SME June 2013 by SME Channels

PLUS

Cloud Services for SMBs India to touch 42 Billion by 2016 /14

india’s first IT magazine for sme business VOLUME 04 | ISSUE 04 | PAGES 52 | JUNE 2013 | RS. 20/-

LEADER’S CORNER

SME CHAT

Cisco: Gung-ho on Midmarket /45

HCL: Engaging Channel Aggressively /48

Pantel: “Want to Double Our Sales This Year” /36

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PLUS

Cloud Services for SMBs India to touch 42 Billion by 2016 /14

india’s first IT magazine for sme business VOLUME 04 | ISSUE 04 | PAGES 52 | JUNE 2013 | RS. 20/-

LEADER’S CORNER

SME CHAT

Cisco: Gung-ho on Midmarket /44

HCL: Engaging Channel Aggressively /46

Pantel: “Want to Double Our Sales This Year” /36

METAMORPHOSIS

OF THE CHANNEL WORLD Once simply defined the role of channel partners is undergoing a transformation. From mere box sellers they are now playing the role of consultants. /26

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Canon helps YES BANK reduce 40% in printing /24 www.smechannels.com

india’s first IT magazine for sme business VOLUME 04 | ISSUE 04 | PAGES 52 | JUNE 2013 | RS. 20/-

SME CHAT

/38

Power2SME: “Aims to do Rs.125 Crore Business this Fiscal”

PARTNER CORNER Universal: Matrix offers Depth and Genuineness

/43

SME TREND

/50

ZyXEL: Makes the World Connect

MY EXPERIENCE EDITORIAL

LEARN TO LIVE WITH IT… SANJAY MOHAPATRA editor@smechannels.com

AS THE MAGAZINE going to print, the Dollar price has again touched INR 60 rupees and already there is panic in the market. People have already started talking about market slowdown. From 2007-08, we have been hearing about market slowdown and every time there is a forecast of market coming out of the slowdown, some thing or other happens. As we have to live with the coalition government in the centre, in the IT market too, we have to live with the present market condition. One thing for sure that government buying will change every slowdown, which is most likely to happen after the election. The SME and consumers’ buying will take place with a little interval from now. No doubt, it is an inconvenience for the partners. But one cannot help it as it has got international trade relations. Global investors are pulling out their investment from India to safeguard their interest in US. However, RBI is planning to check the dollar price inflection by selling bonds. But if partners are to remain in good health, it is always advisable to embrace solution selling. They will have to embrace brands like HP, Dell, IBM or Cisco, etc., because these companies have proper channel programme under which they provide training, incentives, demo products, PoC, lead generation, back-end rebate, etc. On top of these they also allow the partners to share service revenue. So when I say they the partners should go into partnerships with major corporates, they should not leave their existing products’ business immediately, they should keep it as a separate division. Sometime back I was talking to Delhi based Radiant Info Solutions. This company has traditional stock and sell model but they have adopted solution selling, which is giving them good margin. They are quite happy about it although it is a small portion of their revenue today. Therefore, products selling will always have some kind or other issues as the partners have to depend upon important market. If they do not import they necessarily depend upon the principal for the shipment of the product because nothing is manufactured in India in real sense. However, if the product business is the main stay for the channel partners, they will have to treat it as the fixed deposit or as a long term investment as it happens in the stock exchange where rise or fall in dollar price does not matter much. At the end of a particular time, they earn some steady bottom-line.

Huawei - Mini theatre HUAWEI’S MUCH awaited tablet MediaPad 10 Link is a sleek and light tablet that offers stunning display, with full HD video playback, super-fast processor, and extremely long lasting battery. Running on Android Jelly Bean 4.1 operating system, the most attractive feature of the MediaPad is its 10.1 inch full HD IPS display and is a delight to both the viewers and users and can be easily termed as “the mini theatre”. Decked with 1280*800 pixel HD display, it takes the user through a visually stimulating experience. The MediaPad is equipped with 6600 mAh battery, which ensures continuous upto 6-hour gaming or 8-hour video playback. Powered by Dolby Surround Sound technology the MediaPad 10 Link provides crystal clear sound and comes with 16 GB ROM and is expandable up to 32 GB.

SPECIFICATIONS It comes with the mighty 1.2 GHz Quadcore Hi-Silicon Processor added to the 16 Core GPU functionality. FINAL WORDING Priced at Rs. 24990, Huawei MediaPad 10 Link is one of the very good products. OVERALL RATING

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contents

JUN VOLUME 04 ISSUE 04

2013

ER COV RY STO

india’s first IT magazine for sme business

Publisher: Sanjib Mohapatra Editor: Sanjay Mohapatra Assistant Editor: Karma Negi Reporter: Aparajita Choudhury Executive Editor: Smruti Chaudhury Copy Editor: Neil D’Souza Web Designer: Vijay Bakshi Technical Writer: Manas Ranjan Satya Sagar Sinha Lead Visualizer: DPR Choudhary MARKETING Senior Manager: M Raj Marketing Executive: Rajat Kumar Circulation and Printing: Panchanan Bhoi SALES CONTACTS Delhi 6/102, Kaushalya Park, Hauz Khas New Delhi-110016 Phone: 91-11-41055458 / 9313891660 E-mail: raj@smechannels.com Bangalore #28/1, 3rd Floor, Sri Lakshmi Krupa, Near Shamanna Park, Model House Street, Basavanagudi, Bangalore - 560004 Ph. No. +91 88618 21044 Mumbai Tahmeed Ansari 2, Ground Floor, Park Paradise, Kay-Bees CHS. Ltd.,Opp. Green Park, Oshiwara, Andheri (west), Mumbai - 400 053. Ph. +91 22 26338546, Fax +91 22 26395581 Mobile: +91 9967 232424 E-mail: Info@smechannels.com Kolkata S Subhendu BC-286, Laxmi Apartment, Kestopur Kolkata-700101 Phone: 9674804389 EDITORIAL OFFICE

Metamorphosis of the Channel /26 Once simply defined the role of channel partners is undergoing a transformation. From mere box sellers they are now playing the role of consultants.

Delhi: 6/103, (GF) Kaushalya Park, New Delhi-110016, Phone: 91-11-41657670 / 46151993 editor@smechannels.com Bangalore Bindiya Jadhav #28/1, 3rd Floor, Sri Lakshmi Krupa, Near Shamanna Park, Model House Street,

SME CHAT Power2SME /38

“Aims to do Rs.125 Crore Business this Fiscal”

more inside

Basavanagudi, Bangalore - 560004 Ph. No. +91 88618 21044 E-Mail bindiya@ accentinfomedia.com Skype ID: b1diyajadhav

Editorial~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 06

Pantel /36

“Want to Double Our Sales This Year”

Printed, Published and Owned by Sanjib Snippets~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~10

Place of Publication: 6/101-102, Kaushalya SME Trend~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 34, 37, 50

PARTNER CORNER Universal /43

Matrix offers Depth and Genuineness

Mohapatra Park, Hauz Khas New Delhi-110016

Security Corner~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 44, 46

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

Products~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 48

SME TREND ZyXEL /50

Makes the World Connect

tion can be reproduced without the prior

FEATURE DISPLAY MARKET: /40

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

SME CHANNELS JUNE 2013

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SNIPPETS PRODUCT | CHANNEL | CONSULTING | SERVICES

for more log on to smechannels.com

Ricoh To Launch Inkjet Printers Buoyed by the increasing popularity of the inkjet market in India Ricoh India is planning to launch its inkjet printers in India revealed Manoj Kumar, senior VP and chief financial officer of Ricoh India. “We have been studying India’s inkjet printer market and have plans to come out with our inkjets printers

here. But how soon, that I can’t reveal,” he added. This news was revealed on the sidelines of the launch of its six new models of Laser printers and A4 MFPs: the SP 200 series, which it plans to drive aggressively through IT dealer and reseller channel. The firm clocked a turnover of Rs.

623 crore last fiscal, and plans to increase this to Rs. 1000 crore in FY13 with its aggressive expansion plans. “This product is said to benefit the SME sector with its competitive price and low cost of operation, as low as 30% versus competitive models in the category,” informed

Tetsuya Takano, MD and CEO, Ricoh India. Ricoh plans to expand its channel presence from the present 60-70 cities to 200 cities this fiscal and also increase the existing channel partners’ base of 1600 to 3000. It also further plans to launch Ricoh brand stores in major metros and eStore for internet savvy consumers. SP 200 have print speed of 22 pages per minute, with the duty cycle of 20,000 pages per month. The A4 Multifunction Printer out of these ranges has attractive features such as 36 Bit color scanning and ID copy. SP 200 series in available in both USB and network models as well. Speaking on the occasion, Kiran Pai, COO (Laser Printer business unit), said, “With Ricoh’s wide range of product lines and launch of new series of Laser Printers at the entry level segment with revolutionary genuine refill program, we are confident that our channel partners will be able to rapidly expand their business opportunities and increase their customer base.” “The Entry level segment constitutes 80% of the total Laser Printer market in India. Ricoh entry level has fleet of 11 models of SP 100 & SP 200 series with Genuine Toner refill program that would redefine the Printing Solution offers,” he added.

Google Cloud Woos SMBs With an aim of making it easier for small businesses in India, Google India has unveiled new affordable pricing for Google Apps on Cloud. New and existing customers based in India will now pay INR 150 per user per month if they’re on the flexible plan, and INR 1500 per user per year on the annual plan — a 45% reduction on the previous price. The power of the web to help small businesses goes beyond having a website or using advertising solutions, it also gives them access to secure and flexible cloud based communication and collaboration tools like Google Apps for Business stated the official statement. With a 99.9% availability guarantee, zero scheduled downtime and 24/7 support, Google Apps, offers businesses security and support.

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NetApp Updates its ONTAP Operating System NetApp has announced a new version of its flagship storage operating system, clustered Data ONTAP. The new software gives organizations and cloud service providers the capability to rapidly and cost effectively deliver new services and capacity with maximum application uptime. Clustered Data ONTAP 8.2 cuts through the performance, availability, and efficiency limits of traditional hardware silos, empowering IT to non disruptively align the storage infrastructure with changing business and application demands announced the press release. Clustered Data ONTAP provides seamless scalability with up to 69PB of storage and 24 controller nodes, 49,000 LUNs, 12,000 NAS volumes supporting over 100,000 clients and single container up to 20 PB.

Matrix to Exhibit Solutions at INTEC 2013 Matrix Comsec will showcase its office-in-a-box, Android mobile softphone, Branch office gateways, Time-Attendance, Access control and Video surveillance solutions at INTEC 2013, Coimbatore. During the event, Matrix will showcase office-in-a-box solution ‘NAVAN CNX200’, targeted for small business and branch offices. NAVAN CNX200 is a single box solution that offers voice, data, wireless, internet, mobility and messaging features. Further, Matrix telecom will showcase ‘SPARSH MS’ mobile softphone application to work with ETERNITY range of IP-PBXs for complete mobility while working away from the office.

HP Simply StoreIT to Push MSA 2040 Sales Focussing on the SMEs and Govt. agencies, HP has launched Next Gen MSA entry disk array, enhancements to the HP StoreEasy Storage portfolio and a new program known as HP Simply StoreIT for HP channels partners. As per HP limited IT resources and a lack of storage expertise can make it difficult for SMBs to deploy the storage systems needed to support applications that require high availability and performance. The new HP MSA2040 storage system simplifies management and improves performance up to four times faster than similarly priced external disk storage solutions. It is even four times faster than its previous generation – MSA 2000 series but the price is not even double. It will be priced only US$11,470, with Dual-controller configurations compared to US$ 6000 for MSA 2000. So the enhanced HP StoreEasy Storage portfolio enables SMBs to efficiently manage and protect increasing amounts of file data without the need for special skills. Available under Simply StoreIT programme, HP will offer partners training, marketing and incentives to quickly address the SMB customers.

MY POINT

Konica Minolta Holds 3rd Annual Partner Meet Konica Minolta hosted its 3rd annual partner meet from June 13th to June 15th, 2013 at Ramoji Film City, Hyderabad. This Annual Partner meet is Konica Minolta’s biggest partner engagement programme, where the top management of the company closely communicates with the partners about company’s annual strategy announced the press release. This year, the theme of the meet was “The Year of Challenge”. The main aim of the annual meet was to share knowledge on new technology and product domains with the partners in order to empower them with new tools that can be adapted by them in making Konica Minolta’s business a success. The emphasis was laid on how partners can turn market challenges into new opportunities by offering right solutions. Apart from the whole team of Konica Minolta, there were more than 90 channel partners who participated in the annual meet along with two senior executives from Konica Minolta Inc., Japan.

ESET Initiates MSP Program

“The decision to extend the CST exemption till 2015 in Uttarakhand will not only help strengthen local hardware manufacturing, but it will also go a long way in attracting more investment in this sector.” J V RAMAMURTHY PRESIDENT, MAIT

ESET has launched ‘business security solutions‘ to support the Managed Service Provider (MSP) channel to market. This new Program allows updates of the seat counts on daily basis, flexible monthly billing and management of tens of thousands endpoints within the Program via a single console - Eset Remote Administrator. MSPs, typically contractors or value-added resellers (VARs), deliver a variety of networkbased IT services, applications and equipment to businesses of all sizes. Last year, ESET identified a growing demand among MSP partners for a simpler licensing and management approach. ESET now offers ESET Endpoint Security and ESET Endpoint Antivirus powered by proven NOD32 technology, as well as other business security solutions as part of a robust MSP partnership program. The new program rewards service partners for their growth by decreasing licensing costs as their volume of business increases. MSPs and VARs will also be able to take advantage of Eset Remote Administrator, a familiar endpoint management console known by administrators for maintaining company endpoints stated the company.

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Asus Presents Comprehensive Z87 Mobos Asus has launched complete lineup of motherboards built around the high-end Intel Z87 chipset for 4th Generation Intel Core processors. The new motherboards feature technologies that make the most of Z87 capabilities, with offerings from ASUS, Republic of Gamers (ROG), The Ultimate Force (TUF), and WS (workstation) series providing the best user experiences, performance, stability, and upgrade options. The company informed that Asus-branded motherboards present a new premium gold color scheme, symbolizing an insistence on delivering the highest standards of innovation, performance, and reliability. Multiple offerings cover a wide range of customer segments, led by the high-end Z87-DELUXE, which delivers the most features and advanced connectivity.

KINGSTON KC300 MAXIMIZES POWER EFFICIENCY

Kingston has added KC300 SSD to its SSDNow family. KC300 enables business, mobile and power users to be more productive as the drive maximizes power efficiencies in notebook PCs. KC300 provides advanced power management via an LSI SandForce second-generation SF-2281 processor, allowing users to do more from a single charge. KC300 is the next-generation business drive, replacing the Kingston V+200 and KC100 SSDs. The drive features enterprise-grade SMART attributes, allowing IT departments to monitor wear range data, SSD life left, write amplification and total bytes written. KC300 comes equipped with Data Integrity Protection featuring DuraWrite technology to extend the life of the SSD by effectively and efficiently reducing the number of Flash writes via an intelligent compression engine without sacrificing data integrity. RAISE reduces the number of uncorrectable errors in the drive, over and above standard error code correction.

LG Leads in Stand-Alone Monitor Market LG Electronics has clocked 30.2% market share in the stand- alone monitor market during the first quarter of 2013, thereby retaining its leadership position. LG has been ranked as the no.1 monitor brand in India followed by Acer and Samsung, according to the CMR Report Q1’ 2013 (CMR’s India City-wise Monthly PC Monitor Market Review, May 2013 release). LG is now leading the Indian display industry after consolidating its position in the market for the second consecutive year. The company further informed that LG has scored high in channel partner’s scheme in terms of overall product reliability, user-friendliness and diversity of product range. Every quarter, LG creates a unique service for its consumers to resolve all issues within 72 hours.

AsiaPower’s Next-Gen Surge Protectors Launched Asia Powercom has released the AsiaPower Surge series of protectors, which represent the next generation evolution of universal electric sockets. These surge protectors provide surge-free power for electronic equipment like smart phones, tablets, MP3/MP4 players, PSP, Powerbank, etc. Tejas Sheth, Country Manager, Asia Powercom, said, “With the launch of AsiaPower Surge protectors, we have taken a step ahead in introducing new product in our product line. While PCs containing valuable data are often protected by UPSes and surge suppressors, many smart phones that contain valuable data got no such protection until now.”

RS Components Opens its first Electronic Center in Bangalore RS Components has inaugurated its very first electronic centre in Bangalore. The establishment of the electronic Centre’s in Bangalore underscores RS Components- commitment to the growing electronic components market and electronic design engineering communities in the region announced the press release. RS Components has recently made two upgrades on its website – by adding information on Electronics Centre and a Design Spark. The latter is an online gateway as a connection to the electronics community.

TP-LINK 3G Wi-Fi SIM Card Router Provider of networking products TP-LINK has unveiled a new 3G Mobile Wi-Fi M5350 SIM card router, designed to provide high-speed Internet access anywhere you go. This product is at the forefront of wireless 3G sharing, combining the mobility of 3G broadband connections using its internal 3G modem with the flexibility of Wireless 802.11n and is powered by a highcapacity 2000mAh internal rechargeable battery creating a robust wireless sharing device with unbeatable performance announced the press release. With its “pebble-like” design, the M5350 features 2000mAh battery, operates for a 7/10 hrs.

Cloud Services for SMBs India to touch 42 Billion by 2016 The adoption of cloud services among Indian SMBs continues to grow rapidly as more service providers are fully equipped to launching and managing new services to meet the growing needs of the country’s burgeoning SMBs. According to the latest Parallels SMB Cloud Insights research for India, the Indian SMB market for the cloud services estimated at 17 billion (US$339 million), and is expected to grow 35 percent year-over-year for the next three years, reaching 42 billion (US$839 million) by 2016.

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91. 995 801 0078 91. 991 002 3078

HHP Router : MSR20-15i ISP Level Routers

MSM Networks Enterprise Networking Solutions & System Integration

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202, Jyoti Building, 66, Nehru Place New Delhi - 110019 Tel : 011-46656379 Mobile : 9958010078 Email : shankar@msm-networks.com Web : www.msm-networks.com

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SNIPPETS

GoDaddy’s ‘Cup Of Coffee’ Campaign For India SMBs

TREND MICRO GIVES EXPANSIVE CLOUD SECURITY

GoDaddy, a platform for small businesses, has launched India’s ‘Cup of Coffee’ campaign to personally demonstrate to small businesses and entrepreneurs how easy it is to build a website, thereby enabling them to establish a Web presence. The campaign’s theme is ‘Get a Web presence in the time you finish a cup of coffee,’ which aims to exhibit how convenient and fast it is to build a great website, at an affordable cost. The ‘Cup of Coffee’ campaign is running simultaneously in three cities – New Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad for a period of one month. The customer is given a .COM address for their Web presence, a website for their business, 1GB email ID and Google AdWords credit worth Rs. 2,500 so SMBs can have their business appear on Google – all for Rs. 580* only announced the official statement. At various SMB clusters, a GoDaddy mobileexperience-zone will be positioned during the campaign period, offering a first-hand experience of how SMBs can register a domain name, build a website, get an email address and leverage Google AdWords to promote their website.

Trend Micro has announced new advancements in its Cloud and Data Center Security solution that simplify, automate, and extend security for organizations running their enterprise applications and storing sensitive data in the cloud, including Amazon Web Services (AWS) environments. Trend Micro Deep Security-as-a-Service provides a comprehensive suite of security capabilities delivered from the cloud that are specifically designed to augment AWS’ existing security capabilities. Deep Security as a Service takes advantage of AWS APIs to automate and simplify the deployment process while not impeding the flexibility and scalability of AWS. The service offers include proven security, Security capabilities built on the cloud, for the cloud and Optimized for organizations using AWS. Terry Wise, Head (Worldwide Partner Ecosystem), Amazon Web Services, said, “Ensuring the security of our customers’ data is our top priority. We work closely with our partners like Trend Micro to help them provide security solutions that complement the existing Amazon Web Services security features. We see Trend Micro’s latest innovations and offerings as valuable capabilities for organizations to easily and effectively extend proven security practices to their cloud deployments.” Kevin Simzer, VP (Business Development and Global Alliances), Trend Micro, says, “As organizations move to the cloud, they take on shared responsibility for their security with their cloud or Infrastructure as a Service partner. While cloud providers take on responsibility for things like physical access control and hypervisor security, responsibility to protect the environment from the guest operating system and above remains a customer driven activity. At Trend Micro, we want to make it easy to add the required security that fits into the agile nature of how organizations are using the cloud.

EXECUTIVE MOVEMENT

WORLDWIDE SECURITY SW TOTALED $19.2 BILLION IN 2012 A 7.9% INCREASE FROM 2011 REVENUE OF $17.7 BILLION, ACCORDING TO GARTNER, INC. THE EVOLUTION OF NEW THREATS AND WORKING PRACTICES, SUCH AS BYOD, IS DRIVING SPENDING ON SECURITY TOP SECURITY SOFTWARE VENDORS, WORLDWIDE, 2011-2012 (MILLIONS OF DOLLARS)

10865.2

2012 Revenue

Dell

Emerson Network Power has appointed Sanjay Zadoo as the country manager for the India channel business taking over from Ausim Khan. Microsoft India appointed Karan Bajwa as the new MD of its sales and marketing group (SMSG) in the country. Ankoor Sarkar has joined Viking Technology as director sales, South Asia.

717.6

716.1

953.6

931.3

1172.0

1205.1

1226.0

1680.0

3747.1

3652.0

10008.7

2011 Revenue

Dell has named Alok Ohrie as the President and Managing Director of Dell India.

Dell

Source: Gartner (May 2013) *McAfee’s strong growth in 2012 was partly influenced by Intel’s write-down of McAfee revenue in 2011.

Dell

ZyXEL has appointed Pronob Mukherjee and Bhupinder Rustagi as regional heads. TRENDnet appoints Atul Jain as India country manager.

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Kaspersky Internet Security 2013 Gets 5 Star Award Kaspersky Internet Security 2013 for home users has been granted the highest 5-star award in MRG Effitas’ Real World Protection Test for Q1 2013. The solution detected and blocked 100% of all threats it faced in the test announced the company. During testing, the experts assessed the ability of rival antivirus solutions to detect and block dangerous malware. The MRG Effitas experts selected samples of malware which an ordinary user may face while working online. The testing was conducted on computers running Windows 7 SP 1 32 bit. These PCs were also set up with a suite of popular applications which have vulnerabilities regularly exploited by hackers. Kaspersky Lab’s product competed alongside 16 other popular security solutions. Kaspersky Internet Security 2013 blocked every one of the 585 threats prepared for the testing, earning MRG Effitas’ highest award - 5 stars. Only two other solutions in the trial could match Kaspersky Lab’s result informed.

SEAGATE UNVEILS 4TB VIDEO 3.5 HDD

Seagate Technology has launched the new Seagate Video 3.5 HDD, the industry’s first 4TB, 3.5-inch hard disk drive (HDD) engineered specifically for use in video applications such as digital video recorders (DVRs), set-top boxes (STBs), and surveillance systems informed the company. Purpose-built for video solutions, the Video 3.5 HDD can store up to 480 hours of highdefinition (HD) content. With capacities up to 4TB, the drive supports up to 16 simultaneous HD streams or 20 standard-definition streams as well as 24x7 operation capabilities. Scott Horn, VP (Marketing), Seagate, said, “Leveraging Seagate’s 10 years of experience understanding the requirements of the video market, we’ve combined our knowledge on heat, acoustics and power to deliver what we believe to be the most reliable DVR drive in the world. Our commitment to deliver a drive with unrivaled reliability ensures the safekeeping of consumers’ content as well as keeping DVRs, STBs, and surveillance systems in the field longer.”

ZyXEL Imparts Knowledge to Partners To share knowledge on different technology domains to empower partners with new tools that can be adapted in ZyXEL making its business successful, a partners meet was recently organized in Chennai, Dehradun and Delhi. ZyXEL also focused on strengthening and expanding its current partner network. Apart from the sales team of ZyXEL, there were more than 80 partners who participated in the programme announced the official release. Highlighting the vital role of its channel partners in making ZyXEL’s products available to valued customers across the country, Pinaki Chatterjee, Executive Director (Distribution Channel & Business Development), ZyXEL India, said, “This meet is a good platform for an effective interaction with our valued channel partners. We need to train our partners in order to share the latest developments happening in ZyXEL and to make them aware of real end-to-end networking technologies.”

neoteric UMAX Boombastic 2 UM Speakers neoteric, the sole authorized national distributor for all UMAX products in India recently launched UMAX Boombastic 2 UM speakers in the market. This product functions with a Power Output of 5W RMS and a Frequency Response of 100Hz - 20 KHz. Its key features include LCD Screen, Digital Volume Control, USB / SD Card Slot, Support MP3 32MB~8GB, FM Radio, 3.5MM Audio in (AUX), Wireless Remote and a Clock & Alarm Function. It is available in white and black colors and comes with a carry-in warranty of 1 year. Irfan Kazi, Product Development Manager (UMAX), neoteric Infomatique ltd., said, “The product is being well accepted and appreciated for its unique features and portability and very popular in gifting segment. UMAX portable series now has five models along with colour options in few models.”

DIGEST PORTRONICS UNVEILS ‘BEAN’ Portronics has launched another wireless mouse “Bean”, priced at Rs 999. It comes with the micro USB dongle stored inside ensuring the mouse doesn’t get lost, making it the USP of this product announced the press release. Bean comes in three dual attractive colours – Black and grey, White and blue, Black and white. It comes with an exclusive four DPI settings ranging from 500 DPI for the artists to 1750 DPI for the gamers as they need speed.

*ASTTECS OPENS KOLKATA OFFICE *astTECS, provider of enterprise telecom technology products and Asterisk based open source communication solution, has opened its office in Kolkata. “The launch of our local operations is a confirmation of our long term commitment and establishing our operations in Kolkata is part of our strategic expansion plan in India,” said Levis Wilson, COO, *astTECS. “This will help customers in this region capitalize on new & compelling telecom infrastructure solution and will foster working dynamics that will assist in providing immediate support to the company’s growing customer base in the region,” he added.

NEC OPENS GLOBAL SAFETY DIVISION IN SINGAPORE NEC Corporation has established a Global Safety Division in Singapore as the Global Strategic Headquarters for NEC’s Public Safety Business. The Global Safety Division will focus on growing and developing the company’s expertise in public safety, an area which has attracted a great deal of attention and investment by governments around the world. The new division will devise global business strategy, develop new technologies and solutions and provide training and technical support for subsidiaries and partners worldwide.

PLANTRONICS ANNOUNCES HOT SUMMER OFFER Plantronics has unveiled a hot summer offer for the partners. The partner would have to achieve a predetermined set of points and then win rewards offered by Plantronics & Rashi Peripherals. The rewards includes a Marque 165, Samsung Galaxy Ace, 7’’ Micromax Tablet & Apple iPad Mini 16GB. The scheme starts from 1st May and will be valid up to 29th June. The purchases will be valid only through city distributors and special scheme valid for all Bluetooth devices. As per the company’s press release, Rashi Peripherals will be distributing the products across the country with the support of it 60 branches which will help the partner place their order and bill the products as well as receive their reward in the most efficient way possible. Plantronics & Rashi Peripherals would like all the channel partners to participate with full enthusiasm and enjoy the deserved benefits.

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Worlds Slimmest & Multi Touch All In One

Lenovo A720

SNIPPETS

Spectrum Group Hosts Conference Spectrum Group felicitated its channel partners for their contribution towards its success in the Middle East and India at a recently held Annual Partner Conference in Dubai. The Conference was supported by Kaspersky, EnGenius, TripWire, gateProtect, WinMagic, Accutnix and GFI. The partner conference was attended by over 200 channel partners from across the Middle East, North Africa and India. Channel partners were rewarded for their efforts and hard work put in during the past year at a glittering Award Ceremony held at the prestigious Burj AL Arab Hotel in Dubai early this month. “The conference provided us a perfect opportunity to express our gratitude by awarding our champion channel partners for their efforts and support that has brought us to the forefront of IT distribution in the region and in India,” said Ajay Singh Chuahan, CEO, Spectrum Group.

DELL SONICWALL NSA SERIES UNVEILED FOR MEs Dell has unveiled new SonicWALL Network Security Appliance (NSA) Series Next-Generation Firewalls (NGFW), that enable mid-sized organizations, branch offices, school campuses and government agencies to have multi-layered protection from sophisticated attacks and control over applications while also assuring optimal network performance and total of cost of ownership. The new Dell SonicWALL NSA Series renders competitors’ traditional firewalls obsolete and provides a host of enhancements typically reserved for large enterprises and 10GbE connectivity to this industry segment for the first time stated the press release. The NSA Series utilizes a scalable multi-core hardware architecture and patented single-pass low latency Reassembly-Free Deep Packet Inspection (RFDPI) engine. Ranging from 6 to 24 cores, these NGFWs pack enough security processing power to inspect all network traffic -- regardless of port or protocol to detect and block threats before they enter the network without introducing bottlenecks. Patrick Sweeney, Executive Director (Product Management), Dell, said, “This new NSA Series provides medium-sized business customers with the same high level of security, control, and performance available to the enterprise, in a solution that also offers our acclaimed ease of use and high value. We think these products are game-changers as we take on the critical mid-market.”

Socomec Strengthens Green Power 2.0 Socomec has announced the results of in-depth research on technology and product development with its new groundbreaking, three phase Uninterruptible Power Supplies product. The 250 kW and 500 kW Green Power 2.0 units benefit from Socomec’s early investment in 3-Level IGBT technology. With this technology, the Green Power 2.0 reaches 96% efficiency in VFI mode (Voltage Frequency Independent) said the company’s press release. With its unity output power factor (PF=1) the new unit provides users with full-rated 500 kW power in accordance with IEC 62040-3, bringing total power capacity to an unmatched 4MW. Denis Sallée, Director (Product Marketing), Socomec (Critical Power Business Application), stated, “At Socomec we listen carefully to our customers and are constantly committed to providing them with the best solutions. These solutions match their challenges to save on energy costs without compromising the availability of mission critical applications. We believe power availability is the number one concern of data centre managers, and we are committed to providing this without compromise.”

eScan Selects Webcom as Disty eScan has appointed Webcom Information Technologies Pvt. Ltd., an IT infrastructure solution provider, as its distributor for Karnataka for Corporate and Enterprise segment of above 100 users category. The alliance will allow both the brands to drive new growth opportunities and has the potential to ultimately facilitate secured IT infrastructure with reduced costs and complexity as well as improved productivity to corporates across the state stated the press release. Sharing his views on this partnership, Sunil Kripalani, Senior VP (Global Sales & Talking about this partnership, Anantharam V Varayur, MD, Webcom Information Technologies Pvt. Ltd., said, “With this partnership, we are optimistic to replace most of the MNC AV products in Defense and Government with home grown product that is eScan. We plan to have entire sales to happen only through SI. Moreover, Webcom will also have a separate channel sales and will be appointing a Director who will concentrate only on eScan. As Webcom is popularly known as SI, eScan product will help them enter the channel sales.”

Foxconn Unveils New Line of Mobos Foxconn unveiled its new line of next generation motherboards, the H87 series and B85 series. While the former is meant for home and multimedia purposes, the latter is targeted at small offices. Both the series use the latest Intel 8 chipsets and LGA1150 platform and support the latest 22nm Intel Core processors code named Haswell. In addition, the Intel’s Smart Connect and Rapid Start technology, along with Intel Small Business Advantage, make it possible for users to experience greater speed and stability.

ManageEngine’s New Pricing for ITIL ManageEngine has announced new pricing policies to drive ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) adoption by both SMBs and enterprise organizations via its ITIL-ready help desk software, ServiceDesk Plus for $995, giving organizations the advantages of the ITIL framework at an affordable price. With ServiceDesk Plus Enterprise Edition, IT organizations can leverage ITIL processes while unifying their help desk, asset management and project management activities in a single pane of glass.

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SNIPPETS

IBM PureSystems Deployed by Trimax IBM announced that Trimax IT Infrastructure and Services Limited (Trimax), an IT infrastructure services and solutions provider, will deploy a cloud environment based on PureSystems to make its business more efficient. The solution aims at providing the flexibility many Trimax customers need to scale as their business requirements expand. “We have selected IBM’s Smarter Computing approach and PureSystems as it is a fitting platform for our needs,” said Rajesh Tapadia, CTO, Trimax. “The combination of IBM’s technical expertise and focus on helping clients drive innovation with advanced technologies will enable us to move beyond our traditional client base and reach new markets. IBM PureFlex offers a compelling value proposition designed to scale on-demand, depending on business needs. ”

EMERSON NETWORK POWER UNVEILS ‘JUNE BLOCKBUSTER’ CHANNEL SCHEME Emerson Network Power will reward its Network Solution Partners (NSPs) and Value Added Resellers (VARs) in India under the ‘June Blockbuster’ channel scheme on achieving pre-determined sales targets of Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) systems during June 2013. ‘June Blockbuster’ is a monthly scheme running through 1-30 June 2013. The scheme allows partners to choose their own target slabs, and take home gifts of their choice upon achieving them. The minimum sales target is as low as Rs. 50,000. In order to breakout the incentives program more evenly across partners based in A, B and C class cities, Emerson Network Power has also introduced additional incentives for all NSPs and VARs determined by their location. With the introduction of additional location-based incentives, partners in smaller cities can easily qualify to win rewards equal to their counterparts in the larger cities. In ‘June Blockbuster’, Emerson Network Power has also introduced early billing bonuses to pass on extra discounts to partners that are logging in sales at a faster pace. Channel partners will be eligible for extra discounts of 2.50 percent, 2.00 percent, and 1.50 percent by submitting their billings by 15th June, 20th June and 27th June respectively.

Axis Unveils New Video Encoder Axis Communications has launched AXIS Q7436 Video Encoder Blade and the AXIS Q7920 Video Encoder Chassis, with support for up to 84 analog cameras. AXIS Q7436 Video Encoder Blade has support for 60/50 fps, providing smooth video even in high motion scenes. It delivers multiple, individually configurable video streams from each channel, at full frame rate in all resolutions. Furthermore, this 6-channel video encoder blade offers great image features such as reduced noise, enhanced sharpness and optimized contrast, allowing for even better image quality output. For larger, centralized systems, high-density rack solutions with encoder blades offer the most flexible and reliable solutions. AXIS Q7920 is a rack mount encoder chassis, providing an expandable solution for migrating large-scale analog installations to network video.

WatchGuard Awards Night 2013 Concludes in Goa WatchGuard recently organized its Annual Gala Event ‘Channel Awards Night’ 2013 in Goa. WatchGuard annual gala event and awards night enabled, equipped and recognized its top Indian channel partners announced the company. The event witnessed presence of 50+ WatchGuard Elite partners from across the country. 2012 marked another magnificent growth year for WatchGuard. It received the 2012 North American Product Quality Leadership Award in Email Content Security from Frost & Sullivan, World’s Best Award for Security Hardware-2012 and Information Technology Industry’s 2012 World’s Best Award.

Rashi Starts ‘APC Day’ Partner Program Rashi Peripherals has initiated ‘APC Day’ partner program which ensures price benefits at a large scale. APC Day used to be celebrated with vendor support but since the beginning of 2013 this initiative has been taken followed by the great response that was received by the partner community. The motive of this program is to drive width of the business and touch remote areas across the country, spreading reach and knowledge of a product like UPS, which is also one of the value adds that Rashi as a distributor brings in to all its business thus helping build strong relations. Rashi distributes APC-UPS and APC-Service products through its wide spread network of 60 branches across India.

Gigabyte Kicks-off 8 Series Training Right on the heels of launching its 8 series motherboards at Computex 2013, Taiwan, Gigabyte has commenced a major countrywide drive to train its reseller and system integrator (SI) partners, on these motherboards that support Intel 4th generation Core processors. The 8 series training program series was kicked off at the reseller event held on June 12, 2013, in Ahmedabad, The month of June will also witness similar sessions across other major Indian cities, such as New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Bangalore. Thereafter in the July-August-September quarter, the training program will be conducted at over 15 tier 2 cities across the country.

Adata Unveils New Offerings Adata showcased DRAM, Next Gen Form Factor (NGFF) solid state drives, On-The-Go (OTG) USB Flash drives, and Network-Attached Storage (NAS) solutions at the Computex. The company further demonstrated Adata’s M.2 (NGFF) solid state drives, designed in a variety of types including NGFF 2242, 2260, & 2280. The small sizes of these SSDs allow to be used with Haswell platform motherboards, and also provide OEMs and system integrators high capacity and more flexible design options for Ultrabook and tablets.

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Quick Heal Named Channel Champion Quick Heal has been conferred with Channel Champion title for record fifth time in the antivirus (AV) category by a channels magazine. Abhijit Jorvekar, VP Sales and Marketing, said, “The award is recognition of our sincere efforts to be the most partner-friendly vendor. We are respected for serving as a valuable resource for technology integrators and in fostering trustworthy and mutually beneficial partnerships.” “In our case, partner goodwill is also generated because of our exceptional tech support. Cumulatively, we invest in channel partners’ success by offering them above and beyond additional incentives; tools that will help ensure business success,” he added.

Canon Helps YES BANK Reduce 40% in Printing

CADYCE INTENSIFIES USB PRODUCT PORTFOLIO Cadyce has launched four new USB models which include USB 2.0 4-Port Hub (CA-U4H), USB 2.0 10-Port Hub (CA-U10H), USB to HDMI Adapter with Audio (CA-U2HDMI) and USB Extension Cable (CA-U2X5). As per the company’s press release, Cadyce’s innovative USB Accessories helps easy interdevice connection between laptops, computers, tablets and smart-phones etc. The company continues its efforts to provide users with new devices using latest technology in the market. Recently, Cadyce signed an MFi License contract with Apple Inc. and now Cadyce is authorized Apple license holder manufacturer, under that many range like apple lightning cable for iphone 5, ipad mini, and apple sync cable will be launched in coming days. Nacheeket Nilekar (Director of sales, Cadyce, said, “By expanding our USB product portfolio, we are trying to make networking and communication easier for our customers.” Cadyce is the only brand which offers economical and reliable solutions that has excellent quality and no compatibility issue with any operating system announced the company.

YES BANK has successfully outsourced its entire printing requirements to Canon; which has helped them streamline and enhance its printing infrastructure across 430 of its offices. The engagement with YES BANK involves Canon to manage all the printing services, including consumables, on a per-click model basis. YES BANK was facing a challenge in consolidating its printing infrastructure especially in tier II and III markets. After analyzing their requirements and keeping in mind that the bank was in its growing and expansion stage, Canon suggested Managed Document Services (MDS), a flexible and cost effective model. YES BANK’s goal of attaining standardization across all locations was achieved with the support of Canon providing them accessibility to monitor and track company’s print environment and usage on Real-time basis.

Transcend Unveils New SATA III 6 GB/s SSD720

Rapoo Unveils 4.0 Mini Speakers A3060

Transcend has launched its new next generation SSD720 SATA III 6Gb/s solid state drive (SSD) that delivers significantly improved computer performance over standard rotating hard drives. Designed with multitasking power users in mind, the productivity-enhancing SSD720 is the ideal solution for demanding system applications, such as specialized multimedia computing and advanced gaming. Combining the latest SATA III 6Gb/s specification with a powerful SandForce-Driven controller, the SSD720 is able to offer incredible transfer speeds of up to 550MB/s read and 500MB/s write, taking a mere 15 seconds to transfer a 5GB DVD. This ultra-fast speed translates into significantly faster system boot up, application launch speed, data transfers, and overall system responsiveness. Moreover, support for Native Command Queuing (NCQ), increases the performance and efficiency of the SSD720 by optimizing the order in which received read and write commands are executed. Featuring a tough yet lightweight metal outer case, the SSD720 boasts a super slim thickness of just 7mm to address the size limitations of today’s modern Ultrabooks, notebooks, and other thin and light form factor devices.

Rapoo has launched Bluetooth 4.0 mini speakers A3060. It supports handsfree speakerphone calls, users can switch between phone and music by using the touch control buttons located on top of the speakers informed the company. This speaker features Bluetooth 4.0 wireless transmission, 10m working distance range, Intelligent voice prompting feature, touch media control buttons, built in microphone, built-in rechargeable lithium battery, 10 hours of continuous working with just 2.5 hours of charging and it is available in Black, Silver, Green, Blue, Orange and Yellow colors. As per the company’s press release, A3060 comes with a mini USB charger and offer powerful sound for use at home, office or on the move. Users can control volume, pause/play music and go to the next/previous track by using the smart features on top of the speaker. The speaker features a built- in microphone for hands-free calling. Sunil Srivastava, Manager (India Sales & Marketing), Rapoo India, said, “Customers can have A3060 a colorful, simple, elegant, and classy compact speaker with wireless Bluetooth communication. It can be used with different sources and for different purpose at home, office or on go. Partners can suggest this product to people who prefer to have style and compactness.”

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COVER STORY

CHANNEL GROWTH

METAMORPHOSIS

OF THE CHANNEL

Once simply defined the role of channel partners is undergoing a transformation. From mere box sellers they are now playing the role of consultants. BY KARMA NEGI

karma@smechannels.com

or years Channel has performed the role of the all important bridge between the vendors and the end-users. With the near impossibility to reach each and every market, Channel helped them enter every nook and corner of the country and also in the process become a face of the vendors. Earlier, they were mere sellers of IT products and services, helping push the boxes to the end-users. But with the changing times and technologies, they have undergone a transformation, evolving from box-pushers to increasingly playing a deep and proactive role. Today, they play the role of technology consultants recommending customised solutions and service support as per the need of the customer. They have evolved considerably to play a more instrumental role in the decision-making cycle. However, another trend is emerging where some vendors are going directly to the endusers bypassing the Channel. An example is that of Adobe which recently announced its decision to go on Cloud; though it reiterated, that this move does not mean decrease in importance of Channel for them. But this does bring into focus the changing nature of the Channel in the last couple of years, and the

pivotal role they still play. Or not? “Channel partners have a key part to play in identifying the business problems of the enduser and thereby also suggesting the possible IT solutions for the same. Specially for the SMB sector that is not so well-evolved in terms of internal IT management – the Channel Partner is a trusted person for the SMB-owner/ manager, CPs guide him in almost every IT decision,” says Dev Chakravarty, Manager (Research), AMI-Partners. “While the nature of the ‘channel partner’ is changing according to market dynamics, their role in finally taking the brand to the end-consumer is as crucial as ever. Aligning the vendor’s messaging and key strategies with that of the partners is still important in capturing the essence of the brand at the point-of-sale (PoS). Therefore, the core principles of a successful vendor-reseller relationship still holds true,” informs Subroto Das, Sales Director, WD India. Yes, the nature of the Channel Partner is changing. They are becoming well informed, more ambitious, more technical savvy. From the simply defined resellers, retailers, distributors they are evolving into e-service providers, value added distributor etc. It’s no longer profitable or sustainable to be at the lower-end

of the value chain. And technology is playing a key role in this change. The advent of Cloud Computing is changing the whole business dynamics; eCommerce is gaining traction and at the same time while these are new opportunities for some channel partners for others, less entrepreneurial, it may spell doom. “On one hand they are moving from being exclusive-OEM distributors to multi brand players. On the other hand they are starting to invest in organized retail as a big opportunity to expand their business. Aggressive business partners have always helped us with increasing units and hence profitability,” points out Ashok Nair, Director (SMB), Lenovo India.

Changing Channel According to the industry, though the basic definition of the Channel remains the same, the relevance and the role of the channel partner has changed tremendously. Nair says, “With increasing awareness levels amongst the end consumers through social media and other information platforms, it has become important that the channel provides much more value today and operates like a consultant rather than just a fulfilment agent.” “Earlier channel partners used to work more like resellers. But now they work as a solution

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CHANNEL GROWTH

COVER STORY

IT IS IMPORTANT THAT THE CHANNEL PROVIDES MUCH MORE VALUE TODAY AND OPERATES LIKE A CONSULTANT RATHER THAN JUST A FULFILMENT AGENT.

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COVER STORY

CHANNEL GROWTH

“THE STRUCTURE OF CHANNEL WILL CONTINUE TO REMAIN SIMPLE AND FOCUS ON CUSTOMER’S CORE NEED AT ANY POINT IN TIME – DEPENDING ON THE CURRENT TRENDS.” ASHOK NAIR, DIRECTOR (SMB), LENOVO INDIA.

providers. The thought process has completely changed as per the sales growth. Internet, one of the biggest technological evolutions has helped a lot. Further the growth in sales of laptops, mobiles and tablets also helped them to be where they are now,” replies Pankaj Jain, Director, ESET India. The industry further says that they are an integral part of the marketing strategy of companies and are more than just a means to the distribution of products to customers and end-users. They have evolved with the changing IT needs of customer into a trusted solution provider. “Channel partners are no longer viewed as passive PoS,” says Das. “Channel partners have become business partners whose feedback impact the vendor’s long term product strategies, and hence define a company’s future direction. Compared to earlier times, these relationships with partners are now much more transparent and two-way.” “The market itself has become complex, where information is transparent, so the channels need creative ideas to differentiate themselves from the rest to meet the client needs,” says Kevan Li, Business Head, India, Antec Inc. “Channel partners today are expected to be able to put themselves in the shoes of their customers and thoroughly understand their needs. This knowledge will enable them to suggest appropriate products and solutions to their customers. With this in mind Dell introduced the Dell Engineers’ Club,” adds Ajay Kaul, GM & Director (Global Commercial Channel), Dell India. Executive VP of Canon Dr. Alok Bharadwaj sees transformation occurring in three dimensions. First is in the domains. Partner who were earlier doing only IT or B2B are expanding into telecom and B2C as well. The second has been in the value chain that is from box sellers to integration. And third in the area of Scale, in terms of geographic expansion and also like small retailers going for LFRs etc. “However, those at the low-end of the value axis are vulnerable and not sustainable,” he adds.

Agrees CommScope’s Director for Channel Sales in India and SAARC- Alamuri Sitaramaiah (Sita). He warns that Channels who are on the periphery and compete on relationships and availability will soon have to find a niche for themselves. At the end of the day it’s all about profitability, and if you want to make good margins you have to add value. Otherwise, this Channel will not last long. He further adds that consolidation will become more and more critical in the coming months as the markets are slowing down, and there is intense competition building up because the opportunities are fewer and therefore channel who do not bring value, or add value, which do not have a niche such channels will die away.

“CHANNEL PARTNERS ARE NO LONGER VIEWED AS PASSIVE POS. THEY HAVE BECOME BUSINESS PARTNERS.” SUBROTO DAS, SALES DIRECTOR, WD INDIA.

“THE RETAIL CHANNEL HAS COME UP IN A BIG WAY THROUGH THE EMERGENCE OF LFRS, LARGE DEPARTMENTAL STORES, ETC.” DEV CHAKRAVARTY, MANAGER (RESEARCH), AMI-PARTNERS.

“The hierarchy which has been followed is vendor- distributor-subdisti- channel partner is now being broken down or cut down to different levels according to the requirements of the day. The purchase decision of the end user is also shifting towards online whereas before consumers wanted to feel the product before purchase,” says M A Mannan, Country Manager, Corsair Memory India. Axis Communications’ channel ecosystem comprises of distributors, SIs, resellers, application development partners, technology partners etc. And their roles are clearly defined explains Sudhindra Holla, Country Manager, Axis Communications. However, he makes it clear that they also expect the distributors to add value now. Says Holla, “We are trying to drive our distributors to add value and not just be box dealers. Add value in terms of comfortable recommending Axis to customers, and also conduct trainings for the channel partners. So our value added distributors apart from local stocking, billing etc. also do pre-sales.” However he adds that at a later stage they expect the distributors to try some part of the business themselves.

Future Perfect? However, the industry emphasizes that despite the changing nomenclatures; ultimately it’s all about adapting to change. They agree there is a

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COVER STORY

CHANNEL GROWTH

“THESE NOMENCLATURES ONLY HELP IN ENSURING THAT SPECIFIC REQUIREMENTS OF CUSTOMERS ARE MET AND THEY CAN BE ADDRESSED BY ONE OF THEM.” AJAY KAUL, GM & DIRECTOR (GLOBAL COMMERCIAL CHANNEL), DELL INDIA. role of VARs and SIs in the channel ecosystem and is likely to remain. Their role remains the same and they will continue to be relevant as long as they address the changing requirements of the customers. Kaul of Dell informs, “These nomenclatures only help in ensuring that specific requirements of customers are met and they can be addressed by one of them.” Adds Nair, “The structure of channel will continue to remain simple and focus on customer’s core need at any point in time – depending on the current trends.” Rakesh Kaul, National Head-Sales, neoteric infomatique ltd. says that many disruptive changes have necessitated new nomenclature to identify partners for new services or technologies, however on broader terms the structure has not changed too much and has largely remained reseller, VAR, service providers etc. “VAR partners will continue to operate, however integrators may find going difficult as white box market itself is shrinking and market is moving towards portables and tablets. They can really start moving up value chain and can create their niche in high performance machines or customised machines for their customers. Overall I believe there is opportunity to grow as long as we keep adapting to market needs,” he adds. Trend Micro says the system has become more organised and the segregation has become more definite for the channel support required by the companies. “The role has been effectively realised and companies can target and channelise the appropriate partner as per the solution and services required,” explains Sharda Tickoo, PMM, Trend Micro India. Xerox India has realigned its distribution strategy. Distributors earlier had a limited role of managing logistics and providing credit support to partners across the country with the partners being the face of the company to its customers. Post the realignment, Xerox has equipped distributors to engage Xerox existing set of partners as well as use their own partner network across

the country to expand the partner base. Previously selling boxes many of Cyberoam’s channel partners now provide end-to-end solutions. With the required training and support from the vendor many channel partners have become VARs. “Overall, channel partners who have succeeded in addressing customers’ specific needs or could become end-to-end solution providers have emerged as new VARs/SIs/MSSPs,” says Sunil Sharma, VP (Sales & Operations), India & SAARC, Cyberoam. However, AsiaPowercom believes that all these words are nothing but evolution from the channel partners to VAR or volume partner etc, is to confuse the community and slowly break the hierarchy which was being followed. “The confusion created is to generate business according to whims

“OVERALL I BELIEVE THERE IS OPPORTUNITY TO GROW AS LONG AS WE KEEP ADAPTING TO MARKET NEEDS.” RAKESH KAUL, NATIONAL HEADSALES, NEOTERIC INFOMATIQUE LTD.

“EARLIER CHANNEL PARTNERS USED TO WORK MORE LIKE RESELLERS. BUT NOW THEY WORK AS A SOLUTION PROVIDERS.” PANKAJ JAIN, DIRECTOR, ESET INDIA. and will of the vendor or the distributor. With fierce competition and huge targets assigned, these changes have slowed and it is becoming evident that the break-down of this has begun,” Tejas Sheth, Country Manager, AsiaPowercom. Rues President of CMDA (Delhi) Puneet Singhal, “Market dynamics are changing drastically. Earlier we had a system of distributors and dealers, retailer so all that thing now with innovation in technology the layers are getting cut in between. There are companies which are going directly. There is no defined channel now.” With vendors preferring to go directly to customers is hurting some section of the Channel. Taking a pessimistic view on the future of Channel like them Harinder Salwan, MD of Mumbai based Tricom Multimedia remarks that as vendors now handle customers directly, hence channel has to find new avenues of doing business today.

Technology According to AMI-Partners the biggest change vis-à-vis technologies that affected the channel ecosystem is the advent of cloud computing. There has been a big leap in the percentage of channel partners offering cloud-computing services to SMBs in the last year reveals Techaisle’s 2013 SMB Channel Partner Trends.

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CHANNEL GROWTH

COVER STORY

“THE ROLE HAS BEEN EFFECTIVELY REALISED AND COMPANIES CAN TARGET AND CHANNELISE THE APPROPRIATE PARTNER AS PER THE SOLUTION AND SERVICES REQUIRED.” SHARDA TICKOO, PMM, TREND MICRO INDIA. Techaisle’s report further shows that the percentage of SMB channel partners (VARs, SIs, MSPs, SPs) offering cloud services jumped 68 percent, from 38 percent in 2012 to 64 percent in 2013. This gives credence to the fact that channel partners especially VARs have realized that the industry is moving towards Cloud, customers are asking for cloud based solutions and if they want to enhance their margins and earnings they too have to venture into this. Retail channel is also coming up in a big way with the emergence of Large Retail Formats and e-tailers like Flipkart, Amazon, snapdeal etc. “The Retail channel has come up in a big way through the emergence of LFRs, large departmental stores, etc. End-users (mostly consumers) buy their PCs/printers often through the PC channel since there are aspects of touch-and-feel that play a vital role in Retail,” says Chakravarty. At present, the penetration of retailers have strongly hit the channel eco system informs Mannan. “Though everyone was expecting a shift from resellers to e-tailers but online business has hit hard on the channel ecosystem.” With Large Format Retails (LFRs) and e-sellers gaining more traction even in tier-2 cities, the traditional market model comprising of small and unorganised resellers needs to be revisited says Das. “Also, now a particular product or a model has a very short shelf-life owing to rapid leaps in technology innovation. As such, the business interests of the resellers need to be protected.” While these new technologies are bringing in the moolah for a section of the channel partners who have moved ahead and embraced the new technologies there are still small resellers who are into box pushing. And the future looks bleak as they struggle to survive in the changed dynamics of the Channel. WD very rightly touches upon the need to revisit the traditional model still followed by small and unorganised resellers. Das points out

that traditional resellers are limited by shelfspace constraints with carefully chosen products that will resonate most with the customers. With e-commerce the problems of in-shop real-estate constraints are not there. “But at the same time, we do not see e-commerce replacing physical stores for the obvious benefits the latter offers. Both are important and we see value being created for the entire reseller ecosystem.” Immediate availability, personal touch and comfort are important parameters to businesses, stresses Lenovo’s Nair. “Price is not the only factor though it is a dominant factor. Both the modes co-exist. Though there is a shift in buying behavior towards online, there is no immediate challenge to resellers.”

“HOWEVER, THOSE AT THE LOW-END OF THE VALUE AXIS ARE VULNERABLE AND NOT SUSTAINABLE,” DR. ALOK BHARADWAJ, EXECUTIVE VP OF CANON

“VENDORS CAN NO LONGER IGNORE CHANNEL PARTNER’S CONTRIBUTION FOR THEIR BUSINESS SUCCESS.” SUNIL SHARMA, VP (SALES & OPERATIONS), INDIA & SAARC, CYBEROAM.

eCommerce is an emerging trend which is still catching up in India. The sites woo the end-users through significantly lower prices and discounts, fast delivery, easy paying options like paymenton-delivery, etc. it’s also making fast inroads into tier-2 cities as well. “eCommerce certainly has huge potential. There has already been a shift amongst Indians in adopting eCommerce, but there is still good opportunity for resellers. In fact traditional resellers and retailers along with eCommerce will co-exist in the ecosystem,” says Vipin Tuteja, Executive Director (Technology, Channels and International Business), Xerox India. However, the proportion of Indian end-users who use these channels is still quite low and is not likely to pose a significant threat to resellers in the near future since its current penetration is still quite low due to security apprehensions in the end-users’ mind, uncertainty about promised quality and payment methods, etc. says Chakravarty. “The touch and feel concept is still important – for products with aesthetic appeal like tablets, Ultrabooks, etc.” Cyberoam opines that dependence on eCommerce will be a boon for UTM products, as it creates new opportunities to provide security infrastructure / managed security services to several small and enterprise businesses.

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COVER STORY

CHANNEL GROWTH

“CHANNELS WHO ARE ON THE PERIPHERY AND COMPETE ON RELATIONSHIPS AND AVAILABILITY WILL SOON HAVE TO FIND A NICHE FOR THEMSELVES.” ALAMURI SITARAMAIAH, DIRECTOR, CHANNEL SALES, INDIA, COMMSCOPE.

Nevertheless, Channels who sells just on the basis of price and do not do any value addition will be at risk. Li says, “As the eCommerce vendors speed up their volume sales, they will be able to bring down their cost, and offer competitive prices to the end-users. And as information becomes more transparent, end-users may not really need to see the real products before buying, they will have more options to purchase from the eCommerce suppliers.” AsiaPowercom warns that eCommerce will be the biggest threat to resellers as they are stocking entire product line and making quantity purchases and selling at very competitive pricing. According to some sections of the small channel partners eCommerce will drive them out of business because of the disparity in prices that are offered by them and what customers get from the e-tailers. It’s said that vendors are following dual price policy for partners and eCommerce which is harming the channel partners. Agrees Salwan. “The future is no longer safe for the channel partners, unless they go in for some kind if solution selling. Company like Adobe who say we work only with channel partners are now selling online. eCommerce offer prices cheaper than the reseller prices. Even if I import software I end up paying 30% taxes to the government, so how do I compete,” he asks.

Role in GTM strategy The vendors are in unison when it comes to establishing a long term relationship with their channel partners. Today, industry says, they are not just their selling engines but something deeper and they not only hold an important role but also are more involved in the overall Company GTM strategy. Underlying the importance of Channel Partners Li says, “They are still important for all vendors to expand their distribution network. Either the channel partners offer a product without any additional services at thin margin with high volume sales, or have a set of selective clients to whom they offer customized value with reasonable margins.”

The year 2013 has been termed as the year of the channel by Trend Micro. “This year we want to reinvigorate our channel business and we have announced the new partner program and a new partner portal,” informs Tickoo. Dell recently organised the Dell Partner Summit where all top-performing channel partners were invited and also launched the Partner Advisory Council. This is a body of 10-15 select partners who work closely with the company, engage with top management and collaboratively chart the course of joint success. “Thus it is quite evident that channel partners play a major role in influencing our GTM strategy,” declares Kaul.

“EVOLUTION FROM THE CHANNEL PARTNERS TO VAR OR VOLUME PARTNER ETC., IS TO CONFUSE THE COMMUNITY AND SLOWLY BREAK THE HIERARCHY.” TEJAS SHETH, COUNTRY MANAGER, ASIAPOWERCOM.

“WE ARE TRYING TO DRIVE OUR DISTRIBUTORS TO ADD VALUE AND NOT JUST BE BOX DEALERS.” SUDHINDRA HOLLA, COUNTRY MANAGER, AXIS COMMUNICATIONS

Apart from the above, Dell has also undertaken several initiatives to ensure that its Channel Partners are positioned to succeed in the sales of our products and solutions: Dell Enterprise Master Tool, Solutions for Success Events, and Dell’s Engineering Club. With a special focus on reaching out to touchpoints in tier-2 cities and towns WD says it has developed an extensive network of partners across the country. Its WD Wednesday update is a weekly newsletter to all its channel partners with the latest news within the company, and the industry. Apart from this WD also claims to have a very active presence on popular social networking platforms like Facebook and Twitter. In case of Cyberoam, GTM strategy is a bipolar one, where one part is focused towards creating brand pull from end-customers and other part is creating a push through channel partners. “Vendors can no longer ignore channel partner’s contribution for their business success,” stresses Sharma. And to help them in these times of sluggish sales, cut throat competition, squeezing product margins vendors say they are doing their bit. Xerox has introduced 12 channel lever programs. These are different programs which provide benefits and also train its channel partners. “It is important for partners to provide the right kind of solutions and not just sell a box. We have gone through an entire channel restructuring. We

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CHANNEL GROWTH

COVER STORY

“THERE HAS ALREADY BEEN A SHIFT AMONGST INDIANS IN ADOPTING ECOMMERCE, BUT THERE IS STILL GOOD OPPORTUNITY FOR RESELLERS.” VIPIN TUTEJA, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR (TECHNOLOGY, CHANNELS AND INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS), XEROX INDIA.

“THEY ARE STILL IMPORTANT FOR ALL VENDORS TO EXPAND THEIR DISTRIBUTION NETWORK.” KEVAN LI, BUSINESS HEAD, INDIA, ANTEC INC.

understand the fact that customers do not want three to four partners approaching them. So we have trained our channels accordingly making sure that the customers are approached by the right kind of partners in the right place and build a relation and provide the right kind of solution,” Tuteja adds.

Finally… No doubt, with changing times one too has too keep pace with the time and adapt and adopt

accordingly, otherwise one will be obliterated. And the same goes for Channel. From boxpushers to consultants Channel is undergoing a transformation; and those on the periphery need to understand this and take relevant recourse. With changing technological landscape and buying preference of customers it’s important that channel partners enhance their technology knowledge and overall business strategy, so as to remain relevant for vendors and not be driven out of business.

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SME TREND

AXIS COMMUNICATIONS

EYEING THE CONSULTANT MARKET Apart from driving the consultant market through its A&E and Consultants program, Axis Communications is also quite gung-ho about getting more footprints through ADI and its increasing focus on retail BY KARMA NEGI

SUDHINDRA HOLLA, COUNTRY MANAGER, AXIS COMMUNICATIONS

karma@smechannels.com

ast fiscal wasn’t something that the industry would like to remember fondly. The sluggishness of the market affected everyone, and it’s no surprise that Axis Communication too fell slightly short of its robust double digit growth last year and grew by 18-19%. But at the same time it also expanded its distribution in India by bringing on-board distributor in security space ADI. This tie-up not only gives it a wide geographical presence but also helps it to aggressively drive its smaller systems sale. At present Axis is focusing on two kinds of sales: projects and small installers. Axis sees the video surveillance or the network video market in India categorised into two types: project or integration sale, and installer. The former requires a lot of integration and is complex in nature. Here Axis aligns with lots of global, local and regional SIs, who take their solution and bundle them with the other parts of the solution which also involves complex integration and solving problems of the customers then they make the sale and maintain it for the entire lifecycle of the project. In other kind of sale, with IP cameras becoming more affordable Axis is trying to drive the network video sale or the IP cameras through installer or reseller market who don’t want complex sale. “We are trying to get more deployment and proliferation even into tier 2, 3 cities apart from tier 1 cities. So that’s how we are trying to get into the market by enabling the distributors, recruiting new channel partners who are typically selling analogue, educate them by telling them that IP is not complex, but simple. This is the work we are doing in the low-end space,” says Sudhindra Holla, Country Manager, Axis Communications.

Among the major verticals it is going after include large city surveillance projects, oil refineries, oil and gas segment, and public sector where the people value the solution, and are willing to pay premium for them. Retail is another segment it’s trying to focus significantly as they don’t only need surveillance and monitoring but also video analytics. Through ADI, Axis is aggressively driving the small systems sale which has also given it the reach to many of the security installer space which may or may not have sold in the past through the other distributors. And this tie-up has also given them presence in more than 20-25 locations. . Appointed towards the end of last year ADI, as its third distributor, with 13 branches has given it presence in places like Chandigarh, Jaipur etc. and in tier 3 as well. Not only this, there has also been an increase in new small installers enrolling into its program. And so as to not confuse them with the already innumerable camera models they are dealing in Axis will make available only a few camera models. “We have a focused approach in taking this smaller systems sale along with what we have launched called ACC or axis camera companion which is a tool downloadable from our website which can help monitor sub 16 camera installation,” says Holla. As Axis lacks presence in eastern India this is now being addressed by ADI as they have a good presence there with good installer base. Holla is optimistic that this will open up good avenues in the eastern market as it witnessed lot of orders coming in when it did the road-show with ADI there. Initially, Axis will fully empower ADI to take care of the region for this year at least, in

“WE ARE TRYING TO GET MORE DEPLOYMENT AND PROLIFERATION EVEN INTO TIER 2, 3 CITIES APART FROM TIER 1 CITIES. SO THAT’S HOW WE ARE TRYING TO GET INTO THE MARKET BY ENABLING THE DISTRIBUTORS, RECRUITING NEW CHANNEL PARTNERS WHO ARE TYPICALLY SELLING ANALOGUE, EDUCATE THEM BY TELLING THEM THAT IP IS NOT COMPLEX, BUT SIMPLE.” terms of training and enablement, and meeting with the local partners. But towards the end of this year or maybe next year Axis will look at putting a local resource which can bring the local flavour as well. With approximately 1300 channel partners

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AXIS COMMUNICATIONS

at present, 300-400 of ADI channel partners will be added into Axis during the course of the year. They are mainly the security installers in tier 1 cities, with some in tier 2 and 3 cities as well. In terms of demand generation the maximum was witnessed from south, followed by north and west. As for west coming in last Holla explains this was due to Axis’ lack of presence in Mumbai last year. But with the appointment of an account manager at the end of the year, opening of an office and putting one more guy for distribution, this year Holla says, west will trump north and come second to south. Last year, Axis talked of a robust double digit growth but fell slightly short of the growth percentage as anticipated in the beginning of the year. This he attributed to the general sluggishness of the market, fluctuation of Indian rupee against dollar, projects that it pitched Axis was not able to execute because the cost fluctuated by about 20-22 % and thus faced challenges in executing the projects. “There was economy slowing down and the government being slightly stagnant in taking the reforms, there was general cautious approach from the customer perspective, they didn’t go for the kind of investment, they cut down their budgets and went for lower investments. But still when many

showed negative growth or no growth, we grew in spite of the market condition,” explains Holla. Treading cautiously this year, Axis is trying to do couple of things, but not something radically different. It decided to walk out of large project tenders, irrespective of their size, and take an approach of looking at the consultant across the country called the A&E (architectural and engineering) and consultants program; and has approximately chosen 20-25 consultants across the country. Though globally it has a successful A&E and Consultants Program, it was not pursued aggressively in the country and was eventually launched in March in Mumbai and Bangalore. This program envisages enrolment of consultants into a consultant program and giving them the relevant knowledge tools and information about network video, which they can more intelligently start recommending. “This is a very neutral kind of a program. We are trying to influence and educate consultants to enrol into our program and have access to all these tools,” says Holla.

Finally... Axis wants to take sale into the SMB market. “Analogue still forms the significant portion of the installation in the SMB space. But the top-

SME TREND

end of the SMB would be happy embracing the IP solution. By 2015 people expect the worldwide IP taking over analogue by more than 50%. Probably around the same time, or a year later I see a trend happening in India as well,” predicts Holla. He further informs that close to 30% is IP and 70% is analogue in India. But in two years from now IP will overtake and deployment will be getting to the smaller levels. From pull perspective Axis will try to educate the customers and create the brand pull from the end-user perspective and keep the channels enabled so that they are ready to pull when the demand arrives. “Ratio for analogue and IP in SMB is sub 10% if you take the whole SME market and the cameras sold there. We have not put any specific number as such in this market space. But that is a key market vertical for us in the long run. I would say if we are able to take 20-30% of the sale that happens there we should be happy,” Holla signs off. Despite the slowdown Axis taking a slightly ambitious growth this year and is quite optimistic about the surveillance requirement, where it doesnn’t see a significant slowdown and is expect ing a growth of 23% this year.

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SME CHAT

VIJENDER SINGH, MD, PANTEL TECHNOLOGIES

“WANT TO DOUBLE OUR SALES THIS YEAR”

As a category smart phone is growing very fast within the mobile phones. In a chat with SME Channels Vijender Singh, MD, Pantel Technologies talks about what the company is into. Excerpts.

Brief us on Pantel as a company. Pantel Technologies Pvt. Ltd. (PTPL) is an ICT products focused company. It was established three years ago with the mandate of making available affordable ICT products/ solutions for the India market. The idea was to successfully introduce new and existing technology based products for the dis-enfranchized set of buyers - contributing to bridge the Digital divide between those who have - and - those who do not have access to digital gadgets/ devices. Tell us about your India presence. The market growth for Tablet PC(s) in India is explosive. Seeing the opportunity in the Indian tablet PC market, Pantel Technologies was launched through an online activation on Feb 27, 2012. Only through the online channel, the company sold in excess of 10K units within the first month of launch. Today, the monthly shipments are in excess of 50K units/month in the retail market – indicating a robust demand for a new category within the first six months of its introduction to the Indian consumer. The company today has a country-wide distribution network of retailers and distributors selling tablet PC(s). What are the product ranges you have? Currently we have nine tablets in our portfolio. Screen size ranges from 7” (price at Rs. 3,999) and goes upto 9.7” (priced at Rs. 19,999).

What is the addressable market of smart phones and tablets in India? Both the product categories are seeing explosive growth. It is difficult to estimate market size as on date; it would suffice to say that Tablet PC(s) with their affordable pricing, intuitive touch interface and easy usability have opened up a huge market for in semi-urban India. Likewise – the Smartphone gadget is a preferred product of the youth; and increasing affordability of these devices are only making its user adaption sky-rocket. What is your competitive advantage in terms of products and technologies? The Penta T-Pad series comes with the latest Jelly Bean OS and Ice Cream Sandwich Android operating software (OS). The tablet PCs are available at an unbelievable price range starting from INR 3,999. This tablet series possess various interesting features which are a perfect combination of hardware, content and network with seamless usability for a high-quality user experience. They are Wi-Fi and Bluetooth enabled devices with 2G/ 3G Sim slot and USB dongle support. They have an impressive 5 point multi- touch screen which responds instantly and accurately to every touch, drag and click. It is pre-loaded with applications like Facebook, Twitter, Angry Birds, Skype for video calling, and many more with an undying 6+ hours of battery back-up. The excellent inbuilt cameras click crystal clear images of your loved ones.

What is your distribution channel? Currently we have two distribution channels: selling through local retailers and through our online portal named ‘grab the future’. What is your retail and Large Format Retail engagement? The brand has made forays into the Large Retail Format chains in India in the last quarter. The Penta brand is now available in chains like Reliance Digital, Sangeetha’s, Univercell, Vijay Sales, etc. What all marketing activities have you initiated? We believe in a holistic market approach. We believe in catering to all the queries of our buyers through our marketing initiatives. Presently we are focusing on: technology awareness rural programmes and online marketing programmes. There is also a lot of focus on a ‘solution’ approach to device usage; with a lot of pre-loaded content being given to Institutional customers depending upon their usage requirements. What is your share in the tablet space and expectation? There is no reliable third-party data on industry size and market shares. We do believe that in quantity terms we would be among the top three tablet PC suppliers in India market. We expect to more than double our sales this year over last year.

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COMMSCOPE

GOING AGGRESSIVE WITH UNIPRISE With the recent launch of its Uniprise product CommScope is optimistic on getting its breadth and depth reach among customers who not only form the bulk of the market, but for whom performance is as important as the price BY KARMA NEGI

karma@smechannels.com

fter taking over as CommScope’s director for channel sales in India and SAARC Alamuri Sitaramaiah (Sita) noticed that they were not reaching the two important segments of the market adequately: the top and the middle. The missing link was the lack of breadth and depth of partner and to some extent market coverage which made CommScope decide to launch its Uniprise product in the Indian market. Its flagship brand Systimax was acquired by CommScope 10 years back from AT&T and is a very high performance brand. It is for customers for whom performance matters first and price is something that can be negotiated. On the other hand, Uniprise is for those customers for whom performance and price is equally important. It has been with CommScope for the last 30 years, but never been taken out of US in the past. Both are for enterprises. However, as Systimax caters to specific segments in the market it was missing out on that part of the market which is bigger and price conscious, and asks for only minimally compliant solutions. Percentage of people who specify and demand performance and are willing to pay premium is very a niche set of customers. They don’t form the bulk of the market. The bulk of the market goes by standards. This market is happy with the minimum performance requirement and price matters them the most. “They want quality products but at the same time they also want products which can help them commercially too. If we have to increase our partner base, increase our market share, we need to address this segment of the market which is

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

“NOW WE HAVE A WIDER CHOICE FOR CUSTOMERS, PARTNERS AND THEREFORE, WE EXPECT THAT WE WILL BE ABLE TO SELL TO A LARGER SEGMENT OF THE MARKET.”

SME TREND

also cost sensitive. This is what made us bring in our second brand Uniprise which can attract the interest of these set of customers for whom price is equally important in addition to the performance,” says Sita. And to market the product, CommScope has taken the regional distributor route. “We have launched it in a well calculated strategy, in such a way that it does not cannibalise the Systimax brand. We have made sure that a parallel channel is set up for Uniprise and have adopted regional distributor (RD) or the tier 2 distribution concept. Wherein we can enlarge our partner as well as geographic reach,” he adds. With 14 regions, 16 RDs have already been brought on board, with two RDs per region. Attempts are also being made to rope in 400 partners. Coming on to the channel strategy CommScope is looking at increasing its reach. Reach in breadth as well as depth. Breadth is terms of geographic and depth in tier one and tier two partners. “While Systimax addresses the tier 1 partners, tier 2 partners are more volume driven and not performance driven so Systimax was never a brand which never appealed to volume driven SIs. So the channel strategy is to increase the depth and breadth of our reach to partners,” replies Sita. The Company has also adopted a Dual Brand strategy which goes against the norm that one size fits all. Based on customers’ requirements of minimal performance and cost effectiveness, as per Sita they have solutions for different needs of the customers. There are customers who are not looking at cabling system with high-end performance, for them minimally compliant cabling system is good enough. They are not early adopters of new technology, they know their occupancy of the building is just a couple of years, and neither do they want to migrate to 40G and 100G in the next five or 10 years. They want a brand at a price which meets their aspirations. On the other hand, there are the high-end customers who are early adopters of technology and would be moving on to 40G and 100G. For them performance is of utmost importance and they are mostly owners of the building and expect to last for the next 20-25 years. “With the dual brand strategy now we have a wider choice for customers, partners and therefore, we expect that we will be able to sell to a larger segment of the market,” says Sita.

Finally…... For this year CommScope has set a huge target growth and is looking at more than 50% growth this year, and this will be done through channel reach and by grabbing competition shares.

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SME CHAT

R. NARAYAN CEO AND FOUNDER, POWER2SME

“AIMS TO DO RS.125 CRORE BUSINESS THIS FISCAL” To increase the profits for the Indian SMEs is the mission of Power2SME. In a chat with SME Channels R. Narayan, CEO and Founder reveals the idea behind this venture and the plans for the future.

What made you come out with this portal for SMEs? When we thought about launching Power2SME, the idea was not to start an online market place dedicated to the SME community. There are plenty of them in existence, and we sincerely believed that we could not really make a difference to the SME in that model. The idea we decided on was to launch Power2SME as a ‘Buying Club’, which would help the SME through the entire process of procuring the raw materials and ensuring smooth delivery of the same at the customer’s doorstep delivery. The idea to start Power2SME came about during my experience with the SME community on the field. I used to deal with both the SMEs and enterprise segments. I have seen price quotations that have been sent to an SME as well as a large enterprise, for the same product, where the variance was to the tune of 20-45%. This was mainly due the size of the orders and SMEs’ weak negotiation power. With 70% of Indian job market powered by SMEs, I felt this was an unfair gap between SMEs and enterprises. In 2009, I conducted research with the help of IIM-Lucknow students which validated this notion of unfair advantage enjoyed by corporates. At that point in time, I decided to build a portal where SMEs could submit their requirements and I would buy on their behalf. Moreover, getting SMEs online wasn’t much of a problem because of the eCommerce era that has

emerged over the last 2-3 years. The widespread adoption of the internet has given a large number of individuals the option to search for options and order/procure items for their personal needs via the internet. A large number of these individuals are people who work at senior levels at these SMEs. What kind of opportunities are you looking at? Power2sme is pioneering a unique business model that has no parallels in any other country and can directly benefit more than 35 million SMEs in India and enable them to compete more effectively and successfully against larger and established organizations by reducing some of the biggest disadvantages they face currently. We believe that enhanced efficiencies in supply chain, the transparencies in the system and the technological advantage can play a critical role in driving SMEs. Even if we manage to capture 1% of the market share in the business we are in, Power2SME will be a billion dollar company. The opportunities in this segment are huge. What goes into providing the best options in terms of pricing and other for the SMEs? Today, we have a registered base of more than 10,000 SMEs on our portal and we are able to increase their profit margin anywhere between

3% to 5% in a month. But this is restricted to the categories that we are dealing with. The true benefit will come, when we are able to cater to 50% of their raw material requirement, and are delivering savings on that whole amount. Tell us about your recent funding. Power2SME has raised capital from Accel Partners, a leading Silicon Valley venture capital firm, last month. Our disruptive and innovative concept caught the eye of Accel Partners, having a strong history of identifying trendsetters like Facebook, Groupon, Dropbox, Angry Birds (Rovio), etc. which have the potential to make existing business models obsolete in a matter of years. The funding from Accel Partners will help Power2SME to further scale up operations, focus on new sectors while deepening its research into the SME sector and enter new markets in India. We are pleased with the confidence that Accel Partners, along with our previous investors, have placed in us to empower the SMEs in India. In our Series A fundraising Kalaari Capital had joined hands with Inventus Capital Partners to support our expansion plans in India. Differentiation is a key factor in this business? How do you differentiate from others? Our services go beyond match-making, which is the focus of the majority of the current online

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SME CHAT

2013

business websites for the SME sector. We procure directly from the manufacturers, taking title of the goods and then sell directly to end-consumer organisations. We take complete ownership of the entire order process for the customers, from ensuring a quality supplier pool, best possible prices, flexible payment options and door step delivery. What kind of model do you follow? Our model is not that of an online market place. Power2Sme is a buying club for SMEs. Power2sme helps SMEs to benefit from the economies of scale through collective buying from a large network of manufacturers. The company aggregates demand from SMEs and places a large order with the supplier. It then splits the large order into smaller parts as per the requirement and gets it delivered to the small business using a third party logistics provider. Because we buy for aggregated demand, our prices are lower than most suppliers. Pooling of the demand of several SMEs enables us to obtain the best possible prices for the raw materials from a large pool of suppliers, thereby leading to significant cost savings. Our business model is a combination of both the online and offline models, wherein, the

company provides a platform to obtain the best pricing for SMEs procurement needs, door-step delivery, online tracking of orders and flexible payment options. How do you plan to attract consumer mindshare and capital? In todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s times, numerous SMEs are already online. Power2SME provides an online platform for them to indicate their purchase requirements. We already have a registered base of more than 10,000 SMEs on our portal. Our marketing strategy is very ROI oriented and the focus is on running targeted campaigns so that we are able to reach the prospective customers with minimal spill over. We are targeting LinkedIn as a platform to connect with both prospective vendors and customers in a targeted manner as they have the largest pool of professional across a wide spectrum of industries available under a single roof. This is enabling us to expand our geographic reach and generate more leads. We are seeing a huge transition online among our target customers. They are shifting to online to improve their business productivity. We have created several SEM campaigns to pitch our range of products and the competitive rates directly to

our end customers Participating in various industry associations such as TiE, FICCI, CII, etc. is an important part of our marketing initiative. The Call Center that is run from our premises is also an integral component of our marketing strategy. What kind of revenue are you looking at this year? Last fiscal ended with a turnover of Rs. 20 crores and we want to increase this to Rs. 125 crore in the next one year. Today, our monthly revenues are around $1 million. We have a registered base of more than 10,000 SMEs (with turnover ranging from Rs 5to 250 crore) on our website. We are expanding our team on pan India basis to ensure that we are able to cater to demand from multiple regions. We started our operations in Delhi NCR region and recently started operations in Mumbai, Pune, Gujarat and Rajasthan and we are doing about Rs. 1 crore of business every month in these locations. We are now aggressively expanding across North, West and South India. We plan to further expand in the southern and eastern region in this financial year.

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FEATURE

DISPLAY MARKET

MOVING DISPLAY TO ZERO SIZE A significant rise in the shipments of LED monitor in Q1 2013 seems to overshadowed the LCD shipments. OLED displays too are expected to see high market penetration in 2013. Besides the trend of 3D technology is spreading fast in Indian market and is expected to rule the display industry in the years to come. BY APARAJITA CHOUDHURY aprajita@smechannels.com

echnology now-a-days are changing in the blink of an eye and beyond one’s imagination. Gone are the days when a class of society who possessed a television set depicted an elite class. Today, TV has become more a need than a demand because of its affordability. In the late 1940’s, black and white used to be the latest trend and in 1950’s colour television was introduced which triggered thrill among consumers. But at that point of time, having colour TV set was no less than a dream come true. But the revolution in the history of TV set set aside CRT TVs by LCDs and now LEDs. The changing story of TV technology from the display perspective is quite parallel with the changing story of IT displace story. Like changes in the TV technology, desktop display has also changed from CRT to LCD to LED now. The transition from LCD to LED technology has been very swift all across the categories – both in TV and IT displays including desktop, laptop and mobile displays. The first quarter of 2013 witnessed a significant rise in the shipments of LED monitor, thereby, surpassing the LCD shipments. OLED displays too are expected to see high market penetration in 2013 due to its biodegradability benefit which in turn will boost the smart-

phone, TV, notebook and tablet market. In brief, LCDs will render CRTs obsolete and LED-backlit displays are likely to outdate CCFL-backlit LCDs. With the increasing number of 3D content, the demand for 3D monitors is seeing huge growth. Today, many production houses are developing 3D content which as a result has boosted the need for display products and create opportunities for the manufacturers of 3D display. Moreover, full HD monitors and 3D monitors are likely to attract attention of consumers in future. The increasing demands of LED and 3D advanced technologies reflect the overall growth of monitor market during the last fiscal year. However, the market for 3D monitors is still in a nascent stage. The pace of growth in display market has been steady in recent year which has shown attractive market potential for the future. Another latest trend in the display industry is the growing popularity of Flexible displays. The Flexible display market has undergone a rapid technological advancement and so there is a high demand for flexible displays in smartphones and tablet computers. Kuldeep Ramaiya, Country Manager, Viewsonic, says, “The latest trends in Display market are Full HD touch monitors that has really grabbed audience attention and market share in a remarkable manner. Optical Touch and Capacitive Touch

are the new trends. Apart from this, IPS panels with slim bezel are also in demand nowadays which provides wide viewing angles, better colour contrast ensuring high performance.”

Size of Indian Display Market The traction of display solutions has hit almost all verticals as it comes with numerous applications which are classified in personalized and public display applications. Hence the market is huge in India and is also expanding at a very rapid pace. Saurabh Grover, Sales Head (India), AOC (Monitor Business), states, “Overall Indian Display market is currently around 1.5 million (this only includes bundled and non bundled PC) units. AOC monitors have around 14% market share in India.” Ramaiya elucidates, “As per IDC report, overall size of Indian Display market is approximately 11 million units a year. ViewSonic enjoys a favorable position in the market as it’s is quite established in mid and high end monitor market. We are expecting to do great business in this fiscal year and looking forward to a growth rate of 7-8% yoy.” “At LG, we believe that we are a major player in this market and we constantly endeavour to establish ourselves as the leader, not only by sheer size of our market share but also by deploying cutting-edge technology based futuristic products

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DISPLAY MARKET

FEATURE

manufacturing background, sound cost structure, and solid financial standing AOC says it has the key to sustain growth.

Contribution of 3D Monitors

and solutions,” avers Hemendu Sinha, Business Head, B2B Sales, LG India. The industry says that the market demand is increasingly shifting towards the larger size screens, hence 32” and above sizes will drive the commercial application market. However, the entry-level sizes like 18.5”and 15.6” are considered as the biggest contributor to the monitor market but gradually the customer interest for bigger sizes like above 20” and 22” are gearing up.

LED vs. LCD LED comes equipped with superior technology than LCD which gives viewer a better viewing experience. Significant fall in prices of LEDs is also one of the factors behind the customers opting for LEDs instead of LCDs. “We have both LCD and LED monitors, though our LED segment has seen a major hike in sales in the past year. Our strategy is simple- gauge consumer needs, analyze trends and then deliver the same,” explains Sinha. LED is the latest technological innovation in the IT sphere and its aesthetic value seems to drive demand. Besides, the integration of LED backlight technology also allows designing more attractive and sophisticated products. According to Grover, lower carbon footprint and higher performance is the order of the day which has acted as an impetus for this market.

“In India the price for the product plays an important role. The LED monitors are priced high as compared to LCD monitors, but still customers prefer to buy LED monitors as they are sleek and consume less energy. The LCD monitors have also made their way from CRT, and hopefully LED monitors will follow the same path,” informs Grover. In the tug-of-war between LCD and LED, ViewSonic says that all its monitors are based on LED technology so they don’t need to be worry on that front.

Target Verticals Display markets is not restricted to few verticals but are open to large number of verticals which include hospitals, arenas, transportation hubs, hotels, cafes, malls, waiting areas, demo zones, corporate board rooms, scientific simulation or research centres, command and control centres, NOCs, Class rooms and more. Besides, government, education, corporate and gaming industry are also the target verticals of display market. AOC informs that with the rapid growth of the BPO, government, education, gaming etc., the monitor market is expected to grow at a rate of over 17% per-year. The company achieved impressive sales performance in India. With years of in-depth market experiences, strong product knowledge, keen customer insights, powerful

3D monitor segment has increased its pie in the display industry in the past two years due to the growing availability of 3D content. Gaming industry and home-theatre segment is playing a significant role in boosting the demand for 3D monitors as it gives best visual experience. The trend of 3D technology is spreading fast in the Indian market and is expected to rule the display industry in the years to come. Films, games and videos are key drivers of 3D technology market as these are directly connected to gadgets, which are handy and ready to take anywhere to enjoy choice of content. Companies now-a-days are in the process to invests more to offer 3D ready content in their latest products. In addition, many production houses are emphasizing on 3D content development which is also triggering the demand for 3D display products. Grover states, “AOC has also introduced 3D monitor (e2352Phz) in India and we are getting decent response from all across India. 3D monitor is very helpful to professional likes architects, doctors, designers, film makers etc. It also attracts huge customers from gaming.”

Monitors To address the commercial applications and public display, LG has an extensive portfolio of 32” FHD entry level to 84” UD with various flavours and specifications. The company also has super narrow bezel 55” 3D Video wall panels. AOC has twenty monitors ranging from 15.6 inches to 27 inches and aims to cater to all consumer segments with new and innovative products. With a huge collection of LCD, LED, 3D, IPS monitors, the company’s monitors are always appreciated for their excellent display, steady built and stylish looks claims Grover. In 2011, AOC introduced a huge range of monitors with latest technologies such as, Razor, Touch screen, 51st ID (dual stand), 3D, IPS (In Plane Switching) and 27” monitors. This year, the company launched i2757Fh 27” IPS LED monitor with ultra slim display in a border-less design with touch keys and a versatile dual stand. “Majority of demand for monitors in AOC’s product portfolio comes for innovative LED backlights. AOC plans to equip all of its products with LED backlight panels next year,” states Grover. ViewSonic has diverse range of monitors catering to different requirements right from 18.5 “till 27” which consists of normal resolution (1366

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feature

display market

“ViewSonic enjoys a favourable position in the market as it’s is quite established in mid-high end monitor market. We are expecting to do great business in this fiscal year and looking forward to a growth rate of 7-8% YoY.”

“Overall Indian Display market is currently around 1.5 million (this only includes bundled and non bundled PC) units. AOC monitors have around 14% market share in India.” Saurabh Grover, Sales Head (India), AOC (Monitor Business)

Kuldeep Ramaiya, Country Manager, Viewsonic

ing to different requirements right from 18.5 “till 27” which consists of normal resolution (1366 x 768), square monitors, Full HD monitors with HDMI & USB ports. “Recently ViewSonic has also launched IPS panel monitors with SKU’s of 21.5, 23 and 27 inches. Touch Monitors like TD2220 (dual-touch) & TD2340 (10 point touch) have added to the product portfolio. Also ViewSonic has VP and VG series which boasts of WQHD and QHD monitors, apt for graphic designers and for medical use.” explains Ramaiya.

Pricing strategy Though India is a price sensitive country, but today customers prefer value products rather than cheap products as they are increasingly becoming technologically aware and demand value for money. Sinha says, “LG is aware of this and therefore all our products are absolute value-formoney. We also have a wide range of products in different price brackets from which a consumer can choose from.” According to AOC, with their own manufacturing units all over world, they have competitive prices. So without compromising the quality, AOC provides latest technology at afford-

42 sme channels june 2013

“we constantly endeavour to establish ourselves as the leader, not only by sheer size of our market share but also by deploying cuttingedge technology based futuristic solutions.” Hemendu Sinha, Business Head, B2B Sales, LG India

able prices to the customers. Ramaiya elucidates, “Since India is a very price sensitive market, we work on a distributed pricing strategy. ViewSonic is well established in 15.5 inch SKU segment and there we play marginally. But on mid-high end monitor category, ViewSonic operates with higher margins so as to be in a winwin situation.”

Green Technology The evolution of green technology generates consciousness and demand for energy efficient products. So to address the need of potential customers, manufacturers design the products keeping in mind the concern for power consumption. In order to reduce the electricity bills, it is essential use an energy- efficient monitor because a monitor accounts for 50% of a computer’s energy consumption and even when it’s not in use, it keeps on drawing power. So this energy certified monitors have a big role to play in reducing the TCO. In this, Sinha informs, “LG strongly believes in the green philosophy and promotes the same through its products. All our monitors run on advanced technologies that cut down on energy consumption up to 25%.”

Today companies are very much aware about the energy savings and AOC also doing the same with the implementation of e-waste program for products to make planet green. The AOC Brand along with its parent company TPV Technology Ltd is fully committed to the cause of the environment and on being as green as possible claims the company. Besides, all the products of AOC are LED and very eco friendly. As the consciousness about the environment among users are increasing which in turn their preferences to have monitors with TCO complaints and Green Technology also gaining ground. And this move can contribute a lot to reduce TCO and energy consumption.

Finally, With the overall growth in the display market, the opportunity for channel partners seems to be lucrative. Increasing usage of monitors among education sector, gaming industry, B2B segment and ICT in education is leading the display market to new heights. Today, tablets are ruling the entire consumer market and the end user’s need from a device prospective is also changing so also the form factor of the display devices.

PARTNER CORNER

MATRIX OFFERS DEPTH AND GENUINENESS Following the rise in the enterprise market, there has been a huge growth in the enterprise telephony market as well. And it has brought in unlimited scope for the channel partners to fulfill the deals. But what has made them distinct from each other is the quality of services. BY APARAJITA CHOUDHURY aparajita@smechannels.com

niversal Communications, a distributors of telecommunication and office automation equipments in Nasik, realizing the potential of the Indian telecom industry embarked into this domain. A fifteen years old player, the company deals in products from various principal companies like Matrix, Hawell, Beetel and BPL. Ashok Rahane, Proprietor, Universal Communications, says, “We supply, install and provide after-sales service for all these products. We have installed more than 5000 EPABX system throughout Maharashtra. In Nasik we have claimed more than 60% market share.” Apart from Nasik, the company also caters services to some other districts and cities like Dhule, Manmad, Buldhana, Aurangabad, Ahmednagar, Jalgaon, Kolahpur, Mumbai and Pune etc. With the help of efficient and qualified engineers who offer services to customers, the company is able to fulfill the requirements of potential customers. According to Rahane the key strength of the company in terms of market reach is a mixture of talented and senior team experience, technical knowledge, skill and service support provided to the customer. Universal Communications believes that “quality and service” to be the backbone of any telecommunication and office automation product. “Fifteen years of our dedicated services have rewarded us with satisfied customers who have always trusted and admired our services and products,” states Rahane. The company offers services in different catego-

ries which embrace annual maintenance contract for all type of digital EPABX (AMC), fax machine maintenance, project consultancy, cable maintenance and IVR solutions or voice logger etc. In the product category, the company deals with IP-PBX, GSM gateway, VoIP, access control, CCTV, video door phone, building intercom, fire alarm, audio & video conference unit, voice loggers,etc. In solution category, the company offers IVR and call center solutions, project consultancy and annual maintenance contracts for all type of Digital EPABX (AMC) etc. and in telecom solution, the company has voice, video and VoIP based telecom solutions. The reason behind taking up Matrix products and solutions lies in the value that Matrix offers in the shape of technology, depth and genuineness which is considered as its key competitive edge. Besides Matrix products come with huge productivity, reliability and support which can meet the growing demands of customers. Universal Communications further informs that the principle involves in determining market share and market potential is similar in almost all geographic areas. And in India there is huge market potential. The only concern is the lack of adequate man power which otherwise the company will able to give 24X7 service and telecom is a sector fully based on service. Besides, to get a more specific marketing potential, the knowledge regarding the competitors and their strength in the market area is very essential. It also enables the company to estimate how much of the competitors’ business can be acquired and

ASHOK RAHANE, PROPRIETOR, UNIVERSAL COMMUNICATIONS, NASHIK

“WE HAVE INSTALLED MORE THAN 5,000 EPABX SYSTEM THROUGHOUT MAHARASHTRA. IN NASIK WE HAVE CLAIMED MORE THAN 60% MARKET SHARE.” what will be the market potential of business. He adds, “To garner market share Matrix should emphasize on the manufacturing of middle range of EPABX systems without additional features as some of the customers require a low budget system.”

Finally… Universal Communications with the intension to maintaining its strong foothold in the telecom industry as distributor achieved a turnover of Rs.3.25 crore in the current year, which is an increase of 10 percent over the previous financial year. Universal Communications being a Matrix partner plans to add products like VDP (Video Door Phone), basic phones and ADSL modem in the product portfolio this year.

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LEADERS’CORNER

CISCO

CISCO: GUNG-HO ON MID-MARKET From Customer Led to Partner Led, it is a strong transition that Cisco is making within. In fiscal year 2014, Partner Led is going to get US$150 million investment, double of last year, to tap a US $55 billion market. BY: SANJAY MOHAPATRA sanjay@smechannels.com

t the recently concluded 17th annual Partner Summit 2013 in Boston, Cisco’s chairman and CEO John Chambers laid out his strategy and vision to make Cisco the No.1 IT company in the near future. Addressing the channel partners he stressed on three market opportunities: Midmarket opportunity, Cloud as a differentiator and Hybrid IT. Talking strongly about the competition, he said, “The message that we must give together to our competitors is, ‘If you are going to compete against Cisco and its ecosystem, you are going to lose.” With “Today, Tomorrow, Together” as the theme of the summit, it was attended by nearly 2,000 partners from 1,121 companies from 93 countries along with 6,000 virtual partners. On the occasion, Bruce Klein, Senior VP (Worldwide Partner Organization), Cisco, explained, “Everything is happening today, and we are hearing a lot about Internet of Everything for tomorrow and we can do it together with our partners. Our partner centric model is the differentiator for us, and I thank them for that.” He further added that cloud, software and services, solutions are going to play a big role for the channel partners. The deal size is going to become anywhere from 2.5x to 7x and reduce time to close deal by half. To make Cisco No.1 IT company, Chambers informed, “Cisco has been enhancing its strength

through many acquisitions – to be precise 15 companies in last 12 months. And more such acquisitions might be in the future.” He emphasized the importance of SMB market for them, which Cisco addresses as commercial market. With services and security going to play a major game changer in the market he stressed on the need for channel partners to adopt these businesses aggressively. As per the presentation of the company- Internet of Everything represents a $14.4 trillion worldwide revenue. As per Chambers the mid-market opportunity is top of mind for Cisco, with the company promising to double its investment in “Partner Led” resources, from $75 million last year to $150 million in fiscal year 2014. The goal of the investment is to help partners capture a $55 billion market: $25 billion in product and $30 billion in services revenue by 2016. It is to remember that Cisco is delivering industry- leading partner support through its Partner Led initiative – its selling model that rewards and empowers channel partners to lead the sale with mid-size (along with small and large) customers. Last year, Cisco introduced the cornerstone of its support framework, Partner Plus- designed to help partners grow their mid-size business practices. Under this 2000+ partners enrolled globally in the Partner Led programme. Out of them more than 40% have alredy met their targets and receiving reinvestment checks. Partners that leveraged virtual engineering resources grew two

times more quickly. There has been 11,000 leads and 39,000 prospects routed to partners through the sales collaboration platform. Taking this opportunity, Cisco also announced some mid-market solutions including Catalyst Switch 2960-X Series and Virtualised Foundation Smart Solution. The company also highlighted on the Meraki Managed Services Dashboard, Cloud Services reseller and Business Transformation Playbook. When the Managed Services Dashboard brings together a number of features for managed service providers (MSP) to offer cloud-managed networking as a service to their customers, the MSP dashboard features specific tools, analytics and monitoring capabilities and is built to allow service providers to manage end-customer networks easily from a central location while still maintaining separation and security of each customer network.

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CISCO

LEADERS’ CORNER

JOHN CHAMBERS, CHAIRMAN AND CEO, CISCO SYSTEMS

“The message that we must give together to our competitors is, ‘If you are going to compete against Cisco and its ecosystem, you are going to lose.”

Cisco is also making significant new enhancements to its Cloud Services Resale Model to accelerate the cloud services reseller’s ability to capture new revenues from the cloud opportunity and provide a variety of new benefits to help them become successful. The enhanced benefits, available in August 2013 on a global basis, are designed to accelerate the current cloud services resellers’ business and entice new product resellers to join the programme. Cisco Business Transformation Playbook is to provide a blueprint for partners transitioning their business from a product reseller model to include annuity-based cloud revenue. The company strongly believes that with right sized products, solutions and services could make them successful in the market. Hence the company has pledged to continue to build on the industry’s broadest “made for mid-market” portfolio of products, solutions and services.

About transition in the market and transition of the channel partners, which will be effected because of cloud, Edison Peres, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Channels, Cisco, said, “Cisco is offering new resources and incentives to its Cloud Services Reseller partners, or partners who don’t necessarily have the bandwidth to stand up their own cloud practices, but want to resell Cisco Powered Services from other cloud providers. Cloud Services Reseller partners will have access to Cisco’s Value Incentive Program (VIP) rebates on sales of Cisco-Powered Services.” He added, “Cloud Services Resellers can now tap into a Cloud Go-To-Market (GTM) Resource Center, a Web-based and self-service portal providing access to all of Cisco’s go-tomarket tools.” Coaxing the partners to take cloud and service business seriously, he said, “To be honest, there are

still many of you sitting on the sidelines, wondering, ‘Is cloud really here? Is as-a-Service really important?’ Don’t sit on the sidelines, get in the game.” He also announced that Cisco will roll out two new partner certifications that focus on businessmodel transformations and next-generation sales models. To nudge partners toward these certifications, Cisco will help offset the training and exam costs for the first 800 partners who sign up for the certifications. Speaking about the APJC market, Jaime Vallés, President (Asia Pacific, Japan and Greater China), said, “In the emerging markets including India, China, Indonesia, we are seeing a lot of transition. These are very important for Cisco because 100s of cities in these geographies are transforming. Millions of middle-class people are becoming empowered. Increasing number of people are now preferring to work from homes. Companies from emerging countries are buying global companies. So we are getting all the global practices and localising for them.” Emphasizing on the services business, Edzard J. C. Overbeek, Senior VP (Cisco Services), Cisco, said, “The opportunity of the partners is really around smart services, which will help you create new solution for the customers. The maintenance, break-fix and professional services are the things which we need to keep on doing together, because those are very profitable for you.”

Finally… It is good see Cisco’s ambition and the blue print of its execution. The biggest realization is that the channel partners are safe in the hands of Cisco. Today, if any channel partner is unhappy about his business bottom line, I would advise him to get associated with Cisco.

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LEADERS’CORNER

HCL INFOSYSTEMS

ENGAGING CHANNEL AGGRESSIVELY

With the government and large enterprise market going slow, many vendors see it as an opportunity to revisit their channel strategy; and HCL Infosystems is exactly doing that. Not only is the company empowering the partners but is also aligning its battery of field engineers BY: APARAJITA CHOUDHURY

aparajita@smechannels.com

ith a lot of traction happening in the mid-tier business segments including SMEs manufacturing, education, banking, healthcare, hospitality, etc., HCL Infosystems has shifted its gear from direct GTM to indirect mode. The company understands that these segments are spread across India and the company cannot address the segments with direct sales force. Harsh Chitale, CEO and Wholetime Director, HCL Infosystems, says, “In today’s situation, neither large enterprises nor the consumer market is growing. However, the mid-tier market is growing pretty aggressively. Verticals like SME manufacturing, co-operative banks, large bank branches, healthcare, educations, local government bodies, etc. are investing in technologies, hence we found it ideal to engage our commercial channel partners to tap this market.” HCL engages its direct sales force to address the large enterprises. But it also has a formidable force of 450 channel partners in the commercial segment, which intends to address the business segment. Now that there is opportunity in the market, these channel partners will be empowered to address the entire emerging market. Not only will they be given the entire portfolio of HCL products including which comes from third party for distribution but the company will also empower the partners on various technologies and services. HCL will also offer its cloud offer-

ing and mobility solutions through the channel partners and its field engineers who are there to support its direct sales force will also be on toes to support the channel partners. Chitale maintains, “On the commercial side, nearly 70% of our business is done directly. But now the situation is different and there is a huge emerging market, where we are seeing an extensive role of the channel partners to take us to that market. We have gone to the extent of bringing clarity into our relationship where even our direct sales person develops business and the partners can come in and work on those accounts. This is a policy change that we have made deliberately to make the channel partners’ business more transparent and profitable. We will only work direct if the customer demands or the project is very large.” He also believes that adding more and more channel partners is not going to work anymore. Focusing on the existing channel ecosystem by enabling them to deal with each and every segment can help the company to expand reach and increase productivity. Traditionally, HCL has alwys focused on channel partners for the consumer business and this organization is kind of 6.5 thousand crore rupees business because the company believes that channel partners always have a big play in consumer side of business. In the commercial side, the company deals with large projects like UID, a two and half crore thousand programs, which according

to Chitale no channel partners would be able to execute. Therefore their commercial side of business is mostly direct – almost 70%. Now with the new opportunities coming in the market place, the scope of increasing commercial channel engagement is immense. Associating with traditional segment is not going to work anymore as government buying does in terms of investment is not doing well and large corporates spend is either flat or down. Chitale explains, “We are getting our experience of dealing with channel partners out of our distribution business where we have a history of working with channel partners for 10 to 12 years. We are bringing our entire portfolio of cloud offerings, office automation products and computing products and making all of them available to our channel partners, so that they can go after these new segments where the growth is happening right now.” Proliferation in the usage of small form factor like tablet also triggers opportunity for the channel partners as they sell large number of units being provided to them by HCL Infosystems. For example insurance company wants to have insurance agent activation through tablets or a hotel chain wants a hospitality solution on tablet, logistics and courier companies want their agent to carry tablets. From the partners’ perspective, it is good that they are getting a lot of products and solutions

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HCL INFOSYSTEMS

LEADERS’ CORNER

HARSH CHITALE, CEO, HCL INFOSYSTEMS.

“We bring our entire portfolio of cloud offerings, office automation products and computing products and making all of them available to our channel partners to go after these new segments where right now the growth is happening.”

from HCL, which otherwise they would not have been dealing with. Today, apart from HCL PCs and notebooks, they can deal with brands like Dell, Huawei, TE, EMC, Oracle, Molex, Toshiba, APC and many more, through HCL. HCL Infosystems’ cloud offerings include solution for co-operative bank, learning management system for educational institute, e-municipality kind of application and CRM, HRM kind of systems for ancillaries. All these solutions are catered via channel partners. Chitale says, “Whenever channel partners feel that the opportunities are there but they lack the capabilities and are in need for service support HCL will make that service support available to them. They can use our installation support, after market service support, our system integration capability or different technology.” HCL Infosystems follows the strategy of empowering the existing channel base rather than recklessly adding thousands of new channel

partners. Moreover, the company enables channel partners, whose capability is restricted to address only SMEs, to deal with large enterprises and government. However, if the channel partners do not have reach to some of the key segments which the company intends to address then they rope in additional channel partners. Some key issues which have become a barrier for the channel partners to sustain old customers as well as gaining new customers, HCL Infosystems helps them to overcome these challenges. “For some larger solutions and projects, we need to do technical enablement of channel partners. Either it could be by way of training or by making services available to them. For example, there is a project in a city for computerization of 20 government schools or in a district with 30-40 schools, and channel partner may not have the capability to do installation in every town, in such cases we will support in doing installation. Today, HCL has 10,000 service engineers all over the country. Tra-

ditionally, they were available only to my direct accounts (direct sales organization), now they are also available as a backend support to channel partners,” avers Chitale. The company brings wide range of products to the channel partners like PCs, servers, storage solutions etc. but the preferences will not be made by the company. It is upto the channel partners to decide choices which product range will serve them best. HCL Infosystems has multiple divisions. Its OEM product division is worth Rs. 2000 crore. While Distribution division is Rs.6000 crore plus worth. And last is the Projects and Services Business unit. Between OEM business and distribution business of HCL Infosystems, OEM business is witnessing huge growth as mobility is growing very fast in spite of the fact that the company has a full range desktop, laptops, servers, thin clients, micro ATMs for banking correspondents etc., tablets of all form factors 7”, 10” with SIM and without SIM, etc.

Finally, As the Commercial Channel Business is envisaged to witness significant jump, it is upto the channel partners on how to leverage the strength. The inside sales team is ready to enable them to create demand in the market. Besides the key priorities of HCL would be to expand reach, provide very good service to customers and retaining the best talent for system integration and services businesses.

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PRODUCT

REVIEW

EPSON M200

With the aim to achieve 10% of laser market in the current fiscal Epson has launched M series of monochrome

QNAP QTS 4.0 FOR TURBO NAS HOME MODELS

inkjet printers which it says is a

BY MANAS RANJAN

initial bundle of inks and 6000 pages

substitute for the laser printers. There are two models under the M series â&#x20AC;&#x201D; M100 single function mono ink tank system and Epson M200 allin-one mono ink tank system printer. More ideal for the SMEs, M200 can print a volume of 8000 pages with the for each bottle of refill ink. The cost

info@smechannels.com

per page is expected to be 12 paise

QNAP SY0073TEMS app-centric QTS 4.0 Turbo NAS system is available for the existing Turbo NAS series, including TS-x69, x19 and x12 series. Users of the applicable, Turbo NAS models can download and update the latest QTS 4.0 system to enjoy the entire new NAS management experience and the abundance of home entertainment applications. The app-centric QTS 4.0 integrates multi-window operations into the Web-based user interface, adds the Qsync utility for file synchronizing across different devices and file sharing across groups and communities, supports several smart mobile apps, and more. The abundant multimedia applications the QTS 4.0 offers a greatly enhanced entertainment experience in the modern connected home. The QTS 4.0 offers a new desktop design to aid working efficiency. The multi-window design allows multiple tasks to run concurrently, and enable users to switch between them to increase productivity. The combination of the Qsync utility and Turbo NAS achieves seamless file synchronization, enabling users to keep their files updated on each linked computer and mobile device. Qsync provides flexible ways of file synchronization and group file sharing with the Team Folder, greatly enhancing the flexibility of collaboration. The Qmusic app streams terabytes of music on the Turbo NAS directly to mobile devices. Users can easily enjoy large music collections anywhere and anytime. The Qfile app allows remote connection to the Turbo NAS, and convenient file uploading, downloading, sharing and management.

FEATURES

that is 90 per cent lower compared to

n Qsync for file synchronization

genuine laser toner and 70 per cent

n Smart mobile apps

lower than third-party refilled laser

n Integrated multimedia entertainment

toner cartridges. Remember a bottle of

n QTS 4.0 key features include

ink costs just Rs. 699.

n Multi-window operations

Busy offices will appreciate the laser quality speed of 15ipm and draft print

CONTACT

speed of 34ppm. In addition, the M200

Sanjay Biswal, marketing@qnap.com or sanjay@qnap.com

comes with a copy speed of up to

OVERALL RATING

inks, you can now enjoy exceptional

34cpm. With Epson genuine pigment print quality with water and fade resistant printouts. With networking capability, the Epson M200 can be shared amongst a work group through Ethernet, increasing efficiency. The M200 makes your printing process effortless with Epson iPrint, when connected to a wireless network. Epson iPrint lets you print directly from smart devices.

n Price: Rs. 13,999, Warranty: 1 year, Contact: Tushad Talati, Epson India, Phone: 1-800-425 0011, Email: Tushad@eid.epson.co.in

48 SME CHANNELS JUNE 2013

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20/06/13 11:01 PM

NEW ARRIVALS

DELL

LATITUDE 3330 FOR SMBS

DELL LATITUDE 3330 is designed to help growing businesses, schools and educators. The new laptop offers the robust computing features required for maximizing productivity and efficiency in the boardroom and also offers compatibility with Dell’s existing solutions and services for education and support for personalized learning opportunities in the classroom announced the company. It fully supports Microsoft Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows XP and Linux. The company says that the 33.8 cm (13.3) anti-glare screen minimizes scrolling and a HD 720 webcam provides for virtual collaboration. Equipped with a range of docking options, the new laptop can connect easily to the majority of desk environments and room infrastructures for smooth presentation and maximized learning time. The Latitude 3330 also comes with a complete set of automation tools to help IT administrators tackle the time consuming tasks of deployment, monitoring and updating systems with superior efficiency. Dell’s deep integration with industry-leading consoles, such as Dell KACE and Microsoft System, enables better deployment, quicker configuration and easier management of updates. n Price: Rs. 39,999 + taxes with Windows 7 or Windows 8 Professional (starting price), Contact: 1-800-425-4026 or 080-2506-8026

PRODUCT

RDP

RDP THINCLIENT XL 500 RDP THIN Client XL 500, which it terms as super powerful, is optimized for VMware View, Citrix HDX Chip PC new, expandable Windows 8- Ready. The nexw XL 500 features Instant Boot & Flash, Webbased BIOS Update, APP Charger, Boot Failure Guard (B.F.G.), PXE boot, Cool’n’Quiet, and more. The dual-display capable XL 500 answers the need for demanding application delivery and demanding Graphics performance for graphics-intensive applications, including video, providing exceptional performance and user experience informed the company’s press release. Powered by Windows Embedded Standard 7, it is Windows 8 Ready, and offers expanded functionality for every need as a virtual desktop, thin client or connectivity to Cloud applications. The company further informed that RDP Team has skilled sales and support personnel to provide pre-sales support, post-sale deployment and onsite warranty/support. With a vision of evolving a ‘billion dollar’ company by 2020, it provides affordable IT solutions to masses. Over a period it has won the confidence of many business units with its thin client solutions. n Price: Rs. 25,000+ taxes, Warranty: 3 Years, Contact: RDP Workstations, Phone: 040- 6457 1110, Toll Free No: (1800) 200 2444 Email: info@rdpcomputing.in

SEAGATE

SEAGATE LAPTOP ULTRATHIN HDD SEAGATE LAPTOP Ultrathin HDD is only 5mm thin and is designed to be integrated into ultra-thin, lightweight mobile computing devices and tablets. It delivers up to 500GB of capacity in 25 percent less space than its previousgeneration 7mm counterpart. The Laptop Ultrathin incorporates a 6Gb/s SATA interface for fast data transfer rates and comes with the industry standard SATA connection for easy integration into existing laptops supported by both hard drive and SSD storage. SED encryption is available on the 500GB capacity version announced the company. Delivering the best cost per GB and cost per millimeter in the industry for ultrathin applications, the svelte highcapacity drive can support over 100,000 photos, 125,000 songs or 62 hours of high-definition video. The Laptop Ultrathin incorporates a 6Gb/s SATA interface for fast data transfer rates and comes with the industry standard SATA connection for easy integration into existing laptops supported by both hard drive and SSD storage. SED encryption is available on the 500GB capacity version. n Price: $89. Warranty: 3Years, Contact: Supertron Electronics, Contact: +91 33 2213 1221

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SME TREND

MAKES THE WORLD CONNECT High quality and reliability are two essential criteria driving ZyXEL’s products. Green is the fundamental protocol embedded not only in its products but also culture and discipline. BY: SANJAY MOHAPATRA sanjay@smechannels.com

ight from its inception in 1986, ZyXEL has been known as a telecom brand and that creates the basic difference in the product quality and standards, as it goes to retail/channel market, unlike most of its consumer focused competitors in the market. ZyXEL’s huge portfolio of products and solutions has created a niche within the market and has provided the Systems Integration partners and customers with a leading-edge on technology advancements and ease of building networks, independent of the media. This flexibility in the choice of media for designing the network is unparalleled in the industry so far. For example, an old plant/township, ZyXEL usually have dead copper laid out but it can run triple-play on the MSAN solution for such installation. For Green field applications ZyXEL has GEPON and GPON. For unplanned colonial growth, the only connecting media is RG-11 or the cable TV network, which again can be utilized on the concept of Ethernet on cable or the EoC solutions for data. For traditional switching deployments, ZyXEL offers full range of metro Ethernet switching - from unmanaged till chassis. Finally, on wireless, it offers Wi-Fi, Wi-Max and LTE. Madhukar Swayambhu, Sales Head (India and SAARC), ZyXEL, sayd, “The uncompromising investment in R&D has enabled ZyXEL to maximize its expertise on developing innovative products and technologies and bring them to common man to improve their lives.” With over 20 years of experience with the world’s major telecommunication and service providers and already prominent in many coun-

tries across Europe, America, Middle East, South East Asia and BRIC countries, and more than 400,000 prominent enterprise customers, the global experience and success allows it to deliver benefits such as shorter time-to-market directly adoptable by customers. ZyXEL is a technology driven company and an OEM brand for many other prominent global companies. Its strengths in different networking technology domains are unmatched. This helps it to connect with its partners and also know their point of view and to plan consistent growth together. ZyXEL is the only brand which can offer media independent networking solutions and it intents to keep on conducting such technology seminars and knowledge sharing programs to ensure value add to the partners and help them grow. ZyXEL offers different ranges of products for entire spectrum of the market from Home, SMB to service providers. Swayambhu adds, “High quality and reliability are two essential criteria driving ZyXEL products. Green is the fundamental protocol embedded not only in its products but also culture and discipline. ZyXEL Home Router Series has the power to elevate enjoyment level of real-time, simultaneous multimedia applications such as HD video streaming, gaming or Web surfing. With the userfriendly design and green features, ZyXEL’s routers make it easy for the users to access the Internet as well as to have the optimized multimedia streaming experience anywhere in an eco-friendly way.” This passion for innovation has led to a string of “world firsts” spanning all areas of Internet Protocol (IP) connectivity. From the creation of the world’s first integrated voice/fax modem to the world’s first Telco-grade IPv6 end-to-end solu-

“ZyXEL India’s high quality and reliability are two essential criteria driving ZyXEL products.” MADHUKAR SWAYAMBHU, SALES HEAD INDIA AND SAARC, ZYXEL

tion, ZyXEL has been at the forefront of the information age since the debut of the Internet. From gateways, routers, switches, security solutions, and central office equipment as well as digital home enabled solutions, from fix to wireless, ZyXEL has offered exceptional reliability and quality across its entire product range since its founding in 1989. ZyXEL’s commitment to innovation, combined with an ability to offer full end-to-end connectivity and responsive customization for its valued service provider partners, demonstrates the power of its approach. This proactive posture has also led ZyXEL to develop solutions that allow small and medium-sized businesses to enjoy the same connectivity as large corporations - products with extensive compatibility, network interoperability, and performance optimization - as well as a range of devices which help make smart homes a reality. Finally… ZyXEL is committed to staying ahead of the networking trends by providing the best solutions and services to its customers. To maintain its competitive advantage and market leadership, ZyXEL has taken across-the-board re-engineering initiatives and service excellence mechanism. SME

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RNI NO: DEL ENG/ 2010/ 31962 Postal Reg. No.: DL-SW-1/4145/13-15

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