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AMD: AMD: Focuses on Gaming Console Market Along with IT
IXIA: Channels is AN Extended arm in AXIA’s Success
PARTNER CORNER
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FORTINET: SNS’ expertise + Fortinet’s support = A Great Teamw
MY EXPERIENCE EDITORIAL
PARTNERS NEED TO SENSE THE CHANGE OF WIND SANJAY MOHAPATRA
sanjay@smechannels.com
THIS ISSUE OF SME CHANNELS IS ONE OF THE FIRST ISSUES which is a prologue to the SME Channels Summit & Awards going to be held in 18th November 2016 at Crown Plaza Hotels & Resorts, Okhla. The content here is about the channel business health checkup. The content of the event is also about how to keep the partner ecosystem healthy and thriving. In the recent past there have been some sad news around the channel partners - including the abrupt shot down of neoteric infomatique and Cadensworth’s amalgamation with its parent company – Redington. There might be many other news, which are not coming to the media notice. From the outset our reading is that the foremost reason behind all these incidents is the bad management of finance. Of course there might be many internal challenges, which Secondly, the industry is changing in terms of consumption of technology and finally, the distribution business is relying majorly on the stock and sell strategy. What the distribution business or for that matter the channel ecosystem is doing is that they are continuing to depend on their traditional business of selling product. We do not observe that majority of the partners are moving in the direction of what the market demands. Now the leading infrastructure and application vendors have created strategy to support partners in solutions and services selling. Even there are new solutions vendors coming challenging the strategy of the traditional players, which offers opportunity for the partners to create their own strategy and go ahead. Of course it is a tricky situation. The prerequisite condition for the new age vendors or solutions and services selling is that the partners should acquire requisite certification in order to garner maximum profitability or the partners should invest in demo products or POCs. These are all money going from the profitability of the partners as investment. So most of the partners are a little uncertain about the future of their investment. Their existing customers are probably happy about their services but the partners need to know that these customers with the change of guard change their strategy too. Therefore, sensing the change of wind and act accordingly is the call of the hour. For the distribution business in India, although stock and sell is key, but at the same time, the companies need to indulge into VAD business seriously so that they add to their bottom-line. This can help overcome their challenges. VAD does not mean only training but also adopting new and cutting edge technologies and provide complete solution to establish the brand in the market. At the same time, they should also work with channel partners hand in glove while approaching the customers so that the customers do not feel the need to contacting the vendor for reasons whatsoever may be.
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Zebronics Video Door Phone ZEBVD4 Smart ZEBRONICS’ NEW VIDEO DOOR PHONE - the ZEB-VD4 Smart, bundled with advanced security and surveillance features, is an ideal solution for those looking to upgrade their Home or Office security to the next level. Ensuring the safety of your loved ones while you are at work or out for business, the new ZEB-VD4 Smart facilitates two-way communication and transfers live video feed to a clear LCD Screen, giving you a crisp and clear view of the individual standing before your door, while its wide angle camera assure that nothing stays hidden from your view. Also equipped with advanced SOS Alarm function, this video phone guarantees maximum protection for stranger danger.
SPECIFICATIONS With SOS Alarm Function, a 4.3inch Screen and wide angle camera, the video door phone is ideal for home segment FINAL WORDING Priced at Rs.4,800/-, this product is value for money. OVERALL RATING
contents
SEP VOLUME 07 ISSUE 07
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 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 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
Services Business: Opportunity Galore for Partners /20 Bridging the gap between consumers and the hosting service providers gives the advantage of setting up a great business model for channel partners without actually investing.
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@ accentinfomedia.com Skype ID: b1diyajadhav
SECURITY ISACA / 24 Mobile Payment SecurityOutlook & Trends, Challenges & Opportunities
CHANNEL ROADMAP WINMAGIC / 37 WinMagic Focussing mainly on Tier-1, 2 level
PARTNER CORNER MATRIX / 33 MATRIX is a Brand stands for ‘SUBSTANCE’
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Historic Dell and EMC Merger Complete Dell Technologies has announced completion of the acquisition of EMC Corporation, creating a unique family of businesses that
provides the essential infrastructure for organizations to build their digital future, transform IT and protect their most important asset,
information. This combination creates a $74 billion market leader with an expansive technology portfolio that solves complex problems
for customers in the industry’s fast-growing areas of hybrid cloud, software-defined data center, converged infrastructure, platformas-a-service, data analytics, mobility and cybersecurity. Dell Technologies serves 98 percent of the Fortune 500 and comprises several market leading businesses. The two largest, and most well-known, are the Dell client solutions business and the Dell EMC infrastructure solutions business – both of which are supported by Dell EMC Services. In addition, Dell Technologies contains Boomi, Pivotal, RSA, SecureWorks, Virtustream and VMware. Michael Dell, chairman and CEO of Dell Technologies, said, “We are at the dawn of the next industrial revolution. Our world is becoming more intelligent and more connected by the minute, and ultimately will become intertwined with a vast Internet of Things, paving the way for our customers to do incredible things. This is why we created Dell Technologies. We have the products, services, talent and global scale to be a catalyst for change and guide customers, large and small, on their digital journey.”
HPE Brings high-end Storage for SMBs Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has announced new shared storage solutions that help small and midsized businesses (SMBs) modernize their IT with hybrid flash and software-defined storage platforms that bring enterprise capabilities. The leader in entry level servers and storage in Asia Pacific for
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SME CHANNELS SEPTEMBER 2016
13 consecutive years, HPE is bringing enterprise storage data services to the entry space with modern storage that eliminates technology dead ends. The new HPE StoreVirtual 3200 provides a next-generation, entry storage array with an easy on-ramp to software-defined storage while the HPE MSA 2042 delivers hybrid
flash for application acceleration. Both systems feature a rich set of data services from data migration, to flash tiering to embedded resiliency across systems and sites. “No matter your size, when it comes to today’s digital transformation, ‘good enough’ storage is no longer good enough,” said Joybrata Mukherjee, Country
Head, Storage, Hewlett Packard Enterprise India. “By lowering the cost of flash and enabling a composable data fabric across storage systems and hyper-converged appliances, HPE is helping customers get off the disposable technology treadmill and onto storage they can grow with, not out of.”
SNIPPETS
Lenovo, Microsoft deepen strategic ties Microsoft Corp. and Lenovo announced a deepening of their strategic relationship. Lenovo will load Microsoft’s productivity apps — including Microsoft Office, OneDrive and Skype — on select Lenovo devices that use the Android operating system. Lenovo expects to ship millions of these Android-based devices worldwide over the next several years. “Microsoft’s thrilled that our productivity apps will be pre-installed on Lenovo’s premium devices,” said Nick Parker, corporate vice presi-
dent OEM Division, Microsoft. “The marriage of Microsoft’s apps and Lenovo’s Android-based devices will enable customers around the world to be more productive, more connected and achieve even more.” “Our collaboration with Microsoft will create new opportunities for our customers to take advantage of some of Microsoft’s most popular apps,” said Christian Eigen, Leader of Corporate Alliances, Lenovo. “
SAP strengthens Partner ecosystem
Sophos has announced the launch of their Partner Program for their 1000+ channel partners in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Maldives. The recently launched partner program enhances Sophos’ commitment to the partner community and is a part of the Global Program which is localized as per the needs of the Indian market, aimed at higher engagement, growth and profitability. This unlocks new avenues for all partners (Cyberoam and Sophos) to start selling a broader portfolio of products to ensure customers can leverage the immense potential of synchronized security. This partner program actively reflects Sophos’s commitment to help partners sell next-generation IT security technology to address today’s sophisticated threats. Partners have a great opportunity to grow their business by making the most of the demand for advanced IT security solutions.
SAP SE has announced the launch of SAP India Partner Advisory Board and plans to expand its collaborative channel approach for network of over 600 partners in country. At the Summit, the company also announced its long term plans to fortify its partner ecosystem and accelerate digital transformation in the country to enhance the ‘Digital India’ initiative. “We want our channel partners to be more equipped and capture the market opportunities by addressing the future digital needs of our customers and prospects. To support this, we are investing in knowledge sharing capabilities and initiatives such as the Partner Advisory Board aims to drive business with partners for mutual benefit,” said Avinash Kumar Purwar, Vice President, Global Partner Operations, SAP Indian Subcontinent. “Customers have been at our core throughout SAP’s two decades in India and expansion to our partner strategy further strengthens our commitment to the ecosystem”.
Oracle Partners with Telangana Academy
F-Secure scouts for Partner
Sophos Pleases Partners with New Program
Building on Oracle’s commitment to expanding its support of education in India announced earlier this year, Oracle Academy and Telangana Academy for Skill and Knowledge (TASK) have signed a partnership agreement to introduce Oracle Academy curriculum into 150 engineering colleges in Telangana. As part of this initiative, Oracle Academy resources including software, academic curriculum, hosted technology, educator training, support and certification resources will be made available to students and faculty. The initiative is expected to help 2,000 students and 150 faculty members over the next three years. Under this agreement, Oracle Academy will facilitate a ‘train-the-trainer’ course to ramp up engineering college faculty members as instructors for five Oracle Academy courses including Database Foundations, Database Design and Programming with SQL, Programming with PL/ SQL, Java Foundations, Java Fundamentals, and Java Programming. After completing their training with Oracle Academy, the faculty members will leverage the Oracle Academy infrastructure and materials to train other faculty members and students.
MY POINT
“The strong growth in the services market will be primarily because customers need external services to transform their security posture in the digital business era.” SIDDHARTH DESHPANDE , PRINCIPAL RESEARCH ANALYST AT GARTNER.
10 SME CHANNELS SEPTEMBER 2016
F-Secure plans to have 500 partners by the end of 2016 in India. F Secure believes in creation and development of channels as a critical differentiating factor as part of its core strategy of going to market. The new channel doctrine resembles a need in the market that makes tailor made products for the SMB channel, creating channel polices and structures meant to enhance competitive edge of partners and protect their customers from modern day cybersecurity threats. Jaakko Hyttinen, VP Sales – Global, Corporate Channel, F-Secure said, “We want to invest a lot of our development efforts towards getting channels that would grow stronger with us and make a difference in the segment. We are interested in working with partners and increasing their profitability, reducing their cost of business and at the same time making sure they build a huge services business. The response received so far has been encouraging for us to continue with our approach and expand further in the country.” In the APAC region, India and South East Asia are among the biggest markets for the company and the company’s plans are to double revenues from India every three years.
SNIPPETS
MSI Launches Notebooks with NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 10 seriesgraphics
HP CEO, Dion Weisler Reveals Strong Intent for Channel Growth
MSI delivers whole level gaming notebooks from GT series, GS series and GE series comes with VR Ready by latest GEFORCE GTX graphics, from GEFORCE GTX 1080 SLI of GT83VR Titan SLI, GEFORCE GTX 1070 of GT72VR, GEFORCE GTX 1060 of GS63VR Stealth and GE62VR Apache Pro, that could fulfill most of the gamers’ demand in every segment. MSI GT83VR Titan SLI is the King of latest generation of the SLI platform design and both matches the highest VR Ready standards. The GT83VR Titan SLI has an enhanced Cherry MX mechanical keyboard with red-color backlighting and SteelSeries Engine 3 of Macro Keys setup. Similarly, weighing just over 1.9kg, GS63VR Stealth Pro is COMPUTEX Best Choice Golden Award 2016 winner and the lightest 15“gaming laptop that packs a powerful cooling system and GEFORCE® GTX 1060 graphics, extreme computing performance and outstanding gaming features into a 17.7mm ultra slim chassis, which is even slimmer than some of Ultrabooks.
HP Global Partner Conference at Boston, US saw some of the big announcements around product innovations, services and programs aimed at growth of 250,000+ partners. With an agenda focused on reinvention, HP’s President and CEO Dion Weisler shared its vision and strategy to drive profitable growth and expand its channel business to 87% from 80%. “The needs and expectations of our customers are changing rapidly, and change creates opportunities for HP and our partners,” said Dion. “Backed by the channel who are critical to our go-to-market strategy, HP’s innovations are powering business and industry transformations. Together, we can seize these new opportunities and drive profitable growth today and in the futur e.” The high profile announcements of the event included, HP’s definitive agreement to acquire Samsung Electronics’ printer business in a deal valued at $1.05 billion and introduction of an extensive line of A3 MFPs and services, representing a strategic initiative for the company and supporting its effort to reinvent business printing. Also for partners, HP introduced a new services-led channel business model, enabling its channel to sell and service more efficiently. HP Partner First program also saw some tweak in it as Co-Marketing Zone and Social Media Center got added, which are basically designed to offer more value to partners enabling them to grow their businesses by tapping into industry trends. At the same time, Partner First Specialist designation now available for HP Device as a Service (DaaS), giving qualified partners access to exclusive benefits. Further, HP and Microsoft entered a multi-year agreement to deploy Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online to thousands of HP employees in order to enhance collaboration across marketing, sales and service operations.
EXECUTIVE MOVEMENT
SHIPMENT SHARE BY SEGMENT (%), INDIA PC MARKETQ2 CY2016 40.0%
36.8%
35.0%
35.9% 33.7%
31.3%
30.0% 25.0% 20.0%
17.2%
19.7%
15.0%
12.3%
5.0% Commerical Desktop
Commerical Notebook
Q1 2016 Source: IDC,s Asia Pacific Quarterly Pc Tracker,Agusut 2016
12 SME CHANNELS SEPTEMBER 2016
Consumer Desktop
Q2 2016
Intel Security today announced the appointment of Anand Ramamoorthy as Managing Director, India and SAARC. Virtusa elevates Sundararajan Narayanan to Executive Officer
13.2%
10.0%
0.0%
Canon ropes in Eddie Udagawa as VP for India
Consumer Notebook
DIGISOL ropes in Mandar Joshi as Channel Business Head
Tableau Software has announced the appointment of Adam Selipsky as President and CEO.
SNIPPETS
HID to Secure IoT Apps HID Global unveils new solutions that can secure IoT applications to improve the convenience and effectiveness of monitoring heating and cooling systems, along with a variety of manufacturing and safety equipment. The company’s latest HID Trusted Tag Services solution for CMMS joins HID Global’s trusted identity solutions that solve key challenges faced by facility managers in an IoT and smart building ecosystem. The HID Trusted Tag Services solution seamlessly integrates with CMMS systems to link physical assets to cloud-based maintenance systems and IoT applications. This automates service calls, with a simple tap of a mobile device, to streamline monitoring and maintenance of fire safety, back-office systems and cafeteria equipment. The offering enables field service teams to easily acquire service history and repair manuals, as well as open service tickets and confirm service call times, duration and status.
ACER INDIA EARNS MAJOR CERTIFICATION Acer India has announced that it has achieved the ISO/IEC 20000-1:2011 certification by Indian Register Quality Systems (a Division of IRCLASS Systems & Solutions Private Limited). The certification demonstrates Acer’s commitment to deliver superior IT managed services to customers and business partners. ISO/IEC 20000-1:2011 is the first worldwide standard specifically aimed at IT Service Management. Among the top PC Brands in India, Acer India is among the few IT service provider to get certified for ITSM in India. This certification has produced a series of benefits for Acer. It will enable the company to integrate people, processes and technology on the whole. Acer’s aim to achieve business goals can be contented with this certification as it describes an integrated set of management processes for the effective delivery of services to businesses and its channel partners. The certification also allows Acer to participate in the large Maintenance Contract Tenders, wherein this is one of the main criteria as a pre-requisite to bid. This achievement is a clear differentiator and plays a major role in positioning Acer at the forefront of the IT service industry. Underlining this major achievement Sudhir Goel, Chief Customer Support Officer, Acer India says, “Being a leading IT organization, we are dedicated to delivering high quality, ascendable and trustworthy services to our key stakeholders. By attaining the ISO/IEC 20000-1:2011 certification, we have once again demonstrated excellence and proven best practices in IT service management. It also reflects on the hard work and complete dedication of the entire Acer team.”
Edimax selects Modi Infosol as ND Edimax Technology has announced the appointment of Modi Infosol as a distributor for Edimax & Edimax Pro range of products in India. This partnership will enable Edimax to tap into new geographies; target over 2500+ channels partners and 400+ retailers pan India, substantially increasing their reach and penetration. “Partnering with established and forward-thinking companies such as Modi InfoSol is part of our strategy to seize new business opportunities. Distribution network of Modi Infosol has a great potential to reach out to last mile and serve untapped upcoming markets in India. This tie up will provide a new distribution network for Edimax Consumer range & Edimax Pro Enterprise series of products and enable SI partner as well as channel to utilize the most from best-in-class networking solutions to increase profitability and design solution using latest networking technologies.” said Sanjay Joshi, Country Manager (India & Sub-Continent) at Edimax Technology.
QNAP Unveils QTS 4.2.2 NAS OS QNAP Systems releases QTS 4.2.2 – the smart NAS operating system – with its new innovative storage capacity expansion technology. VJBOD (Virtual JBOD) Beta allows users to expand the capacity of a QNAP NAS by using unused storage resources from other QNAP NAS. VJBOD is a great benefit for users with multiple QNAP NAS and helps achieve optimal capacity utilization in a cost-effective way. “With VJBOD, users can make the best use of available storage resources across multiple QNAP NAS and enjoy a highly-flexible storage expansion solution. With VJBOD and conventional expansion enclosures, users have a wide range of options available to expand the available space of their QNAP NAS.” said Ripple Wu, Product Manager of QNAP. QNAP VJBOD is network-based JBOD which allows users to allocate storage space from another QNAP NAS iSCSI LUN as an Virtual Disk, then create storage pools, take snapshots, clone snapshots, or index multimedia files into the media library on the local NAS. With VJBOD, a QNAP NAS can use unused storage space from up to 8 remote NAS while at the same time being connected to QNAP expansion enclosures, providing it with massive amounts of storage potential. Moreover, VJBOD can be used in couple with 10GbE/40GbE network and port trunking (link aggregation) to provide users with storage space with high speed and stable connectivity.
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Quick Heal Rewarded the contest Winners Quick Heal Technologies has announced the winner of its ‘Quick Heal Khareedo Gaadi Jeeto Contest’. The winner, Tanuj Dutta from Kolkata was given keys of a brand new Nissan Terrano at an event conducted at the company’s office in Kolkata. The other prizes in the contest have been a Honda Activa and a laptop, point and shoot cameras, bluetooth speakers, external hard disk drives, headphones and backpacks. All other participants won additional validity on their Quick Heal products which were activated and registered during the contest. There were around 43,300 participants in the 3rd consecutive year of the contest. Speaking on the occasion, Saurabh Sengupta, Associate GM (East), Quick Heal Technologies said; “We are market leaders in India with around 30% market share in retail segment. Our esteemed customers have been a major community to whom we owe this success.” He further added; “This is the 3rd successful year of the contest and we have seen encouraging participation from customers across India. On behalf of the entire Quick Heal family, I congratulate all the winners.”
SNIPPETS
RAH Infotech signs alliance with WinMagic
Fortinet Boosts its India Presence
WinMagic has entered into a strategic tie-up with RAH Infotech. The collaboration is aimed at leveraging the synergies of the two partners to help organizations minimize business risks, meet privacy and regulatory compliance requirements and protect valuable information assets against unauthorized access. Rahul Kumar, Country Manager, WinMagic India Pvt. Ltd., shared “Within an enterprise, there are a wide variety of systems and processes that make data security complex and challenging. To ensure the success of your IT infrastructure as it grows, it’s critical to host and manage the keys to encryption effectively.” “RAH Infotech as our distributor will play an instrumental role in enhancing our channel base by helping us reach out to various untapped markets across India. We are confident that the channel strength that RAH Infotech brings and the innovation in technology that WinMagic is known for will work in synergy to our mutual advantage in India. This tie-up would enable us to meet the ever changing demands of customers,” he added further.
India’s PC Market Maintaining Stable growth: IDC
It has opened up an Innovation Centre in Bangalore, which is believed to be the company’s largest R&D facility outside North America. Inaugurating the Innovation centre at Bangalore, Patrice Perche, senior executive vice president, Worldwide Sales and Support at Fortinet said, “Today, most connected devices use WiFi as their default connectivity standard. With the proliferation of IoT, seamlessly blending WiFi access with network protection is an integral part of the Fortinet Security Fabric. With the WiFi industry growing at double-digit rates, the research activities carried out by this team are highly relevant not only in the Indian market but all over the world”. “In Bangalore, we are building enterprise class WiFi systems that seamlessly onboard and switch customers between WiFi and LTE networks,” said Kishore Reddy, Vice President of Engineering & Country Manager, Fortinet Innovation Centre. “Our research team will also provide business intelligence to customers who have very large on-premise WiFi deployments. The investments to expand the R&D infrastructure here augment Fortinet’s plans to increase its share in the global wireless market.” The WiFi research facility adds to the vendor’s DistrwWibuted Denial of Service (DDoS) R&D team in Hyderabad, which builds the hardware logic for its DDoS attack mitigation appliances. The company also reveals that India Technical Assistance Centre Extends Support to Europe, Middle East and Africa. Fortinet has also appointed the domain specialists to provide network security expertise to every major industry – Government, Telecom, Healthcare, BFSI, Retail, Manufacturing and Education.
According to Manish Yadav, Senior Market Analyst, Client Devices, IDC India, the overall consumer PC market recorded 1.05 million units, a quarter-on-quarter growth of 14.5 percent over Q1 2016.Consumer spending throughout the quarter remained lukewarm, however owing to seasonality quarter ended up with a positive momentum. With forthcoming benefits from the 7th Pay commission and increased budget allocation for rural India, coupled with a good monsoon the rural demand is anticipated to improve, while urban demand is steadily picking-up”. The overall commercial PC market recorded 1.09 million unit shipments in Q2 2016 i.e. a 1.1 percent quarter-on-quarter increase against Q1 2016.
Huawei Unveils Cloud Strategy Quantum strengthens its Partner More than 20,000 ICT industry leaders and experts from over 120 countries and regions gathered for the very first HUAWEI CONNECT, Huawei’s conference for the global ICT ecosystem. Held in Shanghai, the theme of this three-day event is “Shape the Cloud,” aimed at exploring cloud era trends and how different industries can achieve digital transformation by developing cloud technology and contributing to the cloud ecosystem. This event marks the first time that Huawei has publicly given a comprehensive look at its cloud strategy. During the first keynote, Ken Hu, Huawei’s Rotating CEO, explained that the company aims to position itself as the enabler and driver of an intelligent world. The company will hold true to its culture of customer-centricity, focus on ICT infrastructure, and provide innovative cloud technology. Throughout this process, Huawei aims to become a preferred partner that enables digital and cloud transformatio.
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ecosystem
Targeted at bringing enhanced multi-tier storage solutions to security and surveillance customers worldwide, Quantum has announced joint development initiatives with four industry-leading Video Management System (VMS). Aimetis Corp., On-Net Surveillance Systems Inc. (OnSSI), Qognify and Verint Systems Inc. have joined the Quantum Advantage Program, and certified interoperability with Quantum offerings, including StorNext 5 data management and Quantum QXShybrid storage. Quantum’s surveillance partner ecosystem has tripled in size over the last six months and now includes more than 30 partners. This growth reflects a shift in how the security community views storage, increasingly treating it as a foundational element of a surveillance strategy.
SNIPPETS
Modern Data Center is the future of IT The rise of mobile devices, cloud computing, social media, the Internet of Things, and other disruptive forces, has significantly transformed the way applications are built, deployed, and utilized. The roles applications play within a business have changed radically, too. Disruptors in every industry are driving massive change, creating new and vastly improved customer experiences and services. In order to capture these new digital revenue streams, develop smarter products and deliver the improved experiences that customers expect, businesses and IT departments need to undergo
significant IT and Digital Transformation. To deliver on the capabilities of a digital business, it is indispensable for IT organizations to modernize and automate their infrastructure, and transform their data center operation into a cloud environment – one that is fully automated and self-service. The rapid shift in data center technologies will enable enterprises to optimize existing IT and legacy investments to free up resources for next generation IT that will transform the business. We see these new technologies as pillars for the modern data center.
Zyxel a Network Solution Vendor Zyxel Communications has announced the launch of a global rebranding campaign “Your Networking Ally”. For nearly 30 years, Zyxel has earned a reputation for innovative products that “make the world connect”. The company is now looking ahead to build networks that help people achieve their goals and change the world for the better. By identifying as “Your Networking Ally”, Zyxel highlights its core competence and the close relationship it shares with customers. People and organizations need a partner who understands their struggles and provides solutions that help them meet these challenges. Zyxel is that ally. The new tagline is supported by a number of stories that illustrate how Zyxel is making change happen. Zyxel President, Gordon Yang, describes the transition to becoming a solution provider as “solid and exciting.” It’s solid because we are holding most of the technologies in our hands already.” And it’s exciting because we are standing side-by-side with our customers, helping them achieve their goals— unlocking their potential”.
D-Link support for Apple HomeKit D-Link has announced the development of a new Wi-Fi camera that will support Apple HomeKit and the new Home app in iOS 10 later this year, making the global networking company one of the latest major brands to support Apple’s smart home framework. “In D-Link, we’ve been building Wi-Fi cameras for more than 10 years and we understand the strategic importance of these cameras to your home’s IoT ecosystem,” said Tushar Sighat, Executive Director & CEO, D-Link (India) Ltd. “We’ve been working hard with Apple to help make a unique connected home experience that meets the real needs of users. Now, through the new HomeKit-enabled D-Link camera and Apple’s new Home app in iOS 10, we are excited that families around the world will have an easy and secure way to monitor their homes.”
Lite-On bullish about Indian SSD market Taiwan based global leader in Optical Storage Solutions, Lite-On Technology Corporation has announced plans for a multi-million-dollar expansion of its manufacturing plant in Hsinchu, Taiwan. Driven by a boom in SSD demand around the globe, Lite-On Storage, a Strategic Business Group (SBG) of the company, which is best known as a leading provider of solid-state drives (SSDs) for storing data under the Lite-On and Plextor brands, said it expects its expansion to be completed by the end of 2016. Lite-On said that it will invest approximately US$30 million to add a second plant of more than 200,000 square feet at its manufacturing site in Hsinchu Science Park. The extra capacity is expected to lead to the creation of 150 new jobs, and boost production of enterprise SSDs at the facility by over 30 percent.
DIGEST INTEL SECURITY BRINGS MOBILE SECURITY TECHNOLOGY TO SAMSUNG DEVICES Intel Security has announced that Samsung’s latest smartphone, Galaxy Note7 and Tizen OS based Z2 will come pre-installed with McAfee VirusScan mobile security. McAfee VirusScan Mobile is an anti-malware technology solution that is already helping to provide a more secure mobile experience to millions of Samsung Galaxy users globally. With this collaboration, Samsung customers can enjoy better protection from more diverse and sophisticated threats in mobile world
GODADDY INTRODUCES APP FOR DOMAIN AUCTIONS GoDaddy has announced the launch of its first mobile app for domain investors in India. The GoDaddy Investor app, launching on iOS and Android, will allow investors to watch and bid on domains at auction and stay on top of their current bids all from their mobile device. Aftermarket domain auctions are time-sensitive and highly competitive, and it’s critical that investors are able to easily participate at any time and from anywhere, not just from their computers.
IBM ENABLED INDUSIND BANK IBM has announced that one of India’s leading private sector banks, IndusInd Bank ,will use its IBM’s Cloud commerce solutions to transform customer engagements and enhance its cross-sell platforms, in line with the bank’s strategy. As a part of a three year strategic agreement, IBM will provide a cloud and predictive analytics based multichannel campaign management solution that enables IndusInd Bank to strengthen its online banking presence while improving the product holding per customer.
BIOSTAR DEBUTS G300 SERIES SSDS Biostar has announced the launch in the SSD category with G300 series, targeted for power users and gamers looking for high performance storage. Equipped with ultra-modern technology and specifically engineered from the ground-up to deliver an unparalleled gaming performance the G300 SSDs are ready to help you take the leap into the future.
COMPUAGE TO DISTRIBUTE LINKSYS PRODUCTS Compuage Infocom will be the exclusive India distributor for the Linksys range of products which include wireless/Wi-Fi and networking solutions for Consumer and SMB segments. Compuage Infocom has a pan-India presence with branches across 45 cities and a strong network of more than 10000 partners. Linksys India hopes to strengthen its India presence and reach out to tier 2 and 3 cities apart from major metros through this strategic tie-up. Linksys current consumer product portfolio in India includes Wireless Routers and Gateways, Wireless Range Extenders, USB Network Adapters, and Networking Accessories. For the Small and Medium Business (SMB) Segment, Linksys India currently offers Switches, VPN Routers, Access Points and Networking Accessories.
SME CHANNELS 17 SEPTEMBER 2016
SNIPPETS
Dell to Make its Computing Devices Versatile Dell India has announced the availability of pre-bundled Office Home & Student 2016 edition across its range of consumer Windows 10 based PCs (Inspiron, XPS, Alienware and Vostro brands), starting August 20th 2016. In an offer currently available only on Dell PCs, Dell is giving consumers the freedom to do more with their PCs using their lifetime licensed version of 2016. While a standard single user license for Microsoft Office Home and Student 2016 is available at an MRP of Rs. 5999, customers will be able to avail authentic Microsoft Office Home and Student 2016 software pre-bundled with their new Windows 10 Dell PC at no extra cost. The latest offering will enable end consumers to enjoy the benefits of a versatile productivity suite to be able to work more efficiently, even while on the go.
Kaspersky Hosts Partner Pitstop forWest India Partners Kaspersky Labs has conducted a successful Partner Pitstop meet for its West India partners. The event was attended by over 35 participants and was in continuance of Kaspersky Labs’ relentless pursuit of keeping all its partners regularly updated with all its solutions. The key content of the program focused on technical overview of the latest offerings and services from Kaspersky Security Solutions for Enterprise which includes Security for Virtualisation, Security for Storage, Security Intelligence Services, Anti-APT, DDoS Protection and Security for Data Centers. Altaf Halde, MD, Kaspersky Lab, South Asia said, “At Kaspersky Lab, we’ve always been proactive. Not just in foreseeing challenges that would soon surface, but also in designing innovative solutions that work, to tackle these issues. With our immensely experienced professionals, we’re always a step ahead of the very smart cyber criminals. At this Partner Pitstop, we carefully went through our enterprise services and solutions, and solutions for ATM & POS systems in particular. Our partners, who greatly benefitted from this exchange, will soon add up new customers for this solution.”
A10 Networks joins Cisco Solution Partner Program A10 Networks has announced that it has joined the Cisco Solution Partner Program as a Solution Provider. The Internet of Everything (IoE) continues to bring together people, processes, data and things to enhance the relevancy of network connections. As a member of the Cisco Solution Partner Program, A10 Networks is able to quickly create and deploy solutions to enhance the capabilities, performance and management of the network to capture value in the IoE. “Having worked with Cisco in the past to deliver dynamic application networking services, which integrated the A10 Thunder Application Delivery Controllers (ADCs) with Cisco’s Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) fabric, we look forward to expanding our relationship through the company’s Solution Partner Program,” said Raj Jalan, CTO of A10 Networks. “Our customers should continue to expect that A10 leads the pack in offering a new generation of application networking technologies.
Seclore Expands Reach in India Seclore has announced the opening of a new office in Gurgaon, India. Having already established offices in Mumbai, Bangalore, Middle East, Singapore, and the US, the Gurgaon office will serve as a major center for the growing needs of persistent file-centric security for the Indian central government & public sector, fueled by their recent data security initiatives. The NCR region in India is one of the fastest growing markets for Seclore. Seclore recently reported an all-time record for annual results with an 83 percent year-over-year revenue growth fueled by enterprise demand for persistent file-centric security. Last quarter the company also announced raising $12 million in Series B funding by Helion Ventures, VentureEast, Sistema Asia Fund, and India Alternatives to support the increasing market demands and growth momentum. “Our continued investments in sales, marketing and services for the NCR region are a vote of confidence to the business potential we see in this market. The new office showcases our commitment to our customers. By being closer to the market, we can increase the development of data-centric solution capabilities and services that align with the needs of our customers, and expand our core teams to support the growth that we are currently witnessing,” said Vishal Gupta, CEO, Seclore. Seclore provides the most advanced, secure, and automated Enterprise Digital Rights Management (EDRM) solution in the industry.
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VxRack System with Neutrino to Push Cloud Native Solutions With EMC Native Hybrid Cloud (NHC) and VxRack Neutrino, dedicated cloud native platforms from EMC are enterprise ready, easy to install, and future proofed. VxRack System with Neutrino, available stand alone or as part of NHC, is a purpose built system specifically engineered to support the development and operation of cloud native apps running on platforms like OpenStack (available today) and VMware Photon (in the near future). VxRack Neutrino addresses “Do It Yourself ” challenges with OpenStack initiatives such as delayed deployments, complexity of operation, and difficulty of achieving stability as highlighted in a recent OpenStack User Survey. With VxRack Neutrino, an OpenStack environment can be provisioned in a matter of minutes, with significantly simplified ongoing operations and upgrades. NHC and VxRack Neutrino empower developers to rapidly build and iterate code in a fully turnkey Pivotal Cloud Foundry developer platform with a full complement of application services, while IT Operations retains full visibility and control of the environment.
SNIPPETS
Brocade strengthens global distribution network Brocade has announced that it has formed a distribution partnership with Hills, a value-added distributor of integrated technology and communication solutions in Australia. Established in 1945, Hills is a value-added distributor of technology and communication solutions in the security, audio visual (AV) and communications sectors, as well as a technology services provider to the hospital and aged care industry across Australia. Hills has been a distributor for Ruckus Wireless, now part of Brocade, since it started business in Australia in 2010. The partnership with Brocade is a natural extension of that relationship. “We are incredibly excited to add Brocade products to our offering,” said David Lenz, CEO, Hills. Hills now distributes Brocade enterprise IP networking solutions, with a particular focus on Brocade ICX fixed form-factor switches for campus networks.
KONICA MINOLTA GETS MAJOR RECOGNITION FOR ITS A3 MFPS Konica Minolta continued its winning streak as itsA3 Multifunctional Printers (MFP) bizhub C308 and bizhub 227/287, were awarded at “BLI Pick Award 2016”. BLI is a leading intelligence provider on the document imaging industry and the Pick awards acknowledge the products that performthe best as per the BLI extensive laboratory tests. These awards acknowledge products and its capabilities that stand out for attributes such as innovation, usefulness, energy efficiency and range of other criteria. “The Konica Minolta bizhub 227/287 and bizhubC308 will reduce costs and streamline workflows in a number of ways and impressively bridge the gap between compact A4 MFPs and traditional mid-volume A3 office MFPs,” said BIL Senior Editor George Mikolay. “The device is a high value-add for small- to mid-size workgroups. The BLI award winning MyTab in the drivers is fully customizable, allowing users to set preferences and shortcuts for frequently used job to streamline workflow. And the intuitive control panel can be customized with up to 25 shortcut keys for commonly programmed jobs.” Yuji Nakata, MD Konica Minolta Business Solutions India quoted, “The Konica Minolta bizhubC308 &bizhub227/ 287series is induced to the segment in a way where it plays pivotal role byprovidingcompetitive pricing factor, streamline workflows and is in sync with the latest applications which can be operated through mobile devices”. Key features of Award winning Konica Minolta bizhubC308 &bizhub227/ 287 included Excellent reliability, Fully customizable driver and diverse control panel, etc.f
India security market to reach $1.12 billion in 2016: Gartner Gartner analysts are providing the latest trends for the security market at the inaugural Gartner Security & Risk Management Summit. Security spending will continue to grow in 2017 when revenue is projected to reach $1.24 billion. Security services (that includes consulting, implementation, support and managed security services) revenue accounted for 61 percent of this total revenue in 2015, and this proportion will increase to 66 percent by 2020. “The strong growth in the security services market will be primarily because customers need external services to transform their security posture in the digital business era. Security services are typically categorized as either implementation, consulting or security outsourcing services, and many providers are beginning to offer all three categories to address customer requirements,” Siddharth Deshpande , principal research analyst at Gartner. “In 2016, we are seeing large enterprises increase their security budgets to enhance their security program, and several midmarket and enterprise organizations creating new space for security spending as part of their technology budget,” said Deshpande.
GIGABYTE reinforces market foothold in India GIGABYTE Technology has opened its brand new exclusive showroom-cum-experience zone in the country’s capital, New Delhi. The showroom was formally inaugurated on September 3, 2016, by Satish Sharma of Cost To Cost Computer, one of the most prominent GIGABYTE channel partners in the North; along with Ms. Shiva Yang, Sales Manager at GIGABYTE Technology Co. Ltd.; and Sunil Grewal, Director, GIGABYTE Technology (India) Pvt. Ltd. The launch event attracted a large number of PC enthusiasts, channel partners, members of the media, tech bloggers and gamers, for whom a gaming contest was also organized. With its GIGABYTE motherboard-powered, high performance demo rigs, VR (Virtual Reality) experience space, and planned activities / events centered on satiating the adrenalin of extreme PC users, the showroom is expected to be the most happening destination for gamers, overclockers, and those who are into content creation, as a digital artiste, 3D modeler, multimedia output developer, photography specialist, or even an engineer.
Kyocera launches multifunctional device for Business Kyocera Document Solutions is all set to surprise customers with its yet another innovation for better and efficient document management. Kyocera has introduced new Multifunction Printer (MFP) with integrated technology of print, copy, scan and fax* to help reduce business operations cost while increasing efficiency and productivity. This new highly affordable and top performing product “TASKalfa 3051ci Color MFP” is equipped with inbuilt password protection feature to maintain confidentiality of documents post printing. It also supports flexible ecoprint settings for lesser consumption of energy and toner hence helping user to reduce carbon footprints. While launching the exciting TASKalfa 3051ci Color MFP, K. Swetharanyan, Managing Director, Kyocera Document Solutions India said, “Designed for superb usability, TASKalfa 3051ci Color MFP is perfect to match today’s customers’ requirements to improve efficiency, engagement and productivity with enhanced security in the workplace. Kyocera strives to provide customized solutions to its customers and address their business pain points in a best possible way.”
SME CHANNELS 19 SEPTEMBER 2016
COVER STORY
SERVICES BUSINESS:
OPPORTUNITY GALORE
FOR PARTNERS Bridging the gap between consumers and the hosting service providers gives the advantage of setting up a great business model for channel partners without actually investing. Additionally, channel partners can benefit by acting as affiliates, provide services for their own customers, and private-label hosted service provider’s expertise to other consumers. BY SATINDER KAUR skaur@smechannels.com
I
ndia’s technology and business services industry is among the world’s most dynamic sectors, transforming the nation’s growth story. Service requirements have changed immensely over the last few years. The evolution of Services sector can be classified in three stages – the first was dominated by Back office applications such as ERP, the second of front office applications such as automation, CRM and mobility. The current stage is marked by customer centricity, where focus on enabling the customers is causing a wave of digital transformations in the Services sector. The services industry is not only the dominant sector in India’s economic growth, but has also attracted significant foreign investment flows, contributed significantly to exports as well as provided large-scale employment in India. Services sector covers a wide variety of activities such as applications (software as a service), security, monitoring, storage, web development, website hosting and email). The global market as such is seeing loads of potential for the growth of cloud services with IaaS - cloud system infrastructure services (infrastructure as a service) expected to be the key segment steering the growth. As far as Indian market is concerned, it’s catching up with the emerging trends and leading IT players have already probed into this to improve efficiency. Both private and government sector are aware of cloud services and
20 SME CHANNELS SEPTEMBER 2016
have started adopting which has resulted in a great opportunity for the cloud domain in the coming years. The thrust of the Government on digital initiatives, such as the UIDAI project, Smart Cities and e-governance projects among others, will also add on the growth of this sector. This will provide a big impetus to the Data Center market and Cloud Storage market in India. The rapidly growing e-commerce space, with its pull in the rural and semi-urban markets, is another factor for the booming growth of Cloud market in India. Rajan Rahi, Business Head- Channels, HCL Infosystems excerpts, “The growth for Cloud Services in India is expected to be led by the increasing number of SMBs migrating to online presence. This, coupled by the increasing internet and smart phone penetration, is likely to drive the demand for Cloud Services in the next few years. The growing number and influence of Start-ups are leading the digital journey in both India and globally. Start-ups are at the fore front of digital adoption to come up with the most customercentric solutions.” Cloud consumption in India is surely on the rise and has been rapid of late. According to Gartner’s forecast, Public cloud services market in India is projected to grow 30.4 percent in 2016 to total $1.26 billion; SaaS - $389.8 million USD; Cloud Management and Security Services - $104.2 million USD and hosting - CAGR (Compound annual growth rate)
COVER STORY
SME CHANNELS 21 SEPTEMBER 2016
COVER STORY
“PRICING AND UNIQUENESS ARE THE MAJOR CHALLENGES WHICH ARE A PART OF ADOPTING HOSTED SERVICE.” JIM SIMON, SR. DIRECTOR OF ASIA-PACIFIC MARKETING AT QUANTUM CORPORATION EXCERPTS
of 20.6% FY’2014-FY’2019. Application hosting and E-mail are the major consumers of hosted services in India. SaaS is said to be the major crowd puller in Indian cloud market which is predicted to take up over 40% of market share by 2020. As far as the verticals are concerned, pharmaceuticals, automobile, healthcare, FMCG, ecommerce and BFSI (Banking Financial Services and Insurance) have been the major contributors for the growth of hosted services. The e-governance initiative is a big step towards realising the digital dream. UIDAI project, E-governance initiative, Indian Data Center market are the upcoming prospects that’ll determine the future of hosted services in India. E seva, mobile seva and several other initiatives which encourages people to access government services through the internet has increased the demand for hosted services that are secured and scalable. According to Bala Kandaswamy, Co-founder and CEO, Contus, “The latest government initiatives have inspired private sectors, mainly SMBEs to move over cloud services and here is where, we, as a hosted service solution provider, chip in.”
Technologies influencing Indian Service Sector Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud can be the best partners for those interested in taking up hosted cloud services as a business. These technology giants have the much needed technical expertise, infrastructure, customer ser-
vicing models and well established support network that can empower newcomers of the hosted services domain to provide the best-in-class services to their customers like a pro in no time. IoT, Virtual reality and self driven cars will be the game changers in the Indian service sector in the not so very distant future. IoT is more than a buzzword. Internet of Things has already transitioned from being an emerging concept to something which is finding its application in major industries. Its entry into the household is the major advancement in the recent times. However, automated driving is a totally new tech that will introduced to Indian market very soon. With automobile major like Nissan, which has already tasted success in its automated driving car like Nissan Leaf, having their own product plants in India, self driven cars won’t be a future tech for long in India. Augmented reality has received a warm welcome in many industries including healthcare, entertainment, automobiles, architecture, gaming and much more. With great customer experience becoming a sophistication demanded by all modern-new-age consumers Augmented reality is the probably the best medium for brands to achieve it.
Partner’s Role Partners can be a huge asset in terms of amplifying any vendors reach and message, and expanding the addressable market. No doubt, they will only do it if there’s something in it for them as well, be it
“INDIA IS SO FAR ONE OF THE MOST RECEPTIVE MARKET FOR TECHNOLOGIES. IF WE ADDRESS THE SECURITY CONCERNS OF THE CLOUD, GENERALLY INDIANS ARE MORE WILLING TO ACCEPT THE CLOUD SOLUTION.” SANJEEV DESHPANDE, MD, ITELLIGENCE INDIA
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“THE LATEST GOVERNMENT INITIATIVES HAVE INSPIRED PRIVATE SECTORS, MAINLY SMBES TO MOVE OVER CLOUD SERVICES AND HERE IS WHERE, WE, AS A HOSTED SERVICE SOLUTION PROVIDER, CHIP IN.” BALA KANDASWAMY, CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, CONTUSPANASONIC INDIA
any revenue sharing program or some other benefit. As we know, Software as a Service (SaaS) is growing in recognition with each passing day, and with the buzz around it, more and more clients are looking it. For a reseller or systems integrator (SI), SaaS requires a few adjustments, but service providers and vendors alike agree there’s a role for the channel with SaaS. Especially in the small and medium-sized business (SMB) sector, companies will look for suitable a SaaS reseller for advice and implementation help. Low-value functions like order taking, fulfilment, installations and upgrades are like gone things now; rather with cloud solutions, partners have become strategic advisors, project coaches and field experts, helping clients gaining rapid success.. These differences change the channel role in sales, implementation and professional services.
Challenges for Partners: Despite the obvious benefits, IT organizations have been careful in making the move to the cloud. Concerns over security, sovereignty, compliance, application disruption, and performance
COVER STORY
sensitive. From that perspective, if we address the security concerns of the Cloud, generally Indians are more willing to accept the Cloud Solution. So, we see a tremendous growth perspective.” Uniqueness is another major concern as each business has their own specific requirements which may not be available in your hosted solution. Deciding whether to provide the customization as an exclusive move for that particular customer alone, or incorporating the improvement (customization) as a part of your product are some of the challenging decisions every hosted service provider will have to face.
“THE THRUST OF THE GOVERNMENT ON DIGITAL INITIATIVES, SUCH AS THE UIDAI PROJECT, SMART CITIES AND E-GOVERNANCE PROJECTS AMONG OTHERS, WILL ALSO ADD ON THE GROWTH OF SERVICES SECTOR.” RAJAN RAHI, BUSINESS HEAD- CHANNELS, HCL INFOSYSTEMS continue to inhibit a wholesale move to the cloud. This is particularly true for organizations with complex, data-intensive workflows—for example, capturing and evaluating satellite images, producing and distributing high-resolution video, and collecting and analyzing network traffic for cyber security defence. These demanding environments require a reliable, secure, high-performance infrastructure that is tightly integrated with applications—which most cloud offerings don’t provide. As far as Quantun is concerned, Quantum’s Q-Cloud Services represent a great opportunity for Quantum Alliance channel partners to offer consulting and implementation services. In some cases, Q-Cloud Services can even be resold
by Quantum Alliance channel partners thereby adding an additional opportunity to increase margin. Explaining it further, Jim Simon, Sr. Director of Asia-Pacific Marketing at Quantum Corporation excerpts, “Pricing and uniqueness are the major challenges which are a part of adopting hosted service. When it comes to pricing, there is no one-size fits all. You never know what the exact pricing plan is, and only with time can a channel partner determine it.” India is a market where the rates prevail and price sensitivity is at peak. Agreeing to this, Sanjeev Deshpande, MD, iTelligence India says, “India is so far one of the most receptive market for technologies. At the same time, it is very price
At the end... Innovation and entrepreneurship will drive the next phase of growth for Indian technology and services market in the coming decade, so the partners have to be prepared. However, the ability of channel partners purely depends upon the prowess of the cloud service provider. Upon evaluating the cloud service providers’ ability to provide adaptive scalability and other key hosting factors, a channel partner can determine their level of servicing to their consumers.
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SME CHANNELS 23 SEPTEMBER 2016
SECURITY
ISACA
MOBILE PAYMENT SECURITY-
OUTLOOK & TRENDS,
CHALLENGES & OPPORTUNITIES Mechanisms empowering advancements in mobile payment technology BY: SANJAY MOHAPATRA Sanjay@smechannels.com
F
inancial service organizations are seeking to become more innovative and entrepreneurial as they are adopting new technologies to increase their efficiency and provide satisfaction to their consumers. A vast number of technologies have surfaced to support mobile payments including competing technologies such as NFC, QR codes and sound wave. Widespread adoption is highly dependent on ease of use by all stakeholders. Further complicating the choice is the imperative to support dynamic authentication as data security and fraud protection grow to paramount importance for online transactions. Multi-factor authentication is endorsed by the FFIEC guidelines as best practices for risk mitigation. Yet, usability remains a key factor in determining which method of authentication to implement. Further, to compound the problem, Bring Your Own Devices (BYOD) policies being implemented by modern enterprises poses grave challenges in the form of privacy encroachment – both personal privacy of the employees and enterprise data confidentiality, integrity and availability. Modern Organizations are struggling to implement separation of the private data and corporate data contained in a single device through MDM – Mobile Device Management or containerization. The single mobile device would now be used to either process a personal payment or a commercial enterprise payment both necessitating provision of privacy and security of data at rest, motion and processing. Some of the MDM technologies are unable to
24 SME CHANNELS SEPTEMBER 2016
SUNDER KRISHNAN, ADVISOR WITH ISACA. prevent file attachments. Some of Data Leakage Prevention tools are unable to prevent tracing of encrypted messages. The same underlying technologies are being used to process payments, heightening the challenges. As Financial service organizations are seeking to become more innovative and entrepreneurial they are adopting new technologies to increase their efficiency and provide satisfaction to their consumers. Banks have now started to invest in technology. As a result, new banking applications and capabilities are helping to develop a competitive advantage, reduce costs and achieve efficiency and customer satisfaction. The integration of data and technology to help customers to manage their money in a better and quicker way and the use of newer channels such as mobile devices and social media will help to deliver banking services as and when customers need them. Continuing advances in technology will allow the financial services industry to deploy increasingly complex and high end analytics to help clients to make them more informed investing decisions. Innovations such as cloud computing will help bring a host of benefits to the clients from automation and capacity on demand to accelerated time to marketing real time data infrastructure and strengthened client service. Use of latest technological advancements provides a window of opportunity for financial institutions to elevate business performance and gain a competitive advantage.
“DEVELOPERS NEED TO ENSURE DATA PROTECTION IN TRANSIT AND SECURE DATE INTEGRATION WITH THIRD PARTY SERVICES AND APPLICATIONS.”
Advantages of mobile payments relative to physical and e-commerce
(For reading compelete coverage log on to www.smechannels.com)
transactions Using mobile devices to pay for goods, services, bills, or money transfers offers numerous advantages, including convenience and ease of use for consumers, increased impulse and other sales for merchants, and more income for wireless-service providers. Mobile payments can be linked to users’ credit or debit cards, phone bills, or prepaid deposits. They offer convenience for buyers by letting them make purchases from wireless devices, which lets them pay for goods or services wherever they are. Enabling easier purchases, including those made on the spur of the moment, yields more income for merchants. Mobile payment transaction volume has grown so exponentially, it’s difficult to ignore. The fact is,
CHANNEL OUTREACH
ASHISH KAPAHI, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, GATES APAC PTE. LTD.
WE WANT TO CREATE A LAST MILE FOR ALL ICT BUSINESSES IN INDIA GATES APAC Pte. Ltd. Is going to organize a three-day channel conference in Bangalore targeting the entire ecosystem to talk to their vendors and sort out their differences and enhance cooperation. SME Channels spoke to Ashish Kapahi, Executive Director, GATES APAC Pte. Ltd. Excerpts…
What is the objective and goal of this conference? The objective and goal of this event is to create a cohesive national ICT channel platform/ ecosystem where resellers from all over India are invited to participate, contribute and benefit. What is the theme and value proposition for this year? GATES is a 3 days closed door, On invite only, Channel Mapping Summit. It’s not an exhibition or a show. Here only prequalified channel partners get an opportunity to meet vendors in a predetermined 1 on 1 meeting format - system driven with high proficiency & productivity followed by inspiring Key Notes, Market Insights, Business Strategies, useful business cases and many informal networking opportunities. What kind of growth are you expecting this year vi-a-vis last
year in terms of attendance and sessions? We are expecting about 20-25% as more channels and vendors are now aware of the benefits that they can derive out of GATES. Who should attend and why should they attend this conference? All stakeholders in the ICT ecosystem are invited to attend as long as they can contribute to the forum, starting with ICT reseller channels, Distributors, Vendors, Research, Media, Financial players, logistics partners, regulators and enablers etc. What are the subjects this conference would address in three days’ time? The conference is just one part of the Summit and address the following:
“WE ARE EXPECTING ABOUT 20-25% AS MORE CHANNELS AND VENDORS ARE NOW AWARE OF THE BENEFITS THAT THEY CAN DERIVE OUT OF GATES.” n Pain points of the industry - topics/ issues originate from vendors and channels - we build agenda’s around them and invite stakeholders to participate in a un-conference format. n Tools and enablers which can help channels grow, sustain and make their business more efficient are presented.
So far it is done in India, is there any plan to take it to other countries? Yes, we are starting a SEA platform next year. What is the roadmap of this conference? This conference is just one part - we are a channel mapping summit!!!! We want to create a last mile for all ICT businesses in India and South Asia region.
SME CHANNELS 25 SEPTEMBER 2016
FEATURE
RIGHT FINANCE MANAGEMENT:
LEADS TO
SUCCESSFUL DISTRIBUTION BUSINESS OPERATIONS A major challenge in channel management is continuously keeping the channel partners motivated to support the principal, especially when markets are facing tough times. Obviously, profitability is a major driver for any channel partner, but it is not the only factor affecting channel member satisfaction and motivation. Along with maintaining healthy RoI for partners, OEMs should also utilise other financial and non-financial incentives to keep motivating their channel partners. BY SATINDER KAUR skaur@smechannels.com
D
istribution channels are like the corridor along which products travel from manufacturers to ultimate consumers. They are just like pathways along which products, information, and finance flow, where are few manufacturers deal directly with their customers; most manufacturers use an effective distribution channel to take products to consumers. Undoubtedly, considerable thought, effort, and investment are required to create and maintain a distribution channel. Channel design and channel management are the two utmost significant elements in a company’s competitiveness. Distribution is a
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crucial function in marketing.An effective distribution channel can be a source of strategic advantage for companies. We are already aware of the big initiatives by the government like Digital India, Make in India etc. which will rely on huge investment in IT infrastructure. These investments will mean greater demand for IT related products that in turn will benefit distribution business moving forward.
Investments of about Rs. 4.5 lakh crore have been committed for Digital India by various industrialists. It is estimated that the various projects and initiatives unveiled by the government and the private sector companies would offer employ-
FEATURE
ment to over 18 lakh people this will create a huge vacuum of opportunities for distribution houses to fill. IT Distributions success is to some extent proportionate to the success of these business. Partners are core of this business and in India looking at geography and variance of culture it is partner moral commitment over and above his financial strength which plays very important role in managing the relationship between him and the distributor.“Distributors are extended arms of brand. Distributor play equal role in establishing the brand in the market. Apart from the focus of ensuring reach and coverage distributors need to be bring in efficiency in credit management and inventory management”, says V.K.Bhandari, CM& D Supertron Electronics Pvt Ltd.
process which involves managing taxation, delivery, imports in some cases, collection etc. In order to even handle a simple transaction there is an investment of resources for Sales co-ordination, order processing, accounting, collection etc. In many cases finance cost is involved if transaction involves financing. Typically most OEMs think this is a basic process and isn’t a great value addition as they are only driven by Sales. The challenge distributor face is that if OEM doesn’t allow them to make adequate margin their quest for value addition would never get fulfilled as it becomes afford-
ability issue for the distributor. As a distributor, Comguard is willing to reinvest profits for the OEM to help them develop a bigger market share. If this understanding is not clear then it leads to chicken and egg situation in the relationship. Great organizations are built on cash flow from profitability and
Distribution Channel Structure in India The distribution channel structure in India is largely traditional and quite unique. The major channel components are the retail network, wholesale network, and the logistics infrastructure. It is observed that the average retail outlet in India is very small in terms of area, number of employees, and number of stock keeping units (SKUs) stocked. The continued existence of traditional retail in India has been based on factors such as lower rentals, lower labour costs, credit from suppliers, low or no liability on taxes, and a legal framework which prevented foreign direct investment (FDI) in retailing until quite recently.
The Biggest Challenge To maintain a customer base, a retail company needs to face the challenges associated with various channels of distribution. One of the biggest challenges is that vendors don’t understand true value of distribution especially in market like India. Even managing a transaction is a complex
SME CHANNELS 29 SEPTEMBER 2016
FEATURE
HARISH RAI, COUNTRY MANAGER COMGUARD EXPLAINS
RAJESH GOENKA, VICE PRESIDENT- SALES AND MARKETING, RASHI PERIPHERALS
“WE NEED TO ADOPT A STRATEGY AS WE ARE CREATING A BIGGER MARKET SHARE FOR OUR VENDORS THAT IN TURN WILL BRING MORE AND MORE OPPORTUNITIES TO PARTNERS.”
“DEMAND GEN ACTIVITY AND AWARENESS AGAINST PURCHASE OF REFURBISHED PRODUCTS, VENDORS ASPIRATION TO PUSH FOR GOODS IS MAKING THE ECOSYSTEM MORE CHALLENGING.”
good management. These factors go hand in hand to ensure success of distribution companies. Partners should understand IT distributors are almost in business from past 25 yrs, so cost of operation is very high and bottom line has always been under pressure. In some cases instead of good credit control, there are bad debts as Tier II distributors no longer find IT distribution lucrative & have exited the market. Rashi Peripherals has never seen the IT distribution Business with a focal of being first or second in the market, that isn’t the driving principle of the organisation. But to grow sustainably year over, so in short Rashi is always competing with itself in outdoing itself. Discussing other challenges, Rajesh Goenka, Vice PresidentSales and Marketing, Rashi Peripherals opines, “Demand Gen activity and awareness against purchase of refurbished products out of ignorance, vendors aspiration to push for goods than what can be digested is making the ecosystem gradually more challenging.” The shifting market, technology priorities, changing regulatory practices and compliance
challenges, fight against counterfeit products and crisis preparedness and management are some other major challenges that IT distributors face today.
30 SME CHANNELS SEPTEMBER 2016
Practices to Adopt While partner’s profitability and return on investment (ROI) are the two basic ingredients, execution is the key for building sustainable competitive advantage. Observing the current scenario in India, it is found that most of the distribution companies struggle with implementations and repeatedly try adopting variations of the same practice. To avoid this, distributors need to avoid follow a very clear deal registration program form vendors and not fight over existing market share. If that happens then it erodes margins and dilutes the vision of bringing more and more value addition. Elaborating more on this, Harish Rai, Country Manager, Comguard explains, “We need to adopt a strategy as we are creating a bigger market share for our vendors that in turn will bring more and more opportunities to partners. Educating partners & customers on new emerging
KETAN PATEL, CEO, CREATIVE PERIPHERALS
“CHANNEL PARTNERS HAVE TO THINK THAT IT EASY TO DO BUSINESS WITH BRANDS. THEY SHOULD ADOPT NEWER METHODS OF MARKET DEVELOPMENT ROUTE ON TAKING THE BUSINESS TO LONG TERM.”
technology and market trends will go a long way in preparing ourselves to capitalize on opportunities at an early stage. Distributors need to have a proactive approach to develop the market.” The modern distributor will have to appoint unicommerce model, supplying to brick motar, online together, will have to simplify business process by allowing partners to trade to place order and transact business on e- portal shelf. They will have to value add in terms of market penetrations and growth of brand and not just box pushers. Sharing his thoughts, Ketan Patel, CEO, Creative Peripherals adds, “Channel partners have to think that it easy to do business with brands. They should avoid just transactional partnership and adopt newer methods of market development route on taking the business to long term and adding value to it.” As far as the vendors are concerned, they have lot to do in terms of creating demand, educating market, invest in right man power & work closely with distributors. They should avoid shortcuts, changing distributors & channel partners frequently. Some global players are on the expansion mode
FEATURE
ASHOK KUMAR, CEO RAH INFOTECH
V.K.BHANDARI, CM& D SUPERTRON ELECTRONICS PVT LTD
“CUSTOMERS HAVE “DISTRIBUTORS ARE BECOME MORE EXTENDED ARMS OF DEMANDING & BAD BRAND. DISTRIBUTOR CREDIT CALLS & PLAY EQUAL ROLE DELAYED PAYMENTS IN ESTABLISHING EAT AWAY THE THE BRAND IN THE MARGINS WHICH ARE MARKET.” BECOMING THINNER & THINNER NOW DAYS.”
and are looking to acquire set businesses which would help them run the show from the day one with minimal operational issues. This trend is likely to continue and even the much established VADs in India may come under this fold. Putting forward his point of view on OEMs role, Ashok Kumar, CEO RAH Infotech says, “OEMs are driving the business directly which is leading to lesser operating margins while on the other hand, manpower is getting expensive day by day. This is leading to little or no profitability which is ultimately forcing certain distributors to foldup. Customers have become more demanding & bad credit calls & delayed payments eat away the margins which are becoming thinner & thinner now days.”
At the end... Relationship of distributor & partner is B2B. In B2B, it is about both parties winning. So if partners can work with commitment on payment, forecasting & market development, it will be winwin situation for both. In addition, distributors have to realize the big opportunity that newer technologies like Cloud Computing, Big Data, Mobility, Social media etc. are bringing.
SME CHANNELS 31 SEPTEMBER 2016
SME CHAT
RAJIV SODHI, VICE PRESIDENT AND MD, INDIA AND AUSTRALIA, GODADDY
INDIA HAS BEEN CORNERSTONE OF OUR
GLOBAL EXPANSION
World’s largest domain registrar and web hosting company, GoDaddy believes the SME sector will be at the forefront of the Internet revolution in India. The company is targeting small businesses across the country with its India focused multilingual campaigns, high quality customer service and a robust partner ecosystem.
What is your market strategy for India? India is a priority and a strategic market for GoDaddy and has been the cornerstone of our international expansion. When we decided to take GoDaddy beyond the U.S. boundaries in 2012, India was the first country we chose to enter because of the unprecedented growth in India’s Internet use. GoDaddy is the number one registrar for .IN domain names with over 33 percent of the total market share according to National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI). We get over 3,000 calls per day at the India customer care centre. There is an increased level of interest among Indian consumers to create a digital presence for their businesses using GoDaddy and its related services. Our go-to-market strategy for India is driven by the unique challenges the market presents. We follow a three-pronged approach focusing on: n Educating small businesses about the power and reach of the Internet and how it could help their small business expand and grow n Continuing to build easy-to-use and affordable online tools and solutions for the Indian market n Providing high quality customer service through our 24/7, local customer care centre located in Hyderabad
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How big does an opportunity for online identity do you present to SMEs? Looking at the internet growth, 61 percent of the overall growth is coming from tier two and tier three cities conversing in their local language. That said, according to 2015 survey by RedShift Research and GoDaddy, around 63 percent of India’s small businesses don’t have their own website. We have worked on creating a very robust partner and reseller ecosystem to help us serve potential customers or customers from tier II & tier III cities and towns. Our partners and resellers are well-positioned and equipped to offer the right suite of products needed for small businesses to succeed. What are your sales channels in India? How do you cater to the multi-cultural, multi-lingual Indian SMEs? We believe that India is a ‘Do-it-for-Me’ market. Unlike the West, in India customers expect someone to help create an online presence for them. Therefore, we work closely with our partners to help ensure they are well-positioned and equipped as a ‘one-stop-shop’ for all relevant products and
solutions including access to integrated Web solutions spanning domain registration, email, hosting, website building, marketing tools and aftermarket domain services. Our partners take our innovative online solutions to the consumers and help GoDaddy in educating them about the impact and reach of the internet. Do you have any campaigns/initiatives that are spreading internet awareness among Indian customers? Along with the right message to help explain the benefits for a small business to create a digital presence on the internet, we also understand the critical importance of reaching out to our customers in a manner they understand which is why we are running regionalized, integrated and multi-lingual marketing campaigns to help raise awareness with small business owners. What advice do you have for the SME sector? We believe small businesses will lead the growth for internet in India, and considering the growth of internet users, businesses can no longer afford to remain ignorant to the digital shift especially as their target audiences are strongly embracing the internet. As digitization gains further ground, there are boundless opportunities for small businesses, across sectors, to be harnessed through leveraging digital technologies. Hence, it is key for small businesses to embrace the internet platform and establish a unique online presence to be seen and found by consumers.
PARTNER CORNER
SANJAY PATNI, PROPRIETOR, SHIVA REPROGRAPHICS & COMMUNICATION SYS, AMRITSAR
MATRIX IS A BRAND STANDS FOR ‘SUBSTANCE’ Corporates and SMB’s are looking for out of the box solution to give Voice, Data & Video solution as an ALL in ONE product. Hence, one has to be on their toes and keep updating oneself with the new technology to sustain in this market.
Brief us about your company? We are one of the oldest channel partners of Matrix, since 1995. Along with Telecom solutions, we have now added Security Solution. Apart from Matrix products, we also deal with Office Automation of Panasonic for our clients across Punjab.
in Matrix Telecom Solution.
What kind of solutions and products you are dealing in? We deal in Matrix Telecom and Security solution (EPABX, IP Surveillance and Biometrics), Agni and System Sensor Fire alarm System, Panasonic for Office Automation.
How do you find Matrix products in terms of its advantages vis-àvis other brands? We are with Matrix since 1995. We decided to go with the Security solution because we know the quality of Matrix products. All products are best in quality. Matrix is a brand that stands for ‘SUBSTANCE’ in terms of technology, depth, genuineness and going beyond the mere outer façade and 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.
What kind of telecom solutions you have? Matrix Telecom Product is more reliable and robust, with an excellent solution. So, we only deal
What is your strength in terms of market reach? We aim at meeting customer needs and building a long term and profitable relationship with them
What is your turnover and growth percentage? Our turnover in the last financial year was around 25 Lakhs, with the annual growth percentage ranging from 15% to 20%.
“TO IMPROVE MARKET SHARE, THE MOST IMPORTANT POINT IS TO PROVIDE BEST AFTER SALES SERVICE TO OUR CLIENTS.” through our products and solutions. To achieve this, we will need to create a flexible strategy that can respond to changes in customer perceptions and demand. It may also help us to identify completely new markets that we can successfully target. As a partner, how are you gearing up with the latest market trends? What kind of excitement do you see among your customers? Customers want new and reliable technology for which they search for a good brand. We are adapting various strategies so that we will best in market in terms of products and services.
What kind of benefits you are getting for being MATRIX COMSEC’s partner? We are getting the best support from Matrix in both Telecom and Security segments.
SME CHANNELS 33 SEPTEMBER 2016
PARTNER CORNER
N K MEHTA, MD & CEO , SECURE NETWORK SOLUTIONS (SNS)
SNS’ EXPERTISE + FORTINET’S SUPPORT = A GREAT TEAM According to Gartner, Security spending will continue to grow in 2016 and the revenue is projected to reach $1.23 billion in India. The strong growth in the security services market will be primarily because customers need external services to transform their security posture in the digital business era.
Brief us about your company. Founded in 1990, ACPL Systems Secure Network Solutions (SNS) is a 15-yearold organization based out of Chennai with 9 branches across India. SNS is focused on providing best of the class Network Security Solutions to mid and enterprise customers. While others Sis “also” provide Security Services, SNS specializes “only” in Security services. How long have you been associated with Fortinet? How was your journey with the company like Fortinet? Our association is over a Decade old and we look forward to celebrating our Silver Anniversary with Fortinet! Shriram Group is one of our major customers and our team helped them overcome the challenge of deploying Fortinet appliances in hundreds of remote locations throughout India. How do you find network security market in India? What is the potential and challenge for Fortinet in the market?
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According to Gartner, Security spending will continue to grow in 2016 and the revenue is projected to reach $1.23 billion in India. Fortinet’s product line of complementary solutions goes beyond traditional Network Security to address all of the security needs of the extended enterprise - whether network, branch office, cloud, mobile, data center or other complex environments. As a partner, how are you gearing up with network security market? What kind of excitement do you see among your customers? Yes, of course. Since we are “only” into network Security, it’s very important for us to gear up with the changing security landscape. This includes keeping us updated on emerging threats & related protection technologies, ensuring our engineers are trained and certified on the latest products, showcase new security products in our Centre of Excellence lab at HO and also conduct regular awareness workshops.
“NETWORK SECURITY MARKET IS GROWING AND WILL CONTINUE TO GROW. SO IF SOMEONE IS SERIOUS ABOUT SECURITY BUSINESS PLEASE JUMP INTO IT!” What kind of benefits you are getting for being Fortinet’s partner? Fortinet is a well known brand now and hence most customers are aware of the brand already. Hence positioning becomes easy. We have been assigned a dedicated Channel Account Manager who works closely with us to help drive and grow their business. How do you find Fortinet’s products in terms of its features vis-a-vis other brands? Gartner has rated Fortinet as No. 1 UTM in the world and in India. So we needn’t say anything else. There can’t be an exact apple to apple comparison between two products. There would be always some positives in one product compared to another. But how many positives you have is important and if there are any negatives how fast you are able to correct it – this is extremely important. What is your turnover and growth percentage? We have been growing in the range of 18-20 percent YOY for last 5 years and we are looking forward to continuing this growth momentum
SME CHAT
BALA CHITOOR, CO-FOUNDER AND CHIEF STRATEGY & INNOVATION OFFICER, FLAMENCOTECH
IOT IS NOT ABOUT THINGS ALONE As the IoT era is about to dawn in India but the challenge is that there are a lot of confusion in the market in terms of security, networking, process, etc. SME Channels spoke to Bala Chitoor, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy & Innovation Officer, FlamencoTech to know about the market situation. Excerpts…
What are the challenges that various industry verticals face from the standard software? IoT is a term interpreted differently based upon whom you speak with. This is the first challenge. Secondly, there are several players solving one specific challenge rather than solving for an industry vertical. Third, there is lack of standardization of protocols, connectivity, information exchange etc. causing systems to remain SILOS. Fourth, there are several platform providers who are claiming great concepts like high scalability, big data analytics but lack the expertise to solve real-world problems. Then finally, IoT is not about things alone. For us, IoT is using technology and the internet to connect people, processes and things, enabling efficiency, effectiveness, cost reduction etc. IOT is at the nascent stage and it doesn’t have sufficient ecosystem to support, so how FlamencoTech is placed in this sector? FlamencoTech approached this as an opportunity rather than problem. Firstly, we abstracted hardware out of our equation and hence do not depend on hardware standards or vendors. Secondly, we built software adapters that can communicate across multiple protocols like BacNet, Modbus, SNMP etc. & multiple vendors. We built our own IoT platform that is highly scalable and reliable and added contextual domain centric analytical dashboards. We are thus leading the
industry from a perspective of integrating multiple protocols, technologies, hardware, systems and vendors. What is the genesis and growth of FlamencoTech? FlemencoTech started in 2011 with a vision to unify infrastructures digitally. At that time the concept of IoT was not born. We realized that the industry which was primarily driven by legacy systems will start unifying under the IP platform. When we started to promote our vision, we realized that the industry did not understand the possibilities and the potential and looked at us with suspicion. We then started engaging as a Smart Consultant for companies, defining a vision, use cases, architecture, design and technology. Then when we realized that there is no one to execute this vision, we jumped in to deliver by developing our own IoT Platform and several solutions, under the umbrella of Digital Blanket. We have since then successfullyx engaged with over 40 clients in India. What are the specialization areas of FlamencoTech? Does it want to expand its specialization or domain expertise? FlamencoTech specializes in IoT connecting people, process, information and things and also automating responses to events. We are unique in several ways – one, we solve real-world problems holistically through a consultancy approach rather
“WE ABSTRACTED HARDWARE OUT OF OUR EQUATION AND HENCE DO NOT DEPEND ON HARDWARE STANDARDS OR VENDORS.” than just point solutions. Secondly, we see IoT as being things, we call it Internet if Everything and Everyone. Third, we provide domain centric contextual analysis of captured data that provides decision support rather than just analytics or data, fourth, we layer service management on top of events and contextual data for automated actions to resolve issues in near-real time. These are our specialization. Our Industry expertise includes Enterprise, Healthcare, Retail and Manufacturing. Our domain expertise includes Energy, Security, Safety, Customer Experience, Logistics and Service Management. How do you leverage Microsoft platform? Our IoT Platform, the Digital Blanket is hosted on the Microsoft Azure Cloud. Microsoft SQL Service has provided us the flexibility to scale on demand and also meets our high availability requirements. Each server instance is protected by built-in Microsoft firewall services. (To read the complete story log onto www.smechannels.com)
SME CHANNELS 35 SEPTEMBER 2016
CLOUD COMPUTING
HAPPIEST MINDS
FROM VISION 2025
TO TECHNOLOGY
TAKEOVER
Like a sci-fi plot where the robots are ruling the world, sensors are going to rule the world in a few years from now. Consumers will control or access everything including banks and insurance using some kind of apps. This would definitely increase the convenience for the users but there is a flipside to it too as these interfaces are not handled properly can wreak havoc. Let us know from the expert. BY: SANJAY MOHAPATRA Sanjay@smechannels.com
W
e are living in an age where mobile applications empower businesses as well as individuals on various aspects of our day to day activities. The app market is growing exponentially with smartphones outnumbering the PCs.Thousands of mobile apps are getting released in the market to make our personal as well as professional life easier than before. Gartnersays, “By the end of the year 2017, market demand for mobile app development services will grow at least five times faster than internal IT organizations’ capacity to deliver them. Mobile phone sales will reach 2.1 billion units by 2019, which will fuel demand for apps in the enterprise that meet the high performance and usability of consumer apps”. The supernova effect of the mobile apps is creating ripples in multiple industry segments including e-commerce. Currently, the mobile can act as an e- commerce enabler, a digital wallet and a socialization platform for the users. Many of the successful players in the e-commerce industry aretransforming their presence into a mobile only space, to reap the advantages of the app effect.The m-commerce world is bringing in a virtual market place, where consumers will get a whole gamut of shoppingoptions.The question is how this will evolve and what’s coming next. From this mobile and apps ruling digital environment, we are progressively striding into a world ofinterconnected devices. So, let us imagine
36 SME CHANNELS SEPTEMBER 2016
ANITHA RAJAGOPALAN, RETAIL AND OMNICHANNEL CONSULTANT, HAPPIEST MINDS TECHNOLOGIES how a day would look like in 2025 when internet and connected devices will become deeply embedded in our life. The sensor embedded devices that we wear like our finger ring will become an indispensable part of our day to day life and it will hold the potential to revolutionize human interactions on all walks of life. These wearable devices will be guiding us through our daily activities starting from waking up by a personalized auto alarm in the form of a tiny ear piece. The mirror will identify if we are unwell or have fever, our shoes will suggest the speed and rhythm of our exercise, and the wardrobe will advise on what we need to wear, the smart kitchen bowl will suggest the personalized calorie based breakfast menu we are to eat, the medical kit reminds us what medicines we need to take and so on.For each single activity in our life we do, the sensor embedded and connected devices will have an influence in one way or the other.The devices at our fingers or implanted in our body stamp our identity and will enable secure financial transactions for us. We will become far more knowledgeable about the outcome of our own actions and will take initiatives to make corrections logically on time. In the business front, the greatest paradigm shift will be from the current destination based solutions to ecosystem based solutions. Banking as a physical entity will become obsolete very soon and digital wallets will fully replace cash as
“WE HAVE TO FIGURE OUT EFFICIENT WAYS, WHICH ALLOWS TECHNOLOGY TO MEET OUR REQUIREMENTS WITHOUT COMPROMISING OUR PRIVACY AND SECURITY.” an entity. By transforming both the personal and business aspects of our everyday lives, the relation between man and device may become more of an emotionally oriented one. These sensor devices will become our constant companions or personal assistants and communication devices. The greatest enablers for this change will be the ‘consumer pull’ rather than the ‘enterprise push’. Every solution will be designed around the need of the consumer. Apart from this, devices and solutions will be aggregated into ecosystemsinstead of stand-alone entities providing separate (For reading compelete coverage log on to www.smechannels.com)
WINMAGIC
CHANNEL ROADMAP
WINMAGIC FOCUSSING
MAINLY ON TIER-1, 2 LEVEL Most of the corporate giants have suffered massive, expensive, reputation-draining security data hacks in recent months. Let it be large organizations, government organizations and healthcare agencies - nobody wants to be the next breach victim. Now, CIOs and CISOs are taking up data encryption seriously, which has been ignored for a while.
RAHUL KUMAR, COUNTRY HEAD AND DIRECTOR, WINMAGIC
BY: SATINDER KAUR skaur@smechannels.com
C
ompanies worldwide trust WinMagic’s security solutions to enable them to secure their most critical assets. WinMagic’s software products fulfill the requirements of even the most security conscious users by focusing on concrete security features, nevertheless still offering unparalleled flexibility. In India, WinMagic spent a lot of its time meeting customers to bring awareness and convince them to use encryption as its still not mandated in India because there are no government regulations. Although some organizations are rapidly adopting data encryption to ensure strong and effective data security, however, common myths and misconceptions about it still persist among some people. As a result, data encryption solution providers like WinMagic are facing many challenges. Here are some of challenges/myths, making encryption looks like a tough security product for traditional channel partners/ companies: n Only big enterprises need encryption n Over 50% of respondents can’t find where sensitive data resides in the organization n Complexity and Lack of Skilled Staff n Implementing data encryption is complex and time consuming n Data Encryption affects performance, thereby reduces productivity n Enterprise encryption solutions are too expensive n OS based encryption is enough for making organization data secure
In India, only a small segment of the market is encrypted and the rest is not due to lack of regulations. Keeping that challenge in mind, Rahul Kumar, Country Head and Director at WinMagic shares, “we strongly feel that the trend will shift soon as we are witnessing data breaches and leakages. SMBs still have very little penetration of encryption as the main driver – regulations are not there. But I am confident that it will grow significantly.” WinMagic offers its channel partners full technical support, innovative products, product training, product marketing and everything else they need in order to provide their customers with a reliable, versatile and most secure solution in data protection. In addition we have also established a Reseller Program for our channel partners. The WinMagic Reseller Program is intended for worldwide channel partners, in particular Value Added Resellers (VAR’s) and consultants. WinMagic’s Partner Program reinforces company’s continuing commitment to and investment in the channel. It is distinguished as it’s built on a single, unified infrastructure that delivers an efficient, integrated and flexible program, focused on helping our partners grow through top and bottom lines. Completely agreeing to the concept that Channel management is not luck but it is a method, Rahul excerpts, “Partners enjoy a healthy bottom-line in the business plus the fact that customers get a good solution increases their stickiness with the customer – which is one of the key goals of the partners. Our global channel consists
“WITH OUR CLEAR MOTTO, WE HAVE 3-4 STRONG CHANNEL PARTNERS IN EVERY REGION TO GENERATE LEADS AND INCREASE PROFITABILITY, REVENUES.” of worldwide community of business technology and security services delivery organizations. We bring together select partners around the world to collaborate with WinMagic in meeting the mobile data security needs of enterprises and government organizations.” “We want to be top of mind among our channel partners. We have seen cent percent growth in numbers of partners across the globe. We are investing heavily in partners training and enablement. Our global businesses in countries like Europe, Japan and Asia – all are channel driven”, Rahul further adds.
Finally... With our industry-leading, top-quality, certified and award-winning technology and encryption solutions, WinMagic is committed to keep adding value for its partners thereby providing efficient amount of profit margins with good ROI.
SME CHANNELS 37 SEPTEMBER 2016
SME CHAT
BHISHAL LACHHIRAMKA, FOUNDING MEMBER, CEO AT AMEYO
CLOUD ADOPTION IN INDIA IS RAPIDLY PICKING UP With the mindset changing toward cloud computing among the Indian users, the growth of adoption is bound to happen. SME Channels spoke to BhishalLachhiramka, Founding Member, CEO at Ameyo to know about the cloud CC market in India. Excerpts‌
What is the genesis and growth of Ameyo? Ameyo was bootstrapped by BishalLachhiramka, Sachin Bhatia and Nayan Jain(Classmates from IIT Guwahati), in 2003. Their vision was to cater enterprises globally with Contact Center software and thus Ameyo was launched to help organizations create exceptional experiences for their customers. Ameyo is architected to support organizations innovate and extend their customer communication processes in an ongoing manner. Traditionally the contact centers were mere for support and looked like a cost center. The new-age enterprises are using contact center as a strategy to achieve wow customer experience and lower their operating cost. They are continuously innovating and tweaking on their business processes, requiring automation and end-to-end information flow. Ameyo is becoming the defacto communication application for these new-age enterprises. Over the past decade, we have witnessed massive growth, we are now 400 people strong and have transformed ourselves from Contact Center Infrastructure providers to Customer Engagement Hub. We have evolved to become customer relationship building platform with focus on building personalized and collaborative interactions.
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What do you find cloud based contact centre solutions’ growth in India because security and data leak has been a constant feature for the contact or call centres? Cloud adoption in India is rapidly picking up, gone are the days when people used to be scared of moving their data on cloud. Companies like Microsoft have helped create an amazing awareness for the benefits of cloud. This has helped companies like us tremendously where we can offer a lower price point with a cloud based contact center for smaller businesses to revolutionize their customer support. Within our own customer breadth, we have seen rapid shift in the interest of our cloud solution over the past year, especially among the startups, who feel that a cloud solution fits their broader goals. Whether cloud based contact centre is different from virtual telephony solutions as some of the players are providing virtual telephony solutions and addressing the same market? Virtual telephony solutions provide only voice based solution to the consumers. These solutions generally cover features like virtual attendant, voicemail functionality, call recording etc. focus-
sing on voice or call related queries. But a cloud contact center enhances Customer Experience with Voice, Mobile, Chat, Social, Email, and SMS covering all aspects of omnichannel solution. Thus, our solution helps in delivering more personalized experiences and Gaining real-time visibility into business process. How many products do you have and what are the capabilities of those products? We have 3 core products in contact center software space. namely: Ameyo: Ameyo is the market leader in All-inone Omnichannel Customer Experience (CX) and Contact Center Technology in cloud and onpremise. We help brands of all sizes make exemplary customer experience. The Ameyo Customer Experience Platform powers optimal customer journeys consistently across all touchpoints, channels, and interactions to nurture customer retention and advocacy. Ameyo is trusted by over 1,600 customers in 60 countries orchestrating more than 1 billion interactions each day. Website link: http://www.ameyo.com/ Ameyo Engage: Ameyo Engage is a Cloudbased Contact Center Technology that allows businesses to take control of their operations by deploying faster changes to their Customer Inter-
SME CHAT
have regional offices in India and Philippines. In other geographies we do have partner presence and dedicated sales team are assigned to these regions. Our marketing efforts are divided into offline and online measures. Apart from investing heavily in digital channels, we also participate in major industry events across the world. The marketing team is also engaged in developing case studies and Press Releases on major customer acquisitions. This has helped Ameyo in earning several clients and customers of the same industry followed by a belief that word-of-mouth is the greatest and most effective mode of selling. What is your geography specific focus? Till now our focus markets were Middle east, Africa, APAC. But now, we are venturing into US and European markets with our new product Ameyo Engage
“COMPANIES LIKE MICROSOFT HAVE HELPED CREATE AN AMAZING AWARENESS FOR THE BENEFITS OF CLOUD.” action Initiatives and engaging employees, which results in Better Customer Experience, increased Sales & Collections, and ultimately acquire loyal Customers & create happy Employees. The cloud call center software focuses on US and European markets. Website link: http://www.ameyoengage. com/ Ameyo Emerge: Ameyo Emerge is a Cloudbased Contact Center Technology that help businesses to integrate seamlessly across channels including Voice, Mobile, Social, Chat, Email and SMS. Our solution provides transformational insights into contact center operations and helps organizations deliver more personalized experiences. No hardware or coding required. Its an Easy to deploy, Easy to Use and Easy to Manage platform and is already helping the next generation disruptive businesses to start and scale-up with ease. The cloud contact center software focuses on emerging market in India. Website link: http://www.ameyoemerge.in/ How dothese solutions fit into the bigger infrastructure archi-
tecture of enterprises or it is only for the SME kind of companies who would like standalone solutions? Ameyo is architected to support organizations innovate and extend their customer communication processes in an ongoing manner. We can prove to be an ideal business partner in riding an organization, whether big size enterprise or an SME, to achieve customer service excellence. Ameyo aligns Customer Service Strategy with an organization’s business goals as it has highly flexible architecture which understands the specific requirements of an organization and accordingly customize the solution to suit their needs. It allows smooth integration with third-party applications and accommodates changes as per the requirements of different clients, and effectively deal with all associated risks, thereby deriving maximum productivity and efficiency . Thus, Ameyo is now becoming the defacto communication application for these new-age enterprises. How do you market and sell these solutions? The sales process is really simple and effective. We
How many customers do you have? How many repeat customers do you have? We currently have 1600 plus customers globally. Our customer base includes some big names like Flipkart, Jabong, Ola, Taxi for sure, MotilalOswal, etc. We have customers of different verticals like ecommerce, BFSI, logistics, automotive, healthcare, hospitality, BPO etc. Most of our customers have been with us for multiple years, the reason is that once a company invests in a reliable contact center infrastructure, they build their own business processes around it. Only Ameyo, which is the only contact center technology built from scratch allows businesses to use the solution as a platform to develop their own unique service offering. What is the role of Microsoft apart from being a SAAS provider or cloud platform providers? Does Microsoft help you in reaching out to the buyers as well? Microsoft is a key partner for us, as a company, Microsoft believes in a mobile first, cloud ready world which matches with our philosophy and solution set. As partners, we are reaching out with a joint solution set to businesses across India to revolutionize the way businesses engage with their customers across the new age channels. What is your present turnover and growth expectation for next two years? We are clocking $ 10 mn in this financial year and expecting 50% yoy growth for next 3 years.
SME CHANNELS 39 SEPTEMBER 2016
CORPORATE STORY
AMD
AMD: FOCUSES ON GAMING CONSOLE MARKET
ALONG WITH IT It is evident that PC shipments are declining globally as well as in India as per a recent report by IDC. However, the analyst firm notes that this is a result of seasonality of the market.In their assessment, the consumer demand in urban areas has continued to remain optimistic and will likely drive demand over the next couple of quarters. BY: SANJAY MOHAPATRA sanjay@smechannels.com
A
t a time when the PC market is going down and smart phone market is going up, those traditional players who are into PC making finding it a tough ask to grow steadily – specially for AMD it looks to be a bit of tricky situation. This company has not been able to adapt to the post PC era landscape. Vinay Sinha, Head of Sales – India, Director – Commercial Business, AMD Asia Pacific-Japan (APJ) Mega Region, says, “AMD is more than just a PC chip company. We are in the midst of a multiyear strategy that sharpens our focus on profitable growth by gaining profitable share across multiple markets. We currently dominate the console market with AMD chips in the Sony PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Wii U.” Microsoft recently announced two new game consoles to its Xbox family featuring AMD’s highperformance semi-custom SoCs that support revolutionary new technologies like HDR, 4K and VR to enable the next generation of immersive gaming experiences. The Xbox One S is available now, while Project Scorpio is scheduled to arrive for holiday 2017.Additionally, we’ve strategically monetized our intellectual property through complementary licensing and strategic partnerships that accelerate our growth, including licensing high-performance microprocessor technologies to a new JV with Tianjin Haiguang Advanced
40 SME CHANNELS SEPTEMBER 2016
Technology Investment Co., Ltd (THATIC) to develop SoCs tailored for the Chinese server market that will complement our own offerings. He added, “We entered 2016 with our strongest multi-generational product roadmap in more than a decade, intended to re-establish AMD as a high-performance design leader. This includes the new Polaris architecture-based GPUs, which combine significant architectural enhancements and 14nm FinFET manufacturing technology that are optimized for the new low-overhead APIs, 4K gaming, and AR/VR experiences. We launched the AMD 7thGeneration APUs, which are ramping faster than the previous generation and have been designed into more than 25 systems, including premium designs expected to be widely available from Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, and Lenovo.Our first new grounds-up, x86 CPU core in more than five years, codenamed “Zen,” is on track to strengthen our competitive positioning across the entire computing market. The first “Zen”-based offerings will target the high-end desktop PC market (“Summit Ridge”), followed by a strong return to the datacenter market in 2017 with a “Zen”-based server CPU and the introduction of “Zen”-based APUs for high-performance notebooks.” As per Vinay Gaming is and always has been an area where AMD excels. From PCs to consoles to cloud gaming servers and casino gaming, AMD generates billions in annual revenue across
gaming markets based on our strengths in highperformance computing and graphics. Immersive platforms are high performance, intelligent portions of the IoT connected-device world that bring to life the ability to communicate with our devices in more intuitive and interactive ways. From entertainment to industrial applications, virtual and augmented realities, engineering, and analytics, our leadership IP and technology assets allow us to deliver differentiated and innovative high-performance standard and custom solutions for many of the most important and challenging applications of the future. The datacenter is a place where AMD has been successful in the past and can be again by bringing a renewed presence to the high-performance x86 server market. The company does not look to be in every device or sensor, but focused on high-performance applications that align with their technical capabilities and legacy of innovation. India has embraced on a very high growth strategy and all the vendors are gung-ho about their future in this market; so also is AMD. Vinay adds, “India is very important to AMD – both as a consumer base for our products and as a centre for much of our R&D work.Our engineers in India are doing critical design and development on cutting edge technologies and products that will target tomorrow’s problems today.”
AMD
CORPORATE STORY
“WE CURRENTLY DOMINATE THE CONSOLE MARKET WITH AMD CHIPS IN THE SONY PLAYSTATION 4, XBOX ONE AND NINTENDO WII U.”
With the investments being made and the next generation products in the roadmap, AMD technologies are designed to be ideally suited for the increasing high-performance compute and visualization needs of a future defined by billions of connected devices. Next generation technologies such as Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality are the pivot for growth of the company. While still at nascent stages in India, these will evolve into a whole new ecosystem. The value delivered in such environments significantly outweighs the investment required for such technology deployments, which is a key driver for growth. Similarly,at the client end, data visualization and higher compute to the desk will drive better adoption, coupled with replacement and replenishment of older client machines. The evolving consumer needs have scaled up from just-enough to mid-range performance where AMD plays a key role in providing the best value at any given price point. This multi-pronged growth strategy will help drive innovation and make it affordable for the end
consumer. Of course AMD is taking the route of global OEMs, component manufacturers, distributors, resellers and leading software providers to ensure its customers achieve their objectives with AMD products and technology. Vinay explains, “AMD’s India channel strategy revolves around 4 Es – Engage, Educate, Enable, and Excite. Being in the technology business, which is constantly evolving, we firmly believe in keeping our channel updated on the latest offerings in the market. We continuously equip our partners with all the requisite tools such as collaterals, demand generation engines and digital/social selling enablers to make them successful.” AMD has both monetary and qualitative incentives for its partners across the board. From the smallest partner who has low scale and turnover; to the largest partner who has high scale and turnover, AMD has incentives at each level. It is important to note that market consolidation over the past few years has led to a lot of new partners who
have entered the business on scale (such as large format retailers), and existing players have moved to consolidation where value is more important for them rather than volume. This complex market need has to be dealt with in a customizable approach rather than a one-size-fits-all approach. One of the key commercial programs – DRONE, grows with the partner and has the ability to cater to the needs of the smallest partner while scaling up to the needs of the largest partner. Quality incentives centered on the knowledge-economy are critical, whereby trainings and events centered onknowledge dissemination are driving the partners into the knowledge economy; leveraging their skillsets and upgrading the skillsets to better enable technology for their customers. So the strategy is to provide premium VR experiences to the 99% of PC users who can’t afford graphics cards which are upwards of USD 500. The Radeon RX series, consisting of the RX 480, 470 and 460 are a step in this direction. Our entire approach, called the ‘Radeon Rebellion’, is to create a fundamental change in the gaming industry – drop the price of entry of gamers into VR. AMD understands that the Indian market is highly value driven and this value is determined by price-to-performance ratio. This is perfect as it fits right into AMD’s DNA. As per Vinay, the above listed products have been designed and priced to provide better value than the competition’s old and new products, providing unmatched power to consumers at unbelievably low prices.
Finally… In the present day, a brand is defined by its value. Vinay concludes, “We are committed to providingvalue for money and economical compute to our consumers.Our position in the marketplace is further strengthened by the presence of our partners and OEMs. Being able to bring the customer technologies of tomorrow, today is a key pivot for AMD.
SME CHANNELS 41 SEPTEMBER 2016
CHANNEL ROADMAP
IXIA
CHANNEL IS AN EXTENDED ARM IN
IXIA’S SUCCESS With the advent of newer technologies and data traffic becoming enormous, operators are demanding solutions that can provide them with a better insight into the functioning of their networks. In such a challenging scenario, vendors such as Ixia are playing an important role by providing the appropriate solutions to assess and address the complexity in networks. BY: SATINDER KAUR skaur@smechannels.com
T
he surface area of cyber-attack is increasing day by day as technology advancements are happening everywhere. Be it social media, mobility, cloud, analytics and of course internet of things, subsequently 3D printing. All of these are going to increase surface area of the attack. Last year alone global spending on security was 315 billion. Because of cyber-attacks world lost 315 billion dollars. There was loss of business, time and money. For a country like India such an amount of spending is huge. Ixia have been in India for over ten years now. It has a sales office in India and a large development centre in Kolkata. India is a key market for Ixia. Ixia not only build latest platforms in India, it also provides global support from Bangalore. Its large R&D centre plays a key role in customizing solutions for customers who are large in Government or enterprise sector. For Ixia, the future roadmap always has focused on how it brings more things to India in terms of modifications and platforms. It does not a sales office, but also manufacturing, development and global support in India. Discussing company’s business strategy, Murali Ramalingam, Country Manager, Ixia explains, “For many years we have worked only on the Network manufacturing side. (CISCO, QUALCOMM, Broadcom for example). But, now we
42 SME CHANNELS SEPTEMBER 2016
are looking to move to enterprise and government side because the company was originally formed to handle lot of the network requirements. For last three years our focus has been on government and enterprise. We are also looking at growth through channel partners. TCG Digital is a highly value added channel partner. They were first our customer and now a channel partner and they focus on providing a lot of cyber range training in India.” Ixia works with enterprises, service providers as well as government organizations to ensure their networks’ security along with the traffic loads that are common today. Also, it works with network equipment manufacturers to ensure that the security products they sell can withstand the same load and mix of traffic. One of the things that make Ixia a unique solution is its platform. Elaborating further, Murali Ramalingam says, “Ixia security solutions leverage the application and threat intelligence (ATI) program to simulate over 35,000 malicious attacks. Our platform along with application & threat intelligence (ATI)- it’s the team of researchers that we have. They create our content and it’s a key differentiator. They give us updates for attacks, we have monthly updates on malware and this core aspect that we do is what sets us apart. Our competitors do not have a dedicated team of researchers. Also, we leverage custom built hardware, which not only ensures accuracy
but also offers perfect measurements and stability. Our threat intelligence capabilities are incredibly superior in the market.” Channel is very imperative for Ixia; right now 30% of Ixia’s earnings come from Channel. In India it is very little may be 1% or so. This is the reason why Ixia wanted its channel partners to focus more on company‘s solutions. According to Murali Ramalingam, “There are two reasons to it. Channel partners have more reach. We predominantly came through US for network equipment manufacturers. Second reason is that as we go forward in our strategy in India, I would like more and more channel supplier goal. Because channels can easily enhance their efforts to reach out to more customers than us.” Presently, Ixia has close to about 7 channel partners in India. Company’s plan is to expand it to 15-20 at least. Predominantly, Ixia is focused on the networks. All networks are focused in major cities of India. Right now, Ixia’s focus is on enterprise and the government. For this, the company has couple of plans for the channel solutions which help them to register deals. It also has higher discount structure for them. For Ixia, Channel is an extended arm, the more they know its solutions and get trained the more Ixia will benefit them to go, sell and close the opportunity. Murali Ramalingam further adds, “We conduct partners’ conference twice
IXIA
CHANNEL ROADMAP
MURALI RAMALINGAM, COUNTRY MANAGER, IXIA
JOYDEEP BHATTACHARYA, COO, TCG DIGITAL We at TCG Digital believe there are three things which have to go hand in hand. One of course is processes. As far as processes are concerned there is some level of awareness in India. They get their certification and documentation done but the spirit of follow-
“WE CONDUCT PARTNERS’ CONFERENCE TWICE A YEAR AS THEY ARE SO IMPORTANT TO US. WE HAVE PARTNERS SPECIALIST WHO ANALYZE THE KIND OF SUPPORT WE GIVE TO OUR PARTNERS AND SUGGEST WAYS TO IMPROVE THE WAY WE SUPPORT THEM.”
ing the process is still building up. People are gradually realizing the importance. The second is technology. Technology and process work together. As far as technology is concerned in India we are still exclusively focused on perimeter technology. So, the third important thing is very well qualified manpower. Manpower has the capability to understand technology and the vast area of technology. The surface area is continually increasing. As channel partners we discuss specific solutions with Ixia and come out with a customized product or solution which helps the customer
a year as they are so important to us. We have partners specialist who analyze the kind of support we give to our partners and suggest ways to improve the way we support them. The conference for partners which happens every year gives them exposure to all the brand new solutions. During the conference we not only educate our partners but we also have technology experts to work directly with engineers of the partners.” This way, Ixia has the power to guide them and get deeper into technology. Ixia takes great efforts to support its partners. Talking about TCG Digital, which is one of Ixia’s exclusive partner, Murali Ramalingam opines, It is a pleasure to work with TCG. We knew from the beginning that we have the right partner. Our plan
was to go very large with TCG and we took time to do it and we are very happy with the association. This is a milestone and we intend to make sure that we invest adequate money and make sure that TCG gets enough support in the market.”
Finally… Murali Ramalingam would like to tell aspiring partners that Ixia is the company who has got a development centre in India. It provides its partners with hands on support through its R&D facility. It has all the solutions that will prevent a cyber attack from entering the network/system. Ixia will continuously bring innovative solutions to the market that will enable customers to offer reliable and secure networks.
significantly more than just to sell a box. So the channel partner is expected to be a subject matter expert and in that also Ixia and the channel partners work together. We are partnered with several other companies as well but the best part of Ixia is that they are ready to go not just one step but two steps with us. They can anticipate the problems that we face with advanced technology and use cases. The technology is changing rapidly and the partners must be willing to make their own significant investment. It is not like selling a box. Once the partner is ready to do that and is ready to take a long term call then this is the best company to partner with.
SME CHANNELS 43 SEPTEMBER 2016
GUEST ARTICLE
BIG DATA DILEMMA Does your organization see big data as an opportunity to “Save Me More Money”, or does your organization see big data as an opportunity to “Make Me More Money”?
BILL SCHMARZO, CTO, EMC GLOBAL SERVICES BIG DATA BRIEF PROFILE Bill Schmarzo, the CTO of EMC Global Services Big Data created the EMC Big Data Vision Workshop methodology that links an organization’s strategic business initiatives with supporting data and analytic requirements, and thus helps organizations wrap their heads around this complex subject. Bill sets the strategy and defines offerings and capabilities for EMC Global Services’ Big Data Practice. Prior to this, he was the Vice President of Advertiser Analytics at Yahoo at the dawn of the online Big Data revolution. Bill is the author of “Big Data: Understanding How Data Powers Big Business” and “Big Data MBA: Driving Business Strategies with Data Science”
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Boeing has announced that they are providing advanced analytic solutions to several airline customers including All Nippon Airways (ANA), who signed a renewal contract for Airplane Health Management (AHM) on its entire future fleet of Boeing 787 aircraft, British Airways for Wind Updates, currently installed on 88 airplanes with plans for additional fleet integration, Delta Air Lines, who signed an agreement to use Airplane Health Management (AHM) on its Boeing 737, 747, 767 and 777 fleets, GOL,who signed an agreement to use the Engine Fleet Planning and Costing (EFPAC) tool, which significantly reduces operating costs by determining specific engine management practices over the life span and enabling better decision making and Pobeda Airlines, who signed a contract to deploy Fuel Dashboard services across its fleet of Boeing 737s. This is a smart move by Boeing to create new services (and new sources of revenue) to help its airline customers get more value out of their investments in Boeing aircraft. It even sets the stage for Boeing to expand beyond just servicing and supporting Boeing aircraft to servicing other aircraft (Airbus, Bombardier, Embraer Lockheed, McDonnell Douglas, etc.) in order to create even more monetization opportunities for Boeing. However, I’m a bit distressed by organizations that are so quick to give up their data for a short-term win. It won’t be long until all the airlines have the same analytic services being provided by Boeing or GE or Pratt & Whitney. And if everyone has the same analytics, what’s the long-term source of competitive advantage? In fact, I think it boils down to a very important organizational and cultural mentality: Does your organization see big data as an opportunity to “Save Me More Money”, or does your organization see big data as an opportunity to “Make Me More Money”? This question sets the tone for your big data and analytics efforts and investments, and how committed your organization is to leveraging data and analytics to power the business. It’s a corporate cultural and management issue and I see it all the time in my big data travels. Some companies are focused on the “save me more money” aspects of big data (which it then makes sense to outsource) but others are focused on the “make me
more money” aspects of big data where they see data and the associated insights as a means for uncovering new monetization opportunities. This corresponds toPhase IV: “Insights Monetization” phase of the Big Data Business Model Maturity Index which guides organizations to focus on capturing, refining and reusing the analytic insights, to identify “white spaces” in the markets to create new monetization opportunities such as new products, services, markets, channels, audiences and new partners. So what insights might these airlines be forfeiting – insights that might lead to new monetization opportunities – by outsourcing some of their analytics to Boeing? In order to answer this question, we first need to identify the airlines’ key business entities; that is, what are the business entities around which the airline would want to gather behavioural insights such as tendencies, inclinations, propensities, usage patterns, interests, passions, associations and affiliations? Well, my starter list of key business entities for an airline would include the airplanes, routes, hubs, pilots and mechanics. The next step would be to identify the types of [predictive] insights that one might want to capture on each key business entity, such as: n Airplanes: Which airplanes are most efficient from an operational as well as performance perspective? Which airplanes are most efficient with which routes and under what weather conditions? Which airplanes are “easiest” to maintain? Which airplane configurations are most fuel efficient? Which airplane configurations get the highest passenger satisfaction and referral ratings from the airlines’ “most valuable” passengers? Which airplanes are easiest to re-configure? n Routes: Which routes are most efficient from an operational as well as performance perspective? Which routes are most efficient under weather conditions (seasonality)? Which routes to the same destinations get the highest satisfaction, Net Promoter Scores (NPS) and referral ratings from the airline’s “most valuable” passengers? Which routes have the lowest percentage of weather-induced delays? n Pilots: Which pilots are most efficient from an operational as well as performance perspective? (To read the complete story log onto www.smechannels.com)
The Biggest Channel Event is Here! Date: 18 November 2016
Venue: Crowne Plaza, Okhla, New Delhi
&
Nominate your company latest by 25th September 2016 to be in the awardees’ list. www.smechannels.com/channel-event/
“SME CHANNELS SUMMIT AND AWARDS 2016” is a knowledge forum for the channel partners and the vendors to understand the market trend and chart their course of action. The event brings together industry leaders to speak about future missions and their vision of the Indian channel fraternity to be able to yield more profit and grow healthy. It discusses the ethical practices and growth strategy going forward. The awards are about felicitation of top 50 solution providers in the partner ecosystem and the best performing IT brands for the year in different categories. So spanning across six hours, from 1.30 PM till 8.30 PM in the evening, the event will see two categories of awards - the Super50 and the Achievers’ Awards. While the Super50 are for the top 50 performers in the partner space, the Achievers’ Awards recognize the top performing vendors. Besides, there will be panel discussion in the afternoon on “Growth Strategy of Indian Resellers.” There will be presentations from thought leaders and industry experts to provide necessary knowledge to the channel partners and the vendors to chalk out the right strategy of growth. For Award Submissions and General Inquiries: info@accentinfomedia.com or 91-11-41657670 /46151993/41055458 For Sponsorship Packages and Partnerships: Sanjib at sanjib@accentinfomedia.com For PR and Media or Other Inquiries: SME Channels at info@smechannels.com
GUEST ARTICLE
REIMAGINING CHANNEL STRATEGY IN THE ERA OF DIGITAL NATIVES Today’s interconnected world gives more opportunities than ever to sell your products and services through multiple channels, whether internal or external, direct or indirect, online or on the ground. But the choice lies with us – whether we standby to shy away from the curve or we “learn, unlearn and relearn” to keep up with the current trends. CHANDRAHAS PANIGRAHI, Sr. Director and Consumer Business Head, ACER BRIEF PROFILE Chandrahas has been influential in building ACER’s consumer business where he has been responsible for overall P&L, sales and marketing across multiple categories in South Asia. He is now responsible for facilitating growth, sales and marketing strategy. Panigrahi brings with him a go-to-market experience to ensure the continued growth momentum of ACER’s business across the region. During his tenure, Chandrahas led the expansion of ACER into a full service entertainment brand, monitoring market Intelligence and formulating and implementing important policies. Under his leadership, ACER has built strong associations with its channel partners and customers to increase its brand presence across the length and breadth of the country. Mr. Panigrahi comes with 15 years of rich industry experience with leading companies in the technology domain spanning components and personal computing, having worked in different profiles ranging from consumer business, retail management, product management, marketing and distribution. Chandrahas is poised to leverage the existing successful platform and redefine marketing with his thoughtful analysis and insightful perspective.
46 SME CHANNELS SEPTEMBER 2016
Consumers form impressions of brands from various touch points ranging from advertisements, to news reports to engagement with friends and so on. But do all these mediums lead to sales immediately? The answer is no. What triggers the impulse to buy is the collective impact these mediums create by shaping the initial-consideration set of the people’s purchase journey. In today’s highly mobile world, our roundthe-clock consumer is in charge of choosing the channels, and not the companies. The blurring lines across channels has led marketers to use more than one method to influence the customer. The right mix of channels need to be accompanied with the right set of strategies to run these channels. Like needle and thread, the brand and its partners need to be in sync. Companies need to form channel partnership programs which give greater access and support to partners in return for the revenue generated by them. Interestingly, concepts like vendor partner dating where you could swipe right to find the required partner are coming into place, reiterating the need to find the suitable reseller. So you evaluated and established successful partnerships, you even initiated efficient partner programs. Subsequently, a digital native who has grown up used to immediacy and convenience walks into the store, poses a question about the product specification, and the consultant seems hesitant to answer because he does not ‘know’ for sure. The product and sales training, vendor technical support, lead generation tools, all then go for a toss because you just missed a ‘I-want-to-buy’ moment. When it comes to partner enablement, companies need to take a step further and invest in tools that are advanced, tools that empower channel partners by keeping them ahead of the curve, of the well informed customers, and of the even more informed and the know-it-all search engine. For instance, providing access to beta
versions of products, supporting them with virtual 3D demos will increase the confidence of the partner when showcasing the product. For starters, the messaging of the brand needs to be consistent and crystal clear across all mediums. The retailers must ensure that the partner knows every little detail about your product and your brand, or chances are they might dilute or damage the brand’s reputation. How? Develop case studies, white papers, eBooks, surveys and industry studies, videos and more and find new ways to develop the cognitive abilities of the resellers to reason well with the customer. Companies are trying new methods where they do not even push its products at stores and merely shapes their store managers as specialists or helpers rather than sellers. These storefronts are more about education and support than selling. Eventually, companies need to invest in the strategy they think will suit their business goals. The retailers need to keep in mind that partners are not exclusive to one brand and may sell different competing products. Therefore, it is important to provide the right incentive to partners that will encourage them to sell products. Effective channel partnerships will enable revenue share, and partner sales reps should be able to identify right away what their cut will be for selling your products. For instance, retailers can partner with wallet companies to offer wallet money as an efficient means to transfer sales incentives to their partners and representatives rather quickly. Progress, as we know, is the result of disruptions. A decade and a half ago, most bankers felt threatened by the rise of computers. Digitization is the current disruption which people fear. Automation is leading in changing the way retailers function. We may tend to think that this wave of change will eliminate all existing ways of trade but the truth is, it will merely reshape the landscape of retail.
GUEST ARTICLE
CHANGING DYNAMICS OF BANKING MODELS THROUGH UC&C While most banks have made customer-centricity one of their highest priorities, yet as customers demand real-time, multichannel, and mobile transactions, it has become clear that customer-centricity requires changes in business and operating models to rebuild margins and maintain customer loyalty.
RAHUL GOSWAMI, SALES AND SOLUTION SUPPORT CONSULTING, ENTERPRISE SOLUTIONS CENTER, HEWLETT PACKARD ENTERPRISE BRIEF PROFILE With significant years in IT industry, Rahul Goswami is an Indian Author & Poet and works in the areas of Sales and Solution Support Consulting, based out of Bangalore (India). A certified consultant in Sales & Marketing Advisory services, Rahul is also a member of “Academy of American Poets”, and loves to explore his poetic writings to drive creative transformations in his works. With his viewpoints covered in Indian media publications, Rahul likes to write in the areas of Sales Effectiveness, Technology & Business Marketing.
While most banks have made customer-centricity one of their highest priorities, they still seek new competitive advantages in response to changes in customer trust, demographics, and demands as well as profit margins reduced by highercapital requirements, compliance costs, and lower fee income. As customers demand real-time, multichannel, and mobile transactions, it has become clear that customer-centricity requires changes in business and operating models to rebuild margins and maintain customer loyalty. To attract everyday customers, banks need real-time processes that are accessible via all channels (including mobile and tablet devices) to deliver relevant up-to-the minute analysis whenever they are needed. Unified communications strategies seek to bring client’s telecommunication, networking and office technology requirements in-line with business processes - with the goal of optimizing staff productivity by enabling collaboration seamlessly and efficiently after their organizational re-alignment along BU lines, and across geo lines. CREATING A POSITIVE UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS USER EXPERIENCE Connecting to the right people at the right time can have a significant impact on productivity, customer relationships, and especially your organization’s bottom line. As business communications grow more complex—with employees using diverse communication devices, applications, and modalities—making the right connections can become increasingly challenging. The failure to establish right connections leads to communication latency, increasing the amount of time required to make and execute critical business decisions. Business Process inefficiency is often heightened by the geographically dispersed nature of <Client Name>’s business units. Face-to-face meetings can be prohibitively expensive. Yet, collaboration is essential
48 SME CHANNELS SEPTEMBER 2016
to complete work projects. Traditional standalone data, telephony, and video solutions may not be effective in enabling the fast response and coordination necessary to reduce communication latency. Most of these solutions lack interoperability and add to system administration burdens. To address these issues, organizations are turning to UC&C model, which brings together today’s disparate methods of communications into a set of multimodal capabilities that are highly aware of one another. By adopting UC&C, it will be easier for you to reach people and to let others know how to reach you. UC&C uses voice, email, instant messaging (IM), audio conferencing, and video conferencing, in combination with presence awareness to immediately locate and contact individuals. UC&C can also be integrated with social media to broaden the context of and enrich enterprise communications. To achieve breakthrough results, it’s important to think about communications in a new way. The tools are important, but the tools themselves are not ‘unified communications.” The key is to organize these tools to support communications requirements within a business enterprise’s operations – the workflows and processes that create revenues and profits or otherwise help accomplish an organization’s goals. By providing a unique interface that can process both voice and digital data, unified communications solution improves efficiency for users and businesses and this is where the holistic unified experiential approach is drawn. There has been a critical shift of minds in banking industry CEOs from 2014, where the concentration was on cost take-out to 2015, where the concentration is on customer experiences. Gartner 2015 data survey does indicate financial services CEOs are searching for ways in which their firms can be more innovative, agile and scalable (for example, in terms of product, service delivery and organizational structure).
REVIEW
PRODUCT
MATRIX MULTISPECTRAL FINGERPRINT READERS
HP ELITE SLICE
Matrix’ Multispectral Fingerprint Door Controller - COSEC DOOR FMX, expands its Access Control and Time-Attendance portfolio
BY MANAS RANJAN
to address high-security and industrial needs
info@smechannels.com
of modern enterprises.
HP ELITE SLICE with revolutionary designs is ideal for the home and workplace. HP is transforming the desktop PC to create unique experiences that deliver the power customers expect in small, creative designs. This smallest desktop from HP is built for communications and collaboration. It is the first modular commercial desktop with cable-less connectivity2 and enables customers to build the desktop of their choice. This desktop changes the way office space is designed by creating streamlined work environments that boast productivity. Versatility, performance and enterprise-grade security merge to deliver greater produc-tivity and collaboration between employees while transforming the workplace and workstyles. The ultra-small, big power form factor is just 6.5” x 1.38” x 6.5” and weighs 2.31 lbs. The cable-less design allows for a clean work environment because customers do not separate cables plugged into the wall to power each component. This is the first commercial desktop powered from a displayvia only one USB 3.1 Type-C cable with a Type-C compatible display including the optional new Quad HD HP EliteDisplay S240uj Monitor. The display is equipped with integrated wireless charging and USB Type-C to perfectly comple-ment the desktop. HP Elite Slice versatility is provided by cover and base expansion options. Customers can choose from dif-ferent covers when configuring the PC and expand the solution at any time with additional modules to cre-ate the desktop that best fits their needs.
FEATURES n Peripheral support with three USB 3.0 ports, one USB 3.1 Type-C port for data transfer, one HDMI port, one DisplayPort, Gigabit Ethernet and a microphone/headphone jack. n Built-in speakers and microphone to listen to your music, use Cortana and do skype calls. n High-performing power house
with up to 6th Generation Intel Core i7 quad-core desktop processors4, am-ple storage up to 1 TB SDD5 or a 2 TB HDD5, an optional 128 GB SSD5 and up to 16GB of DDR4 system memory. n Optional AMD Radeon R9 M470 discrete graphics for photo and video editing or light gaming.
COSEC DOOR FMX multispectral technology reads the surface and the subsurface of a live fingerprint and derives very clear and strong image even when the surface layer is damaged due to continuous physical work, dirt, dry-skin, oil, ink, chemicals or such other environmental reasons. DOOR FMX’s unique multispectral identification process outperforms commercial fingerprint sensors and offers robust and predictable biometric identification. Compared to the traditional biometric readers scanning only single skin layer, multispectral technology employs multilayered reading. COSEC DOOR FMX offers significantly better False Acceptance Ratio (FAR) and False Rejection Ration (FRR) making it ideal for both - high-security and
PRICE
harsh industrial applications. COSEC DOOR
Rs. 62,990/- (starting price)
FMX is specifically designed for organizations
WARRANTY On Request
which cannot afford compromising security due to wrong user identification. Due to its unique fingerprint reading and
CONTACT
matching algorithms, COSEC DOOR FMX can
HP Inc. 1-(800)-180-1810 or 1-(800)-108-4747
work in extreme harsh environment.
OVERALL RATING
n Price: On Request, Warranty: 1 Year, Contact: More@MatrixComSec.com, +91 93744 74302. www.MatrixSecuSol.com
SME CHANNELS 49 SEPTEMBER 2016
PRODUCT
NEW ARRIVALS
TYCO
STANDARD 2MP OUTDOOR IR DOME CAMERA WITH MOTORIZED LENS
EPSON
EPSON EB-L1000 SERIES PROJECTORS
TYCO SECURITY’SILLUSTRA STANDARD 2MPAccess Tyco security’sIllustra Standard 2MP outdoor IR dome camera with motorized Lens model # ISS02D1OCWIT is especially designed for deployment in security-critical environments requiring overhead view of the area under surveillance. The Ultra-Low light imaging sensor incorporated to capture high quality colored images in dim light environment. This camera by American Dynamics can stream crisp and clear images at up to 1920 x 1080 video resolution at 25 frames per second through its 2.8~12mm @ F1.4 motorized lens with angle of view: 90.1°~31°range. The motorized lens’s automatic fast focus helps to maintain clear focus during zooming providing video surveillance at distances with good close up details of objects and individuals even in difficult lighting conditions.This outdoor dome Camera is suitable for outdoor applications as it conforms to IP66 standards while its impact protection is up to IK10.
EPSON’S NEW EB-L1000 SERIES LASER PROJECTORS are designed for large venues. The EB-L1000 series projectors are the first worldwide to integrate inorganic 3LCD panels with an inorganic phosphor wheel to achieve superior light and heat resistance for spectacular image quality, reliability, and durability underscoring the industry leader’s commitment to the laser and high brightness projector markets. Designed to operate 24/7, the EB-L1000 series are ideal for applications requiring continuous projection including command centers, storefronts, museums, digital signage and more. With a laser light source, the projectors reach maximum brightness without theneed for warming up. The EB-L1000 series will be available in 3 models ranging from 7,000 to 12,000 lumens in India – L1200U, L1405U and L1505U.
n Price: On Request, Warranty: On Request, Contact: Tyco Fire and Security India, Phone: 0124 476 3900
n Price: On Request, Warranty: On Request, Contact: Epson India, Premjith B, email: premjith@eid.epson.co.in
RICOH
RICOH HIGH- END PROJECTORS FOR LARGE SCREEN APPLICATIONS RICOH INDIA’S NEWLY LAUNCHED HIGH aend projectors RICOH PJ6181 series and RICOH PJ KU12000 are in line with the company’s philosophy to cater to the varied requirements from home entertainment to the new world of work. RICOH PJ6181 series combines versatile connectivity and are ideal for projecting multimedia content in large lecture halls and auditoriums. The new projectors offer a choice of resolutions, including WUXGA to meet the needs of audiences from 10 to 100 people and comes with three brightness options 6,200 lumen, 6,700 lumen and 7,200 lumen. It offers to projects presentations onto screens as large as 500 inches (diagonal) and variety of lens options help customer to install the Projector without any change in the existing set-up. Similarly, the high-performance RICOH KU12000 projector shines through excess ambient light with its whopping 12,000 lumen brightness makes it ideal for museums, art galleries, large outdoor signage,
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very large auditoriums, hotel banquet halls or even a mini cinema theatre by creating up to 500 inch diagonal screen. KU12000 comes WUXGA (1920x1200) resolution and dual lamp design for bright, high-resolution images. n Price: On Request, Warranty: On Request, Contact: Ricoh India Limited, phone: 8130693779, email: suvir.kumar@ ricoh.co.in
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