security System n Wired Phone for Office n Video Door Phone for Home n Security Camera for Institute

SME CHANNELS 73 MARCH 2016

GUEST TALK

THE NEW SECURITY SALE: NETWORK VIRTUALIZATION FOR MICRO-SEGMENTATION Security and vulnerability are becoming a growing concern for the enterprises. The more and more the organizations are adapting to virtual and cloud world, the higher the chances become for them to be victim of the attacks. SUNDAR BALASUBRAMANIAN, Senior Director – General Business, VMware India BRIEF PROFILE Sundar has over 22 years of successful and diverse experience in the IT industry and dealings in hardware, software, networking, education and services portfolios. He has worked with industry leaders like IBM, Microsoft, EMC and Newbridge Networks. He has led and been deeply involved in new business creation - be it sales, emerging markets product development, classic product management, partnerships, channel management and service delivery models.

74 SME CHANNELS MARCH 2016

These days, there is a good chance security is top of mind for your customers. From the Target breach, to the Snowden/NSA revelations, to the Heartbleed bug and other more recent events, vulnerability issues and other threats have elevated IT security to the highest levels of public and private sector organizations. Our industry is beginning to come to grips with the fact that the only thing outpacing security spending are the increasing losses due to security threats. However, with advances in network virtualization technology such as VMware NSX, resellers now have an opportunity to fundamentally change how your customers approach security in their data centers through network micro-segmentation. At a high level, micro-segmentation is the provisioning of finely granular network security policies – all the way down to the virtual machine, and even to the virtual network interface. Micro-segmentation and data center security are such top-of-mind topics today that security has been a real driver for NSX sales. Customers’ data centers, almost universally, have strong protection at the edge. Advanced perimeter firewalls control the flow of traffic into application servers. Yet, despite the investment in perimeter protection including firewalls, intrusion prevention systems, and network-based malware protection, new forms of advanced persistent threats are driving more breaches. But why? Because modern attacks exploit the perimeter-centric defense strategies employed in most data centers, hitching a ride with authorized users, then moving laterally within the data center between workloads with little or no controls to block propagation. To address these increasing east-west traffic patterns, and to contain threats that do make it past perimeter defenses, a new model of data center security is needed– one that acknowledges the fact those threats could be anywhere and

are often everywhere. Forrester Research calls this a “Zero Trust” approach to security. Micro-segmentation is the key to a Zero Trust model. Micro-segmentation limits unauthorized lateral movement, but hasn’t been feasible for IT to implement. Using traditional firewalls to achieve micro-segmentation negatively impacts throughput capacity and creates operational and change management burdens. The capacity issue can be overcome at a significant financial cost in physical or virtual firewalls. However, the operational burden increases as the number of workloads grows, and the placement of workloads changes dynamically. VMware NSX For Micro-Segmentation With VMware NSX, your customers now have an economically and operationally feasible way to deploy micro-segmentation to transform their data center security architecture. NSX provides the networking and security foundation for a softwaredefined data center, and running NSX allows IT administrators to create multiple, parallel virtual networks that are fully isolated from one another. This virtual air-gap prevents security threats from spreading in a data center. VMware NSX offers several advantages over traditional network security approaches, including automated provisioning, automated move/add/change for workloads, distributed policy enforcement at every virtual interface and in-kernel, scale-out firewalling distributed to every hypervisor and baked into the platform. Micro-segmentation provides the ability to secure traffic flows within a data center with micro-granularity, even down to the level of the virtual network interface. (To read the complete story log onto www. smechannels.com)

TP-LINK

FEATURE

TP-LINK: WISH TO BE AMONG TOP 3 PREFERRED BRANDS IN 2016 After a runaway success in the consumer market in India, TP-Link has now riveted its attention on the SME/SMB market and wishes to be placed among top 3 networking brands by the end of 2016. BY SANJAY MOHAPATRA sanjay@smechannels.com

ear 2016 is really a critical year for TP-Link in India as the company has stepped into SME/SMB market, a space which is very unstructured and dispersed. Various counts give various numbers but the government of India, Department of MSME’s website suggests the number to be around 40 million. This of course is inclusive of micro enterprises. However only SMEs in India could easily be approximately 10 million. So for TP-Link to succeed in this huge market is a daunting task. Looking at the size of the company in India, TP-Link cannot touch base with the millions of SMEs physically. It requires physical presence in all geographies and all clusters, which again is not possible. Therefore, the best bet is to go through the channel ecosystem, which the company is focusing on for last six months. Sanjay Sehgal, VP SMB & Telecom at TP-Link, says, “Before selling to the customers, we wanted to educate our existing set of partners - distributors, business distributors, VARs and SIs. Reason being the common perception among the partners about TP-Link was that we only have the products for the bottom of the pyramid – for the Home and Soho market, which we wanted to correct. Therefore, for last six months we have been trying to educate our partners’ community that

we have a whole lot of products for the SME/SMB market apart from the entry level switching and wireless routers.” “Apart from that we developed a team for the SME/SMB business within the core team of TPLink, who would focus on the SMB business. We brought one person in Delhi to take care of North and East and another person in Mumbai to look after West and South,” he added. These two people know the channel ecosystem very well. And using their experience they support TP-Link field staff located in various geographies assigned to them. Along with this TP-Link has also developed a team for pre-sales to develop customised solutions for the partners. Sanjay maintained, “Apart from this, we also have developed training modules for the partners. So at present we are training people through WebEx – almost twice a week. This is a good model for training apparently but yes this April onwards, we will start roadshows.” As per Sanjay, the roadshows that the company is aiming at creating will also be very lively and interactive. It would be solution specific. He added, “For example, if we want to target the hospitality segment, we would be creating the solutions for the hospitality segment and would invite the partners to walk in and learn from the roadshow and later sell to the customers. So, similarly

SANJAY SEHGAL, VP SMB & TELECOM AT TP-LINK

“THE COMMON PERCEPTION AMONG THE PARTNERS WAS WE ONLY HAVE THE PRODUCTS FOR THE BOTTOM OF THE PYRAMID, WHICH WE WANTED TO CORRECT.” we might create roadshows around education segment or some other vertical market segment.” And, these roadshows would start from the major cities including Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi, Chennai and Hyderabad. After looking at the success of these roadshows the company would extend to other cities. From the product perspective, TP-Link today has the entire range of products including the PoE switches and injectors. What the company does not have is the core or chassis switches. Therefore, the strategy is not at all to target the enterprise market but only SME/SMB market.

Finally… The goal of the company is to become one among top 3 preferred brands in the SME/SMB space as far as customers’ or partners’ brand recall is concerned - at least within one-year time frame. (To read the complete story log onto www. smechannels.com)

SME CHANNELS 75 MARCH 2016

GIGABYTE

DELL SONICWALL

NEW DELL SONICWALL TZ WIRELESS FIREWALLS DELL SONICWALL TZ Wireless Firewall Series, comprehensive wireless network security solutions enable both small- and mid-sized businesses and large, distributed enterprises to realize the benefits of enterprise-class 802.11ac wireless performance and security, with a simple network set-up and management console, all at a lower total cost of ownership. Dell’s wireless network security solutions combine high-performance 802.11ac wireless technology with the new, next-generation wireless TZ series firewalls to deliver enterprise-class wireless performance and security, while dramatically simplifying network setup and management. The new TZ series firewalls secure the wireless network by scanning wireless traffic coming into and going out of the network and decontaminating it from network threats, and leverage deep packet inspection (DPI) to provide excellent performance while also protecting the network from wireless intrusion attacks. n Price: On Request, Warranty: On Request, Contact: 080-25108001, 1800-425-4002

GIGABYTE 100 SERIES MOTHERBOARDS GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY’S new 100 series motherboards is based on the IntelZ170 chipset with support for Intel’s new 6th Gen. Core processor. This updated platformmarks a new era for the desktop PC with the continued support of DDR4, introduction of USB 3.1 over the new Type-C connector, as well as an array of onboard features and technologies that lets the user unleash the full power of their PC. With the 100 series, GIGABYTE offers three motherboard segments to satisfy everyone’s specific needs. The Ultra Durable caters to users looking for a board that has long lasting, high quality components while the G1 Gaming targets gamers that demand cutting edge audio and graphics performance, and with the SOC Force GIGABYTE is bringing a solution for those who are looking to push their hardware performance off the charts. GIGABYTE brings a series of features that won’t let anyone down. With its new 6th Gen. Core CPUs and Z170 chipset, Intel provides notable improvements over the previous generation and revolutionary new features such as support forWindows 10 and DirectX 12, the latest and greatest operating system and API from Microsoft which are both supported natively on GIGABYTE motherboards. Additionally, the new LGA 1151 socketed 14nm CPU from Intel bringsboth DDR4 and DDR3 support as well as enough power to support up to 3 independent digital displays and enhanced full range BCLK overclocking!. n Price: Rs. 10,000 to Rs. 45,000 Warranty: 3-Years Contact: GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY (INDIA) PVT. LTD.+91-22-40633218

D-LINK

D-LINK 2U 500 X 400MM ENCLOSURE: NWR-2U-5040-GR-U PART OF D-LINK STRUCTURED CABLING solution offering, D-Link 2U Wall Mount DVR enclosure is specially designed for CCTV Applications. NWR-2U-5040-GR-U enclosure from D-Link is fabricated with CRCA steel, is CNC programmed, while it is punched, bended, welded and powder coated January 2016 with highest quality standards. Further the security encryption prevents unauthorized users from connecting to your network. Also its welded frame is integrated with side walls and vented top cover comes with fan mounting provision. The rear side of the enclosure has wall mounting provision, and has front toughened tinted glass door with lock and key that provide both visibility and security. n Price: Rs. 2000/-, Warranty: 2 Year, Contact: www.d-link.co.in

76 SME CHANNELS MARCH 2016

TOP 10 PRODUCTS

HP DESKJET GT SERIES PRINTERS FOR SMALL BUSINESS

LENOVO

LENOVO THINKSERVER TS140

HP DESKJET GT SERIES for the small businesses prints up to 8,000 pages with a set of three HP spill free colour bottles and up to 5,000 pages with the HP spill-free black pigment ink bottle out of the box. Each ink bottle is available at an MRP of INR 498/-. Original HP inks are specially formulated to deliver sharp text, vibrant graphics and photos that resist water and fading, and deliver high quality marketing materials and business documents. HP addresses one of the biggest frustrations of ink tank printers by making replenishing ink clean and easy with HP’s innovative spill-free refill system. The bottles can be simply plugged into the tank without any squeezing required. Users can also easily monitor ink levels with the transparent ink tanks. With wireless connectivity, the HP DeskJet GT 5820 All-in-One printer makes it easy for users in the office to connect with smartphones and tablets. Customers can quickly and easily set up the printer using a mobile device. Even without a wireless network, Wi-Fi Direct enables users to directly connect their printer to the mobile device in the office.4 In addition, with the HP All-in-One Printer Remote app, users can quickly send scans to email or cloud storage through their mobile device.5 They can easily print from a variety of devices including iPhone and iPad using AirPrint, or smartphones and tablets running Android, Windows 8, Windows 10, and Google Chrome operating systems.

TARGETED AT THE SME MARKET, Lenovo ThinkServer TS140 is an entry-level Tower server. This is the first addition from the ThinkServer portfolio to the EBG server range for Lenovo in India, post their acquisition of IBM’s x86 business in 2014. With ThinkServer, Lenovo aims to add to the robust portfolio across the entire server spectrum, right from entry-level to high-end servers. Staying true to Lenovo’s legendary Think engineering, both TS140 and RD450 will offer small businesses and entrepreneurs a perfect launch pad for their first server purchase. ThinkServer TS140 is engineered to enable 24×7 running time. Additionally, the advanced thermal design also reduces overall system noise to super-quiet levels of close to 26 decibels. The TS140 also supports enterprise grade hard disk drives that have 3x higher MTBFs and can handle up to 10 times the workload as compared to entry-level servers that come with consumer-grade hard drives. The off-the-shelf TS140 configuration from Lenovo is powered with built in RAID 5 capability that offers customers greater peace of mind by ensuring higher availability and reliability.

n Price: INR 14670/- (The HP Deskjet GT 5820 AIO), INR 13041/(Deskjet GT 5810 AIO), Contact: www.hp.com/in/deskjet-gt

n Price: On Request, Warranty: On Request, Contact: Lenovo India1-800-3000-9991

DIGISOL

DIGISOL 1.3 MEGA PIXEL CMOS DOME AHD CAMERA DIGISOL’S HOME SECURITY TECHNOLOGY with intuitive digital media solutions; Smartlink Network Systems DG-CM5320PS – the 1.3MP Sony CMOS Plastic Dome AHD Camera, with 3.6mm Lens and IR 20m – combines cost-effectiveness of analogue cameras and powerful effectiveness of video surveillance in the sensor dome camera for both indoor and outdoor applications. The other winning feature of the camera is the exceptional LED technology of 24 PCS LED when other cameras of this range only offer 10-18 PCS LED. This feature makes it a best buy as along with its budget-friendly pricing it also promises superior technology. One can easily see video up to 20 meters without any distortion and its 4/45 – 1/45,000 Sec of Electronic Shutter Speed assures no-lag thereby giving the best picture quality. Additional performance features found in DG-CM5320PS is automatic backlight compensation improves the picture without any hassles in extreme light condition and the automatic white balance leads capturing clearer and perfect picture. n Price: Rs. Rs. 3990/-, Warranty: 2 Year, Contact: Smartlink Network Systems Ltd.

SME CHANNELS 77 MARCH 2016

SETU

MATRIX SETU VG MATRIX SETU VG is a compact VoIP-GSM gateway with up to 4/8 GSM and 3G SIM support. Integrated GSM/3G connectivity and open standard SIP support enables SETU VG gateway to easily connect with leading IP phone systems, software based IP-PBXs, hosted and SIP trunking services. SETU VG also delivers value added features such as hot swapping of SIM cards, remote SIM balance inquiry and recharge, automatic number translation, configurable call minutes, SMS notifications, monitoring and auto provisioning for mass deployments. This makes SETU VG an ideal GSM trunking solution for Enterprises, Service Providers, Call centers, Transportation, Healthcare, Hospitality, Manufacturing, Retail chains and areas with limited landline and internet connectivity such as remote project offices, rural and educational institutions. SETU VG gateway helps organizations making huge number of calls over mobile networks to drastically cut down recurring telephony bills. n Price: On Request, Warranty: On Request, Contact: Prashant Kaushik,91 95587 10955, Email: prashant.kaushik@Matrixcomsec. com

ACER

ACER ASPIRE WINDOWS 10 DEVICES ACER RELEASED TWO NEW WINDOWS 10 devices, the Aspire R 14 convertible notebook, and the Aspire Z3-700 portable all-inone PC. Both devices with dual-digital microphones feature Acer Purified.Voice with enhanced digital signal processing (DSP) that cancel background noise and improve speech accuracy, allowing people to have an optimized Cortana experience. For a better Windows 10 audio and visual experience, the Aspire R 14 and Aspire Z3-700 feature Acer TrueHarmony Plus technology with Dolby Audio, providing powerful audio with immersive surround. n Price: On Request, Warranty: On Request, Contact: E-mail: ailenquiries@acer.com, Toll free number: 1800 103 3311

QNAP

QNAP TS-X63U SERIES NAS QNAP SYSTEMS’ NEW BUSINESS-CLASS AMD-POWERED quad-core TS-x63U series NAS; available in 4, 8 and 12-bay models with single and redundant power supply options. The TS-x63U series provides 10GbE network connectivity with its single-port SFP+ network adapter, and supports bridging 1GbE devices to a 10GbE network with its four built-in GbE interfaces. Coupled with an AES-NI hardwareaccelerated encryption engine, SSD cache support, and flexible scalability; the TS-x63U series is ideal for SMBs looking for backup, restoration, virtualization storage, private cloud, and to future-proof their IT infrastructure for 10GbE networks. The TS-x63U series is powered by an advanced 64-bit AMD Embedded G-Series quad-core 2.0GHz SoC processor with 4GB DDR3L RAM (upgradable to 16GB) and features four 1GbE LAN ports, delivering high speeds of up to 1,090 MB/s sequential read throughput with10GbE configuration n Price: On Request, Warranty: On Request, Contact: marketing@qnap.com Tel: +886-2-2641-2000

AMD

AMD 6TH GEN PROCESSOR AMD 6TH GENERATION A-Series Processor, the world’s first high-performance Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) in a System-on-Chip (SoC) design. Previously codenamed “Carrizo”, the 6th Generation AMD A-Series Processor takes advantage of extensive AMD processor and graphics IP enabling exceptional computing experiences not possible before. The 6th Generation AMD A-Series Processor is the most versatile notebook processor ever produced, built to excel at today’s and tomorrow’s consumer and business applications, delivering premium streaming entertainment, unmatched smooth online gaming, and innovative computing experiences, with all day unplugged performance.3 The world’s first high-performance Accelerated Processing Unit in a SoC design marks a number of technology firsts: the world’s first High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) hardware decode support for notebooks, the first Heterogeneous Systems Architecture (HSA) 1.0-compliant design, and the first ARM TrustZone-capable high-performance APU. n Price: On Request, Warranty: On Request, Contact: AMD Far East Ltd., Tel: +91-80-332-30000

78 SME CHANNELS MARCH 2016

RNI NO: DEL ENG/ 2010/ 31962 Postal Reg. No.: DL-SW-1/4145/16-18

Date of Publication: 20 of Every Month Date of Posting: 22 & 23 of Every Month