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ASHTECH INFOTECH KONNET SOLUTIONS They showed ingenuity in the face of adversity.

VEETRAG COMPUTERS They grew when all around them were giving up.

MERIDIAN INFOTECH They are the Premier 100. >>Page 20 BODHTREE CONSULTING ORIENT TECHNOLOGIES VALUE POINT SYSTEMS ESSENVISION SOFTWARE TAASHEE LINUX SERVICES QUESTA SOFTWARE SYSTEMS EMICRO DATA TECHNOLOGIES INSIGHT BUSINESS MACHINES TOTAL PRESENTATION DEVICES MM9 INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES PENTAGON SYSTEM AND SERVICES INTENSITY GLOBAL TECHNOLOGIES INFOTECH COMPUTERS & COMMUNICATIONS

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n EDITOR’S NOTE

Vijay Ramachandran

Inapt Incentive

W

HILE REAMS of paper have been expended

on motivating staff, from how to lead by example or how to give staffers a ‘challenging’ job to do, I’ve typically seen that in most organizations it’s incentives or compensation or bonuses that are expected to drive employees to deliver more, better, and faster.

But is this a good way to keep a team going forward?

Over a dozen years ago, the start-up I worked for then had a visionary and inspirational CMD. In a bid to get us off the ground fast he came up with a package of incentives for team leaders tied to various deadlines and achievements. On paper, it seemed a great way to kick-start operations, for the team to co-operate and get things done.

But that’s not how the dice rolled. Every team leader got so focused on short-term milestones, that in the resultant chaos they lost track of organizational goals.

Myopia set in so hard that our shutters came rolling down three years after we launched operations.

I bet you’re thinking, how can one lousy example prove that incentives are a rotten option?

Bear with me.

In 1945, German psychologist Karl Duncker cooked up what is now 4

known as The Candle Problem. He handed out three objects: A candle, a box of drawing pins, and match-sticks and asked his subjects to fix the candles on a cork-board wall without any additional elements, while ensuring that when lit, the candle wouldn’t drip wax on the table below.

The only way to do this successfully is to dump the drawing pins out of the box; pin the box to the wall; light the candle and use the box as if it were a candle-holder.

Incidentally, people found it much easier to get to the

n Where you

require conceptual thinking or an ability to think out-of-thebox, the increase in focus that a financial incentive entails creates a kind of myopia.

INDIAN CHANNELWORLD JULY 2014

solution if the drawing pins weren’t in the box to start with. Because, when the pins were in the box, participants in the experiment saw it only as a ‘pin-box’, and not something they could actually use to solve the problem. This mental block or bias is called “functional fixedness”. It’s what comes in the way of out-ofthe-box thinking.

Then some years later, Prof. Sam Glucksberg, added a twist to The Candle Problem—he offered a financial incentive for solving it. You’d expect that this would spur participants to do it faster.

It has the opposite effect, the incentive made people slower! In fact, the higher the incentive the slower people got (the results held true across nations and even income levels).

And why is this? Because what psychologists have found is that with straight, simple, routine and repetitive tasks financial incen-

tives work perfectly well and are a great motivator.

However, where you require creativity or conceptual thinking or an ability to think out-of-the-box, the increase in focus that a financial incentive entails creates a kind of myopia to the obvious solution.

So, what you get with doling out cash incentives to your salesfolk is a bunch of people with single-minded determination, who can be pretty clueless about what to do when the sale requires thinking laterally or ingeniously—like when an economic slowdown crimps IT spend.

As author Daniel Pink states in his book Drive: “Too many organizations… still operate from assumptions about human potential and individual performance that are outdated, unexamined, and rooted more in folklore than in science.

They continue to pursue practices such as shortterm incentive plans and pay-for-performance schemes even in the face of mounting evidence [which shows that such practices] usually don’t work and often do harm.”

What do you feel about incentives now? Do write in and let me know.  Vijay Ramachandran is the Editor-in-Chief of IDG. Contact him at vijay_ ramachandran@idgindia.com

S ayHi ! +9102240301130

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Inside INDIAN CHANNELWORLD n JULY 2014

The

Ingenious When the going gets tough, only the fittest survive.

But the resourceful thrive. Meet India’s hundred most ingenious channel partners. >>> Page 20

CUSTOM SOLUTIONS CUSTOM GROUP INTERVIEW FORTINET HP

I am very excited about HP’s acquisition of 3PAR, which is exceptional in providing multi-tenant, thin, and elastic storage and is ideal for any customer expecting unprecedented growth of data.

AHEAD OF

THE CURVE Sachin Rao, CEO & Director, Archon Consulting Systems, elaborates how HP’s array of storage and virtualization solutions consistently provides win-win scenarios for both channel partners and end-customers.

By Aritra Sarkhel How long have you been associated with HP? I’ve been selling HP’s portfolio of solutions for the past 14 years, and that’s even before I founded Archon Consulting.

What according to you makes HP a leader in the industry?

As an SI, we integrate different kinds of solutions—from compute, network to storage—at customers’ datacenters. But many a time, we’ve noticed that the customer would have deployed different storage architectures in the same datacenter, as a result of which, they’d be forced to manage different types of workloads for different types of applications. This complicates the entire process because maintenance would require massive investments in terms of human resources to manage each of these

complex architectures. This makes the process neither efficient nor cost-effective.

However, things are completely different with HP’s stack of products. It has features that make managing multiple workloads an easy task. This value proposition is something that we carry to our customers, and it has also helped us easily retain them over the years.

How do you sell such disruptive solutions to price-sensitive Indian customers?

Before we sell a solution to a customer, we try and understand their business requirement clearly. That’s one of our key areas of work. The primary goal of CIOs at the customer end is to build a robust IT infrastructure that supports business. They need to ensure that the business goes to

market rapidly and delivers projects with minimum disruptions.

A disruptive technology to me is any technology that helps speed up customers’ business processes and go-to-market.

There are various products and solutions in HP’s vast array. It is a complete set.

And depending on the customer’s size and vertical, it can provide a solutions that fulfills the requirement well, while delivering faster RoI. What are some of the benefits of HP’s storage virtualization solution?

Customers can realize benefits in each and every workload they manage. Existing customers find it extremely easy and simple to manage storage arrays with HP’s storage stack. Even the archiving and recovery tasks take less time, thereby reducing the need for costly system administration or other tools required for storage management. In fact, the last two to three years have been phenomenal. I am very excited about HP’s acquisition of 3PAR, which is exceptional in providing multi-tenant, thin, and elastic storage and ideal for any customer expecting unprecedented growth of data.

This interview is brought to you by IDG Services in association with HP

FOR BREAKING NEWS, GO TO CHANNELWORLD.IN

Inside

■ NEWS DIGEST

09 Tail-f Acquisition Big Win for Cisco |

Cisco is purchasing Sweden-based Tail-f Systems for about Rs 1,050 crore. Tail-f has many service

■ PREMIER 100 WINNERS 24 When an ingenious strategy not only saves a

business, but leads it to growth, it is imperative that such companies and their leaders be awarded. Here are 2014’s 100 most ingenious Indian channel partners.

124 Premier100 Recap | The ChannelWorld Premier100 Awards and Symposium Ceremony

providers as customers, which would finally give Cisco a foot in the door of Domain 2.0.

10 Google’s Cloud Gets Cheaper | Google is cutting prices of its corporate cloud platform—and vows to keep cutting them—to beat those of chief rival Amazon Web Services.

12 Juniper Merges its HW/SW Units | Juniper

brought together India’s most brilliant minds in IT, including senior-most executives, respected CIOs, and of course, one hundred of the country’s smartest channel partners.

■ ON RECORD

combined its hardware and software units to better align product development, and share technology across product lines for cloud and intelligent networking.

■ NEWS ANALYSIS

13 Blinkered Vision | How

18 Sheikh Ahmed Bin Hamad Al Thani,

Chairman, Katara Investments, envisions a small-is-big philosophy to dominate Indian SME markets.

Geetha Building, 49, 3rd Cross, Mission Road, Bangalore - 560 027, India

CHANNELWORLD.IN

Publisher, President & CEO Louis D’Mello n EDITORIAL

INDIAN CHANNELWORLD n JULY 2014

■ EVENT REPORT

CHANNELWORLD

Google Glass set wearable computing back 10 years.

■ OPINION

04 Editorial: Vijay Ramachandran believes

that when people require conceptual thinking or an ability to think out-of-the-box, the increase in focus that a financial incentive entails creates a kind of myopia to the obvious solution.

142 PlainSpeak: Yogesh Gupta shares why your company’s brand is too valuable to be relegated as an after-thought or to hide behind the banners of your technology partners.

Editor-in-Chief Vijay Ramachandran Executive Editors Gunjan Trivedi, Yogesh Gupta Deputy Editor Sunil Shah Features Editor Shardha Subramanian Assistant Editors Gopal Kishore, Radhika Nallayam, Shantheri Mallaya Special Correspondents Sneha Jha, Principal Correspondents Aritra Sarkhel, Shweta Rao, Shubhra Rishi Senior Copy Editor Vinay Kumaar Video Editor Kshitish B.S., Vasu N. Arjun Lead Designers Pradeep Gulur, Suresh Nair, Vikas Kapoor Senior Designers Sabrina Naresh, Unnikrishnan A.V. Trainee Journalists Bhavika Bhuwalka, Ishan Bhattacharya, Madhav Mohan, Mayukh Mukherjee, Sejuti Das, Vaishnavi J. Desai n SALES

& MARKETING

President Sales & Marketing Sudhir Kamath Vice President Sales Sudhir Argula Associate Publisher Parul Singh General Manager Marketing Siddharth Singh General Manager Sales Jaideep M. Manager Key Accounts Sakshee Bagri Manager Sales Support Nadira Hyder Senior Marketing Associates Arjun Punchappady, Benjamin Jeevanraj, Cleanne Carol Serrao, Margaret Dcosta Marketing Associates Shwetha M., Varsh Shetty Lead Designer Jithesh C.C. Senior Designer Laaljith C.K. Management Trainee Aditya D. Sawant, Bhavya Mishra, Brijesh Saxena, Chitiz Gupta, Deepali Patel, Deepinder Singh, Eshant Oguri, Mayur R Shah, R. Venkat Raman n OPERATIONS

Vice President HR & Operations Rupesh Sreedharan Financial Controller Sivaramakrishnan T.P. CIO Pavan Mehra Senior Manager Operations: Ajay Adhikari, Chetan Acharya, Pooja Chhabra Senior Manager Accounts Sasi Kumar V. Senior Manager Operations T.K. Karunakaran Manager Operations Dinesh P. Executive Assistant to the CEO Tharuna Paul Manager Credit Control Prachi Gupta Assistant Manager Accounts Poornima n OFFICES

ADVERTISERS’ INDEX Canon India Pvt Ltd . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IBC

HP- IPG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IFC

Cisco Systems India Pvt. Ltd . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . BC

HP Storage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Cyberoam Technologies Pvt. Ltd . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Trend Micro India Pvt. Ltd . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 & 15

Grass Roots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 This index is provided as an additional service. The publisher does not assume any liability for errors or omissions.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced by any means without prior written permission from the publisher. Address requests for customized reprints to IDG Media Private Limited, Geetha Building, 49, 3rd Cross, Mission Road, Bangalore - 560 027, India. IDG Media Private Limited is an IDG (International Data Group) company.

Printed and Published by Louis D’Mello on behalf of IDG Media Private Limited, Geetha Building, 49, 3rd Cross, Mission Road, Bangalore - 560 027, India. Editor: Louis D’Mello, Printed At Manipal Press Ltd, Press Corner, Manipal-576104, Karnataka, India.

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News

WHAT’S WITHIN PAGE 10: Google Beat Amazon With a Cheaper Cloud PAGE 10: Fast Data Over Big Data, Says Tibco PAGE 12: Juniper Optimizes Product Development PAGE 13: Myths Around Google Glass Busted

F I N D M O R E A R T I C L E S AT CHANNELWORLD.IN

BUSINESS RELATIONS

Tail-f Acquisition Big Win for Cisco

C

ISCO IS to purchase Sweden-based Tailf Systems for $175 million (about Rs 1,050 crore) and other retention-based incentives.

Tail-f is a big win for Cisco because it’s majorly a service provider product. The company is well known for managing and orchestrating multi-vendor environments and has many service providers as customers, including AT&T and Deutsche Telekom AG. Having AT&T as a customer is of particular interest, given all the news around Domain 2.0 from which Cisco was being left

out. Now it has a foot in the door of Domain 2.0. Service providers are searching for ways to increase profitability. One way of solving this is to simplify operations and replace the slow, hightouch provisioning model with something that’s real-time, orchestrated and automated. SDN and NFV solve some of the problems, but neither addresses the big issue regarding streamlining operations, and that’s OSS systems.

The problem with OSS systems is that they’ve been patched, amended, and altered over the years. Sometimes new OSS systems

would be brought in to handle certain vendors. Now most large service providers have overly complex provisioning processes that takes months to complete. Tail-f solves this problem through a network-service orchestration solution. The product provides a single pane of glass for infrastructure from layer 2 through layer 7 and includes hardware devices, virtual appliances, and OpenFlow switches.

The solution can help bridge the gap between today’s environments and SDN/NFV by making the provisioning easier.

Tail-f models native commands in Yang, enabling the products to inter-operate with Cisco competitors such as F5, Juniper, Riverbed, A10 and Alcatel-Lucent. Multivendor management isn’t something Cisco is known for, but this can give it greater control no matter who the network vendors are. Cisco stated it fully intends to maintain the multi-vendor nature of the product.

Tail-f can help Cisco reduce the TCO of an allCisco environment while being able to maintain price points and current margin structure. It provides tools to help service providers reduce the cost of running a network while enabling better service elasticity.

JULY 2014

— Zeus Kerravala INDIAN CHANNELWORLD

9

STORAGE

Flash Array 75 Percent Faster NetApp becomes the latest big vendor to shape a new product around the highspeed flash media.

The company introduced the FAS8080EX, a shared array that is optimized for use with pure flash. While all-flash arrays are still highend items for enterprises and service providers with especially high-performance requirements, flash is expected to make up a bigger part of datacenters over time.

“With Intel Ivy Bridge processors and increased memory, the 8000 series is now optimized for flash, though it had already been configurable for all-flash,” said Nathan Moffitt, director of storage platforms marketing, NetApp. The 8080EX replaces the 6290 array and is 75 percent faster for roughly the same price, Moffitt said.

NetApp says the all-flash configuration is ideal for VDI, though it expects only a small percentage of customers to order it for the time being, Moffitt added.

— Stephen Lawson

-

CORPORATE COMPETITION

Google’s Cloud Gets Cheaper

I

N MARCH, Google

storage and processors rebranded its infrathat power the cloud. “We structure and platform believe, fundamentally, it hosted services as should never be cheaper Google Cloud Platform to run IT yourself, ever,” and set about persuading Goldfarb says. “We want enterprises to migrate their customers to focus on their applications to Google’s core business.” compute, storage and appliUntil now, Google cation services. mostly let the security, reliIBM, Microsoft ability and speed and HP made of its technology similar marketdo the talking. ing blitzes, as if “When it comes The amount Amazon they all realized to the datacenhas reduced the price that the cloud ter, we’re able of its cloud services since it launched might actuto out-invest, them in 2006. ally have legs. “I out-innovate and don’t think anyout-focus pretty one in 2014 believes that much anyone else doing enterprise IT won’t move this,” Goldfarb says. “We’re to the cloud,” says Brian on top of [security] in a Goldfarb, head of Google way no one else could be.”

Cloud Platform marketing.

But Google hasn’t had Google cut prices to beat much experience with those of chief rival Amacorporate IT departzon Web Services (AWS). ments. “For the enterprise And AWS and Microsoft decision-maker, it’s not just immediately countered by about the technology and slashing their own prices. pricing, but [also about] But Google vowed to keep a partner ecosystem and cutting prices to match roadmaps that show where the declining costs of the the products will go,” says

42 Times

Nucleus Research analyst Rebecca Wettemann.

Nonetheless, many organizations use Google’s cloud service and tout its viability. Financial reporting service provider WebFilings, for instance, has relied on Google App Engine since the company was founded in 2008. Using Google has allowed WebFilings to scale faster and adjust its offerings more quickly to meet demands of customers, says WebFilings CEO Matthew Rizai.

Google’s Goldfarb acknowledged that Microsoft and other traditional IT companies do have large partner networks, but Google is working to build up its own network. It now has over 200 partners and another 200 in the enrollment process. He sees enterprise IT cloud computing as a core service, and plans to back its customers for years to come.

“I don’t expect them to walk away from this market at all,” says Forrester Research analyst John Rymer. “At one time, I wasn’t so sure. But I think Google is in it for the long haul.”

— Joab Jackson

BIG DATA

Big Data is Irrelevant to Businesses, Says Tibco According to the CTO of software provider Tibco, big data analytics relies too much on historic data and has failed to provide businesses with the real-time information needed to support fast decision-making in companies.

Chief Technology Officer Matt Quinn said that many firms have looked at big data as a “science experiment.” Using months 10

or years of historic data to find valuable insights rather than reacting to events as they happen.

The company is coining a new term, ‘fast data’, to describe a different approach to analytics.

“The challenge with big data is that it has not gained relevance to your everyday life and to the operational decisions you are making on a daily basis,” he said.

INDIAN CHANNELWORLD JULY 2014

THE REAL THING: Fast data reacts to events as they happen.

“It may improve things, or point out inefficiencies or opportunities, too, but the problem is that you are finding a needle in a haystack once.

Short Takes  Paladion

has closed a growth capital funding of $10 million (about Rs 60 crore) from Nadathur Holdings, firm of Infosys Co-founder N.S. Raghavan. This capital will be used for enhancing its cyber security intelligence platform, building a cloud security services platform and expansion of multiple SOCs.

 Red Hat announced the availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, the latest release of the company’s flagship platform. It not only lays the foundation for the open hybrid cloud and serves enterprise workloads across infrastructures, but also pushes the OS beyond the position of a commodity platform.  Google has acquired

video advertising company mDialog in a bid to provide more high quality video options to its advertisers. The Internet giant plans to work with the mDialog team to include their technology and expertise into its DoubleClick product suite for advertisers.

“What ‘fast data’ is all about is being able to find the needle in a haystack again and again, based on unique circumstances and the context in real-time, in an impromtu situation, at that particular moment of interaction.”

Fast data is part of Tibco’s sales pitch as it expands its business from its traditional application integration products into offering events processing, analytics, social and data visualization technology.

—Matthew Finnegan

PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

Juniper Merges its HW/SW Units

J

UNIPER NETWORKS

combined its hardware and software units to better align product development, and share technology across products lines for cloud and intelligent networking.

By merging its Platform Systems Division and Software Solutions Division into the Juniper Development and Innovation business unit (JDI), Juniper can eliminate unnecessary organizational barriers in the company and build end-toend systems that “crush operational expense” through automation, optimization and analytics, says Rami Rahim, executive vice president of the JDI. “There’s a certain clarity around the company on what our mission is, and we’re aligning our products and our go-to-market muscle along with that strategy,” Rahim said, referring to the formation of JDI to address the requirements of “cloud builders” and “high IQ” networks.” According to him there’s tremendous opportunity to combine products together into solutions to better address customer requirements.

An example of that is the 100G interfaces on Juniper’s high-end SRX security platform, which leverages 100G silicon found on Juniper’s routing and switching products. “It helps us keep up with the pace with the change in the industry,” Rahim said.

And that change is rapid and divergent. Customers are implementing fabric12

based switching to make networks flatter to address east/west traffic flows.

Juniper also offers MetaFabric, which Rahim described as a framework for enabling rapid application provisioning within and across multiple data centers by pooling network resources based on Juniper’s QFX and EX switches, MX routers, SRX security systems and Contrail SDN controller, and partner products. “Customer demand is greatest for Virtual Chassis and QFabric because they’re older and have been established longer,” Rahim says.

He adds that Juniper’s current switching lineup,

Around

TheWorld Telstra Extends Its Cloud to USA

Telstra has extended its cloud presence to a seventh location, taking its new cloud infrastructure services on the east coast of the United States.

Telstra Head of Network Applications and Services, Martin Bishop, claims the extension will allow customers to benefit from efficient enterprise cloud services for global operations.

“Customers are increasingly opting for cloudbased services and with this expansion we are even better equipped to serve

INDIAN CHANNELWORLD JULY 2014

highlighted by the EX9200 and QFX5100, addresses a “very large segment” of the enterprise- and serviceprovider cloud-datacenter market, and this is what helped the company grow its switching business 46% in the first quarter.

Juniper’s experience in datacenter fabric and automation technologies also catalyzed that growth, and helped win business in AT&T’s Domain 2.0 SDN

organizations with operations in the US.” Bishop said.

- By Nermin Bajric

Unisys Discontinues x86 Chips Processor

Unisys is phasing out its decades-old mainframe processor, which lags behind in speed and scalability compared to newer chips.

The chip is used in some of Unisys’ ClearPath flagship mainframes, but the company is moving to Intel’s x86 chips in Libra and Dorado servers in the ClearPath line.

Unisys also announced 12 high-end servers with Intel’s Xeon server chip E52600 v2 chip. The servers will enable customers in running legacy applications.

- Agam Shah

project. In the AT&T win, Juniper worked with the carrier in a DevOps model to align software development with operations and then quickly cut over to production mode.

In SDNs, Rahim says Juniper has 20 paying enterprise- and serviceprovider customers for its Contrail SDN controller, including CloudDynamics and CyberPort.

—Jim Duffy

CloudFlare Takes Over CryptoSeal

CloudFlare has acquired CryptoSeal, a provider of VPN services . The deal is supposed to extend its security services to Web users.

CloudFlare began to shut down CryptoSeal’s service after the acquisition was finalized, and the service will be fully retired by June 30, informs Matthew Prince, CloudFlare’s CEO. CryptoSeal’s Cofounder, Ryan Lackey, will join CloudFlare as security product manager.

- Jeremy Kirk

n NEWS ANALYSIS

Blinkered VISION How Google Glass set wearable computing back 10 years.

By Fredric Paul

T

HE INTRODUCTION

of Google Glass at the Google I/O developers conference in June 2012 was one of the coolest technology debuts ever. Glass-wearing skydivers jumped out of an airplane high above San Francisco’s Moscone Center, floated down to the roof, jumped onto mountain bikes, and pedaled into the conference hall where Sergei Brin was waiting— while the audience soaked up the experience through the first-person perspective of the stunt team.

The full house went wild—witnesses to what

we thought was an amazing revolution in the world of wearable computing.

Now, just two years later, Google Glass is an actual product that anybody with a spare $1,500 (about Rs 90,000) can stick on their face. That is, if they want to be called a Glasshole, banned from many establishments, physically mugged in others, and even more viciously mocked on national television by The Daily Show’s Jason Jones.

Clearly, something went horribly wrong.

The technology is partly to blame. It turns out that

Google Glass doesn’t actually do all that much.

It takes mediocre photos and videos. It offers slow, balky, and low-res access to some websites and online services. And that’s kind of about it.

But the technology is not the real problem.

The real problem is that Google did just about everything wrong in trying to market the devices: n It allowed only software developers—not usually the most socially advanced group—to buy the devices at first. The goal was to get the developers to create cool new apps for the device, but it ensured that the things would show up on the faces of the stereotypical nerds before anyone else. Glass quickly became a very expensive pocket protector. n Google gave Glass users a dorky, pretentious name—Glass Explorers—that only deepened and confirmed the creepy social awkwardness. n Google didn’t start dealing with the social and fashion implications of putting a computing device on your face until far too late. n Google still hasn’t come up with a clear reason to wear the device in public.

Is wearing Glass supposed to be fun? Is it supposed to make you smarter? Help you get ahead in business?

Or what? n But here’s the biggest issue. It seems Google spent a lot of time thinking about what Glass buyers might do with their fancy visors, but barely a glimmer about the Glass’s impact on the people around the Glasshole.

Google now recognizes that it has lost control of

JULY 2014

INDIAN CHANNELWORLD

13

EVENT REPORT

ENABLING

FUTURE-READY SECURITY In a first of its kind summit for channel partners across South-East Asia and India, security leader Trend Micro chalked out its roadmap for future growth and listed out the various plans it has for increasing SIs’ and resellers’ profitability.

DHANYA THAKKAR, MD, SOUTH-EAST ASIA AND INDIA, TREND MICRO

B

usiness leaders from various channel organizations across South-East Asia and India recently congregated in an exclusive meet in Taichung, Taiwan. The event, Trend Micro’s first ever regional Partner Summit, served as an incredible platform for technology leaders, IT security experts, and top channel partners to come together and share insight on the latest advancements in security solutions and how Trend Micro has been continuously striving hard to equip its security solutions with future readiness.

Besides, the Summit also saw the presence of Trend Micro’s technology alliance partner, VMware, and external analysts’ sessions on the benefits of Trend Micro’s solutions.

Setting the context of the event, Partha Panda, VP, Global Channels & Alliances, Trend Micro, spoke about how the vendor is the market leader in information security, with numerous programs, engagements, and recognition for channel partners across geographies. He reiterated the importance of channel partners in Trend Micro’s journey forward, when he said, “We have a network of over 50,000 partners worldwide, and with $1.2 billion (Rs 7,200 crore) in sales, there are a lot of channel transactions happening this year.”

By Aritra Sarkhel

Panda spoke in detail about the business opportunities opening up for both Trend Micro and its channel partners. “In terms of security, we have huge expansion opportunities being made possible by trends such as consumerization of IT, cloud and datacenter security, and countering cyber threats.”

He further spoke at length about how major security players like Trend Micro have a huge role to play in enabling and empowering security solutions for the consumer market.

The $8 billion (about Rs 48,000 crore) market, which is predicted to grow even bigger, indicates that the number of users in need of complete user protection will only increase multifold in the future.

Apart from individual consumers, enterprises, with their expanding cloud and virtualization boundaries, also open up a huge market for security players. “Sixty-three percent of security professionals believe it is only a matter of time until their enterprise is targeted. Seventy percent of server workloads will be virtualized by 2016, and as much as 90 percent of enterprises and government agencies will move to the cloud by 2015. That is a huge market for us to serve with our portfolio of solutions,” said Panda.

He also informed that channel partners at different levels—platinum, gold, silver, and bronze—can rake in additional profits by selling Trend Micro solutions. “We have several rebates, support and training discounts, specialization bonus, and equally numerous incentive programs for partners selling enterprise solutions. Resellers can easily utilize these and increase their profitability.”

Later, Dhanya Thakkar, MD, South-East Asia and India, Trend Micro, shed light on the company’s roadmap for growth. He said, “Trend Micro’s future goal is all about double digit growth, and double revenue with double the current customer base.

He went on to say that with a flexible management and licensing strategy, end-customers can enjoy the benefits of a smarter protection plan as well. “We can easily increase our customer base by reselling more stacks to enterprises that are adopting virtualization and cloud technology,” he added.

As part of the event, Trend Micro recognized and awarded the top country and regional resellers who contributed significantly to the growth of the company in the market and the entire region.

IDG SERVICES

n NEWS ANALYSIS the public’s perception of Glass, but still doesn’t seem to know why.

Google’s objections to what it calls The Google Glass Myths are pathetic and tortured: Myth 3: Glass Explorers are technology-worshipping geeks. Our Explorers come from all walks of life. They include parents, firefighters, zookeepers, brewmasters, film students, professionals, reporters, and doctors.

Are you kidding me?

Parents can’t be technology-worshipping geeks?

And just how many firefighters and doctors are we talking about?

It didn’t have to be this way. If Google had been able to see past the tiny screen in front of its eyes, it would have realized that something you put on your face automatically gets a lot of attention. It could have tried to pay more attention to the people around the people wearing Glass, allaying their not-unjustified wariness by making it clearer what the Glasshole was doing (and, especially, recording). It could have tried much earlier to make the devices fashionable, high-status accessories for the ultra-cool or ultra-rich instead of the ultra-geeky.

The results of Google’s ongoing miscalculations are obvious. Nobody wants to be seen wearing the things. At the recent SXSW Interactive conference in Austin, Texas, I saw only a handful of people wearing Glass, and they seemed sheepish about it. Even Robert Scoble, the device’s biggest fanboy, who reveled in Glassholiness, now admits that “Google has launched 16

Forrester: Firms Should Use Their Staff as Wearables Guinea Pigs

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ompanies that want to engage customers with wearables, but are worried about privacy issues, should run pilots with their employees first, a Forrester analyst has said.

Highlighting the success Virgin Atlantic has had with its Upper Class Wing Google Glass pilot in Heathrow Terminal Three, Forrester Analyst J.P. Gownder advised that arming customer-facing employees with wearables is the first step enterprises should be taking.

Virgin Atlantic’s pilot saw business club lounge staff in Heathrow wearing devices to assist members with flight-connection information, destination weather forecasts and restaurant suggestions.

Gownder said, “They have reported that it is been very successful and customers felt they were getting better customer service, more information and more attention. I would think they are going to roll this out slowly, with the employees first.”

The Forrester analyst said that wearables are fast becoming a reality in the workplace, especially after the arrival of Salesforce Wear in June—a bundle of free tools and reference applications.

The devices will come with open-source reference application to help developers structure, design and build applications that

this product poorly.”

That’s a shame. While Glass is forever tainted, a better product, marketed the right way, could have

INDIAN CHANNELWORLD JULY 2014

connect to the Salesforce platform.

But with many enterprises concerned about warding off consumers with privacy fears, employee pilots will help to learn more about how those concerns can be alleviated in a controlled way. Employee feedback will help develop customerfacing applications, Gownder said.

“A lot of B2B2C scenarios have thorny privacy issues. If you give it [wearable device] to your employees, you have some privacy risks—but you have the capability to calibrate, educate and learn before taking it to consumer market,” he added.

For customer-facing businesses like banks, retailers, hospitals and insurance providers, Gownder warned that extra care must be taken when employees are wearing devices that are collecting personal information.

“Customers at the airport have already opted in to the experience of the first-class lounge and have authenticated it. They come after an informed decision. But someone who walks into your shop has not authenticated you to know their personal details. The target market of wealthy, frequent travelers who bend towards the tech savvy are different from the general Virgin Atlantic kiosk in Heathrow,” he said.

been awesome. Imagine what Steve Jobs could have done with this concept.

But given Google’s epic marketing fail, it’s going

Replicating successful customer engagement through mobility case studies will also help increase trust in wearables that collect data, Gownder added. He gave the example of convenience shop 7-Eleven, which enjoyed over a million mobile application downloads in the past nine months. By offering location-enabled discounts when a customer was in close proximity, without the user having to enter personal details, 7-Eleven built up trust, Gownder said. When users saw that they could get even better discounts by handing over information, they were happy to sign up.

Unlocking the potential to gain consumer insight from wearables is in enterprises’ hands, Gownder insisted, but companies need to take a big bang approach, with low expectations but an assumption that “the consumer market is roaring forward, it [wearable devices] is going to disrupt our customers and we are going to go all in”.

7-Eleven built a bridge that did not make people feel like they had to necessarily give away their personal information too much. This way organizations can strategize and get plenty of people to opt in after using it for a short time, Gownder concluded.

—By Margi Murphy to take a long, long time before even a much better product can overcome the stigma that now surrounds Google Glass. 

n OPINION

MICHAEL SANTARCANGELO

BYOD: Legal Drill

A

S BRING your own device (BYOD) reshapes the To ensure way organizations handle technology, how do we BYOD handle the uncertainty of legal liability and increases security concerns? The answer lies in considering value while also increasing how BYOD changes the entire organization. Change is scary.

More so when the impact of the change, including legal security liabilities, are unclear and relatively untested. requires including elements like: Device selection, The key is in how the technical, legal, different how people envision using the devices, and other uncertainties are handled. Getwhat data and networks they need access ting it right requires constructive converthinking and to, and the like. sations with stakeholders and influencers. an approach Expect this process to take time. Larger, Here are three key steps in holding promore complex organizations take more ductive conversations: that brings time. Focus on bringing the right people people together Embrace Uncertainty together and allowing each the opportunity to contribute to the mapping. This Acknowledge that BYOD introduces in a series of provides the legal, security, and IT team, change. From allowing individuals their conversations. own devices, to shifting the way we pro- and everyone else involved the opportuvide security, and adapting the legal and operational consequences. It’s natural to resist and fight change (at least on the part of security professionals).

However, the key to implementing BYOD in a way that increases security and reduces legal liability is to embrace the uncertainty. People don’t actually expect you to know everything.

The legal counsel doesn’t have all the answers, either. The business people seeking BYOD aren’t entirely sure of the range of situations and conditions in which they’ll use it.

Take the lead and explain that uncertainty is okay. It sets up an opportunity to come together and collaborate; this is in contrast to obtuse declarative statements or enforcing draconian policies.

Michael Santarcangelo is the catalyst smart leaders count on to take friction out of communication and amplify value. He is the author of Into the Breach.

Bring Visibility to the Process Embracing uncertainty leads to the opportunity to gather the right people and bring visibility to the entire BYOD process. Visually map out how it works,

nity for an understanding of the process.

Once the approach is outlined, guide people through the welcomed changes in their processes. As they envision and describe the flow, that’s the time to ask questions about what needs to be protected. This means everyone has a voice in explaining the benefits and potential risks of the changes.

Engage in Communication Messaging is one-way. And worse, messaging doesn’t always work (for a variety of reasons). Yet many teams still work to produce the “perfect” message only to succumb to the perfect message fallacy.

Relying on messaging to address the security challenges and legal liability concerns only increases the friction in communication that jeopardizes the effort.

Instead, of relying on messaging, hastily written e-mails, and other forms of “communication” that hamper conversation, get face-to-face and engage in dialog. Do this when possible.  JULY 2014

INDIAN CHANNELWORLD

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Photograph by KAPIL SHROFF

ON RECORD n

His Excellency Sheikh Ahmed Bin Hamad Al Thani, Chairman, Katara Investments, envisions a small-is-big philosophy to dominate the SME market in India.

By Yogesh Gupta

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INDIAN CHANNELWORLD JULY 2014

What business opportunities do you see in India for 2014 and beyond?

AL THANI: Katara Investments is a private investment vehicle for me—as a member of the royal family of Qatar. It focuses on investments in the area of IT and IT-enabled services through a holding company called Vistas Global.

The Opel Global acquisition in India was done a year ago. Vistas will be the IT arm in India.

The opportunities we are targeting include the channels and enabling SMEs. We see the largest potential in the SME segment. It is not easy for foreign players to invest in India. But we are committed to staying invested for a long time. The investment in the Opel Group ties back nicely with our global delivery business model.

But India has millions of SMEs and other vendors rely on channels to get to them. Are you exploring an indirect route?

AL THANI: The big OEMs target a segment that requires a larger engagement at the grassroot level. Our core business is catering to SMEs as we have engineered the company to directly meet customer requirements on our own.

We offer customized solutions for SMBs (10 to 100 users), for the mid-market (100-500), and the upper mid-market catering to 500-plus user companies.

We follow a vertical approach in a regionalized manner. For example, the auto segment in Maharashtra, the textile/ manufacturing verticals in south India, and so on.

We work with industry associations to stay close to customers and their pain points. We also have strategic alliances with vendors like Dell, and IBM for large IT services project.

We have initiated a franchisee model for our execution model for delivery and sales, which is different from what the competition does.

How will a franchisee model help Opel Global expand into Tier-II and Tier-III cities?

AL THANI: It is not just a sub-contract to subcontract route. A significant investment in terms of sales automation tools and other things for franchisee partners will be done by us. They will enable our solutions for end-customers through our ‘capex to opex’ value proposition to SMEs. We are looking at micro entrepreneurs in Tier-II and Tier-III cities—where

SHEIKH AHMED BIN HAMAD AL THANI | ON RECORD n the largest piece of the target market lies—as franchisee partners. We will also align with small channel companies. Franchisee partners need to transform and understand that trading in enterprise IT is dead. These small customers are extremely important to us and for franchisee partners in the long term.

What’s Opel Global big differentiator?

AL THANI: Today, Opel Global’s network reaches 674 districts in India with a four-hour response time. Out of the estimated US$22.4 billion that Indian SMEs spend on IT, 60 percent emerges from

100-500

User organizations are the sweet spot for Katara Investments in India.

aggregator with strong product teams that can bundle offerings by verticals. The roll-out of large projects by big IT service providers needs last-mile connectivity. Sometimes, these SLAs become unmanageable. For a year now, we’ve had a successful working model with huge traction. We have created stickiness with

Indian services companies Dimension Data & Micro Clinic. Are you acquiring Tier-II partner companies?

AL THANI: Tier-1 IT companies do a majority of their business outside India. We are investing in Indian-based companies that cater to the Indian market. We believe that there’s a mammoth opportunity in India. We want to address the Indian market first and then augment our capabilities.

Within the next six months, we would like to acquire at least one company, or a maximum of two, in India. We are keen to acquire smaller companies that do not carry legacy. Between the two

ficult if we had legacy of box selling and we instructed our sales team to now sell SaaS solutions. We don’t carry that legacy. We are the fag-end of the fight with very little resistance from customers, alliances, or vendors.

What are the short and long term goals of Katara Investments for India?

AL THANI: India and Qatar have had historic relations. We expect the government to spur more change and create a favourable environment for investments from foreign countries into India.

On a 12-month horizon, we want to acquire and enable channels as a

Out of the US$22.4 billion Indian SMEs spend on IT, 60 percent comes from Tier-II and Tier-III cities. It is a colossally untapped market. And Opel Global can reach 674 districts with a four-hour response time.

Tier-II and Tier-III cities.

It is a colossally untapped market. How many companies sell IT and IT services to small customers? These customers have seldom been of great interest to most OEMs or big SIs. I believe that ‘small is big’. SMEs are our only customers and hence we give great attention to each customer. It is not that the big logos (big customers) don’t excite us, but the small ones because that’s where we believe there’s more growth.

The days of ‘one-size-fitsall’ is over in the enterprise IT space. Your comments.

AL THANI: True. We define SMEs and the mid-market according to what they buy. We are a technology

franchisee partners. We don’t want a typical distributor-reseller model, which you would agree, is on a downward slope.

IT projects are getting smaller in size, faster to execute, and more complex in nature. How do you plan to adapt to this trend?

AL THANI: Project cycles are shortening and deal sizes are getting smaller. Such deals fit perfectly in our GTM. Our business model is engaging with customers like large grocery stores that want mobility applications or a mid-size mall in a Tier-II city exploring an NFC solution. These customers are demanding and bigger companies don’t usually address them.

Japanese OEMs invested in

investments in India the current team size would be a 100 people. A single operating entity after a year would have 300 to 350 employees.

Do you see the ‘demandsupply’ gap widen due to an extensive push from technology vendors?

AL THANI: There is an obvious gap in the industry, today, which we believe no one has addressed.

More than 80 percent of IT business was trading and today that is over. It died very quickly and it’s on life support. Vendors resisted this change for a long time. Large OEMs going the same route is a validation of this (opex) model. We are optimistic about the cloud too.

It would have been dif-

complete business. SMEs continue to be a sweet spot for us. More than 39 percent of Indian GDP comes from SMEs and an increased IT spend across the segment is on the cards.

After five years, we should be the only organization with a delivery model from enterprise all the way up to the grassroots. It would be a strategic advantage over others from infra services to managed services to robust SaaS platform for our customers. Our India operations will then tie with our global blueprint.

There is no quick win in large countries like India, which requires a different kind of mindset and time period. We are in India for the long run. 

JULY 2014

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n COVER STORY | PREMIER 100

The

Ingenious When an ingenious strategy not only saves a business, but leads it to growth, it is imperative that such companies and their leaders be awarded.

Here are 2014’s 100 most ingenious Indian channel partners.

By Team ChannelWorld

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INDIAN CHANNELWORLD JULY 2014

The Winners 24 They beat recessionary headwinds. They showed ingenuity in the face of adversity. They grew when all about them were giving up. They are the Premier 100.

The Awards Ceremony 124 The ChannelWorld Premier 100 Event, held in Pune, was an extravaganza worthy of India’s top channel partners. Here’s what you missed.

The Special Award Winners 136 Winners are not built equally, some are more special than the rest. We present the Special Award Winners; channel partners who won coveted awards for their work in security, datacenter, cloud, and storage. Plus, the hall of famers.

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ECESSITY, THEY say, is the mother of invention.

That’s why, in tough times and during market recessions, companies fall back on ingenuity to see themselves through that phase. If this is true worldwide, it’s even more true among Indian businesses, especially channel partners.

Survival is one thing, growth is another. When a strategy or a tactic not only saves a business, but leads to growth, it is indeed time to reward and recognize those companies and their leaders and award them for their ability survive and prosper during tough times.

This year’s theme, The Ingenious 100, recognized those who know what it is like to chase the next level of growth in an environment of doubt. They turned to new technologies, renovated existing ones, and also discovered new geographies, from which they wrested new profits for their businesses. Channel organizations across the country were invited to nominate themselves.

About 376 nominations were received from partners

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n COVER STORY | PREMIER 100

spanning the length and the breadth of India.

This year’s Premier 100 award winners, the Ingenious 100, were evaluated on key parameters such as their company’s growth (revenue) over the last two fiscals, their ingenious strategy, their reach, and their technology portfolio. Variable weightages were applied to the nomination data received, based on the importance of these parameters in the overall equation. The weightages were tabulated and the scores calculated to see how the nominations stacked up against each other in the race to the top 100.

Partners who showcased the most ingenious strategies that led to profitable growth in last fiscal were adjudged part of the Premier 100.

Most of the channel organizations, interestingly, had a presence, small or big, in mega trend technology domains such as mobility, big data, analytics, cloud, social media, and collaboration.

An interesting observation from the Premier 100 winner list this year was the substantial increase in the geographical spread of the winners.

When the Premier 100 awards commenced in 2009, winners spanned across 10 cities, mainly the metros and Tier-I cities. But six years down the line, today’s Premier 100 winners hail from across 21 cities including Tier-II cities such as Indore, Cochin, Sangli, Kanpur, Coimbatore, Ludhiana, and Ahmedabad, amongst others. It was also noted that cumulatively, the total amout of enterprise business clocked by the 100 winners over the last fiscal exceeded Rs 6,200 crore.

This year’s edition also witnessed a small rise in the number of women entrepreneur winners.

SNAPSHOTS: PREMIER100 2014 The ChannelWorld Premier100 event gathered some of India’s brightest minds and 100 of the country’s most ingenious channel partners. For event highlights visit: www.premier100.in 22 22

CHANNELWORLD JANUARY 1, 2009 INDIAN CHANNELWORLD JULY 2014

ChannelWorld Premier 100:

By the Numbers

The ChannelWorld Premier 100 is a mind-boggling exercise in selecting some of India’s top channel partners. We break down the numbers for you.

Top 5 Target Verticals of This Year’s Winners

91% Manufacturing

85% IT/ITeS

68% BFSI

67% Healthcare/Pharma/Bio-Tech

64% Education/Non-profit

Number of

Nominations: 376 Total amount of enterprise business clocked:

Rs 6,200 Crore

Winners By Company 4G Identity Solutions .........................................................................................24 Aashna Cloudtech ..............................................................................................25 Accel Frontline ....................................................................................................26 Acma Computers ...............................................................................................27 Acme Digitek Solutions......................................................................................28 ACPL Systems ................................................................................................... 29 Adit Microsys...................................................................................................... 30 Albion Infotel.........................................................................................................31 Allied Digital Services ........................................................................................32 Archon Consulting Systems .............................................................................33 Aryan Computers & Peripherals...................................................................... 34 Ashtech Infotech ................................................................................................35 B4B IT Solutions ................................................................................................36 Binary Systems ..................................................................................................37 Bodhtree Consulting ..........................................................................................38 C. I. Infotech ........................................................................................................39 Cache Peripherals ............................................................................................. 40 CCS Computers ...................................................................................................41 CDP India .............................................................................................................42 Central Data Systems........................................................................................ 43 Compusoft........................................................................................................... 44 Computers Network and Telecom India ........................................................ 45 D M Systems ...................................................................................................... 46 Datasoft Network Solutions ............................................................................47 Dev Information Technology ............................................................................48 Dhanush Infosol ................................................................................................ 49 Dynacons Systems & Solutions ..................................................................... 50 E-Connect Solutions ...........................................................................................51 Emicro Data Technologies ................................................................................52 Esconet Technologies .......................................................................................53 Essenvision Software ....................................................................................... 54 Esteem Infotech................................................................................................. 55 Foetron................................................................................................................. 56 Fore Solutions .....................................................................................................57 Fortune Grecells .................................................................................................58 Future Netwings Solutions .............................................................................. 59 Futurenet Technologies.................................................................................... 60 Galaxy Office Automation ................................................................................. 61 GT Enterprises.....................................................................................................62 Immunity Networks & Technologies ...............................................................63 Infinite Technologies......................................................................................... 64 Infobahn Technical Solutions........................................................................... 65 Infotech Computers & Communications........................................................ 66 Innovative Telecom & Softwares .....................................................................67 INSIGHT Business Machines ...........................................................................68 Intensity Global Technologies ......................................................................... 69 InterCAD Systems ..............................................................................................70 Ishan Group...........................................................................................................71 Jainam Technologies ........................................................................................72 Konnet Solutions ................................................................................................73

Magic Systems.................................................................................................... 74 Medley Marketing ...............................................................................................75 Megahertz Infotech.............................................................................................76 Meridian Infotech ...............................................................................................77 Meta Infotech ......................................................................................................78 Microlink Solutions ............................................................................................79 MKT Softwares.................................................................................................. 80 MM9 Information Technologies.........................................................................81 Nahar Integrated System Services..................................................................82 Netcon Technologies..........................................................................................83 NetSpider............................................................................................................ 84 Novo Systems .....................................................................................................85 One Network........................................................................................................86 Orient Technologies ...........................................................................................87 Parth TechoComm Solutions............................................................................88 Peak XV Networks..............................................................................................89 Pentacle IT Solutions......................................................................................... 90 Pentagon System And Services ...................................................................... 91 QuantM.................................................................................................................92 Questa Software Systems ................................................................................93 Raksha Technologies ....................................................................................... 94 Regenersis India ................................................................................................ 95 Rubik Infotech .................................................................................................... 96 Sara Infoway ITES...............................................................................................97 Secant Technologies .........................................................................................98 Secure Network Solutions................................................................................ 99 Shell Networks & Solutions ............................................................................100 Shro Systems .....................................................................................................101 Silver Touch Technologies ..............................................................................102 Sterling Infoways ..............................................................................................103 Sunfire Technologies .......................................................................................104 Swan Solutions & Services.............................................................................105 Syndrome Technologies .................................................................................106 Taashee Linux Services................................................................................... 107 Targus Technologies ........................................................................................108 Team Computers ..............................................................................................109 Techniche Consulting Services.......................................................................110 Total Presentation Devices ...............................................................................111 Trident Information Systems............................................................................ 112 Twenty Two By 7 Solutions .............................................................................. 113 Unified Data-Tech Solutions ............................................................................114 Value Point Systems .........................................................................................115 Vcentric Technologies ......................................................................................116 VDA Infosolutions ............................................................................................. 117 Veeras Infotek .................................................................................................... 118 Veetrag Computers............................................................................................119 Veltronics India .................................................................................................120 Versatile Infosecurity ........................................................................................121 Vitage Systems Private ................................................................................... 122 Wysetek Systems Technologists .................................................................. 123 JANUARY JULY 2014 1, 2009 INDIAN CHANNELWORLD CHANNELWORLD

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4G Identity Solutions

{

Headquartered Hyderabad Branches 4 Employees 800 Key Executive Dr. Lakshmi Tripuraneni, Managing Director Key Principals DigitalPersona, HP, Oracle, CMITech, Morpho and Credence ID Key Technology eGovernance Focus Verticals Government, IT/ITeS, BFSI, Healthcare/ Pharma

Dr. Sreeni Tripuraneni Chairman and CEO

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road less traveled requires courage and vision. That’s exactly what Hyderabad-based 4G Identity Solutions showed when it went off the beaten path and pushed innovative products and suites in unfamiliar spheres.

One of the very few players in the biometrics space in the country, it dared to traverse through the budding e-governance domain and bagged projects in public service delivery infrastructure, public distribution system, pensions, social welfare schemes, ePassport,

24

HOOSING THE

INDIAN CHANNELWORLD JULY 2014

eVisa, immigration and border control, voter ID and national ID. This strong capability of handling large-scale identity management projects has done good things for 4G Identity. And it has been making profits by preventing leakages in the delivery of government welfare services.

Two birds with one stone.

4G Identity also courageously took solutions outside India and established new markets in Africa and Middle-East, successfully overcoming the challenges that came its way.

Ingenious Strategy

It pushed innovation in e-governance and in projects like public service delivery infrastructure, public distribution system, immigration, and border control.

Aashna Cloudtech

{

Headquartered Pune Branches 9 Employees 95 Key Executives Vinay Nair, President, Shyam Gopal, Executive VP-Worldwide Sales Key Principals NetSuite, Google, SilkRoad, WorkForce Software, Box & DocuSign Key Technologies Cloud computing, Enterprise applications Focus Verticals Education/Nonprofit, IT/ITeS, Media, BFSI, Healthcare/Pharma

Biswas Nair Managing Director

T

HE REAL challenge in crafting strategies lies in detecting subtle discontinuities that may undermine a business’ future.

And for overcoming this, just a sharp presence of mind is needed.

The strategies that worked for Punebased Aashna Coudtech in the last fiscal year pivoted on three pillars of growth: International growth, the addition of more cloud-based products, and the addition of a hybrid model for services delivery.

With a vision of driving ballistic growth greater than that of the industry—25 percent—Aashna used a strat-

egy of cross-selling with additional cloud-based solutions.

The company augmented its professional services revenues by including support services under the umbrella professional services. These professional services were efficiently delivered through the company’s offshore center in Pune, but also with some investments on onsite resources for hybrid model offerings.

With a total of 95 employees, Aashna offers leading enterprise applications on cloud which pits it against some of the biggest names in IT.

Ingenious

Strategy

It focused on international expansion.

It also added more cloud-based products, and created a hybrid model of professional service delivery.

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Accel Frontline

SPECIAL AWARD SECURITY

Maqbool Hassan President and COO

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INSTON CHURCHILL said,

“However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.� Accel Frontline, a Chennaibased solution provider, used a resultoriented strategy and invested in a subsidiary in Singapore, specifically for its IT security practice.

Accel Frontline used three strategies to ensure growth: It protected and grew its established business in the areas of infrastructure management services and system integration. It increased sales focus on areas like re-

mote infrastructure management. And it invested in emerging businesses like IT security services and mobility.

One of the dynamic moves of Accel Frontline made was to invest in emerging businesses in terms of resources and skill development.

This strategy helped the company get in deeper and created mnore engagement with its enterprise clients, thereby opening up cross-selling opportunities.

A growth in revenues over the last year proves that these strategies have yielded definitive results.

Ingenious Strategy

The company invested in setting up a subsidiary at Singapore specifically for IT security practices.

{

Headquartered Chennai Branches 40 Employees 2,960 Key Executive N. R. Panicker, Chairman and CEO Key Principals Oracle, IBM, HP, Cisco, Extreme, Hitachi Data Systems, NetApp, Symantec, Red Hat, EMC, VMware Key Technologies Security, Networking Servers, Cloud computing, Datacenter solutions, Enterprise applications, Mobility, Virtualization, BI and analytics, Managed services, Facility Management/ Helpdesk, Storage

26

INDIAN CHANNELWORLD JULY 2014

Acma Computers Biren Selarka Director

T

HE ROAD to success, for Mum-

bai-based Acma Computers, is its customer-centric approach and the commitment to deliver what it promises.

Acma already had a very strong presence in remote infrastructure managed services business, and, this fiscal, it decided to concentrate on expanding its boundaries to two new geographies—Ras Al Khaimah, UAE; and Brisbane, Australia.

This strategy has definitely led to a boost in the growth of its business activities. In terms of the number of

devices added, Acma clocked a growth of approximately 65 percent, and overall, grew by 55 percent compared to the last year.

Discovering new geographies has helped the company add more devices under the managed services domain and also provide a much better bottom line than what is attained with Indian clients.

Currently, it has 150-plus engineers.

With the business model getting more and more aligned towards services, it plans to increase its workforce by around 20 percent by end of the year.

Ingenious Strategy

The company decided to go international and explore destinations that would benefit it in terms of new business opportunities.

{

Headquartered Mumbai

Branches 18 Employees 285

Key Executives Purvesh Selarka, Director; Bharat Singh, CFO Key Principals Kaseya, Dell, Microsoft, Intel, AMP, Molex, SYSTIMAX, GajShield, Zicom

Key Technologies Security, Networking, Servers, Enterprise applications, Mobility, Managed services, Facility Management/Helpdesk, Storage

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Acme Digitek Solutions

{

Headquartered Lucknow Branches 8 Employees 95 Key Executives Amit Srivastava, Director ; P.K. Kulshrestha, Director-HR and Customer Relations Key Principals HP, Cisco, Digilink, Microsoft, Schneider, Emerson, Honeywell Key Technologies Security, Networking, Servers, Cloud computing, Enterprise applications, Managed services, Printers and managed print services, Storage

Ajit Mittal Managing Director

A

GOOD BUSINESS is a combination of persistence, perfection, patience and prioritization. Displaying these traits is Lucknow-based Acme Digitek as it identified its strengths and weaknesses in order to position itself better in the market.

It developed an ERP application, aDAMS (Acme Development Authority Management System), for development authorities. The application allows for the complete automation in the functioning of urban development processes.

Acme Digitek evaluated several 28

INDIAN CHANNELWORLD JULY 2014

cloud offerings from different vendors on IaaS, PaaS, private and public cloud and then decided to host it on Windows Azure Cloud, on which it has been successfully running the application for over one year.

It also invested in building several other verticals such as IP video surveillance on wireless, software video conferencing, android tabs, POS devices, security systems and BMS. The company has managed to succeed in doing a substantial amount of business in each of these areas.

Ingenious

Strategy

It developed an ERP application for development authorities. It also evaluated several cloud offerings for different vendors.

ACPL Systems Vishal Bindra CEO

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ITH THE vision of building customer relationships and not just closing sales, ACPL Systems, a Delhi-based niche security solution provider, did something extraordinary: It acquired a startup. This helped the company build its services around data security and data loss prevention (DLP).

ACPL empowered its customers with deep engagement plans by strengthening its services and consulting. The company realized the need to tweak its sales strategy and shifted its focus from product selling to a more consultation-

and-solution approach. Since it wanted to increase its involvement with the business side of IT, it used to straightforward mantra: Work more closely with existing customers rather than invest resources in adding new accounts.

The better part of last year’s revenue came from its existing customer base.

The strategy worked as customers began to feel the benefits of continued their relationship with the company.

ACPL used in-house capabilities and its knowledge base to build customer relations and increase business at the same time, and that is a winning formula.

Ingenious Strategy

It acquired a startup because it wanted to build its services around data security and data loss prevention.

Headquartered Gurgaon Branches 4 Employees 75 Key Executives Sukhpal Singh Sandhu, Business Head, Jitender Singh, Head Finance Key Principals McAfee, Websense, Fortinet, Palo Alto Networks, Check Point, Juniper, SafeNet, F5 Key Technologies Security, Networking, Virtualization, Storage Focus Verticals Telecom, Government, IT/ITeS, Manufacturing, BFSI

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SPECIAL AWARD

Adit Microsys

DATACENTER

Biren Shah Managing Director

A

HMEDABAD-BASED ADIT Microsys dedicated itself to developing effective outsourcing partnerships with its clients.

The company offers a wide range of services including onsite consulting and development, offshore software development, product lifecycle management application development, mobile consulting, Web design, license optimization and database management services.

Playing to its strengths worked pretty well for Adit Microsys; the proof is the way in which it

increased its revenues. It saw significant growth in two areas—its Oracle business for the Gujarat government, and its business working on integrated projects in social sectors like health.

The solution provider helps clients rapidly re-engineer their business processes and stay flexible so that it can change in line with a volatile environment. Adit Microsys also guides its customers and presents them with diverse growth opportunities for expanding into uncharted territories.

Ingenious Strategy

It saw significant growth in two areas—its Oracle business for the Gujarat government, and working on integrated projects in social sectors.

{

Headquartered Ahmedabad Employees 50 Key Executive Satyarth Srivastava, Director Key Principals Oracle, Microsoft, Symantec, Adobe, Kaspersky Key Technologies Security, Cloud computing, Datacenter solutions, Virtualization, Facility Management/Helpdesk, Storage Focus Verticals Infrastructure, Government, IT/ITeS, Manufacturing, Mining/Oil/Gas, BFSI, Healthcare/Pharma

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Albion Infotel Sanjeev Gupta Chairman and Managing Director

T

products and service on time and to meet customer expectations is an important gauge against which a company is assessed. It’s also gotten harder to do as customers become more demanding. Dedication to provision and quality gives rise to corporate reliability and, in the end, is how good companies become great.

Albion Infotel has always known that a good business is judged by its ability to deliver. Thus, the Delhibased organization started concenO DELIVER

trating on enterprise customers in the United Kingdom, the United States, and, of course, India, using a cloud platform and managed services. This helped the company reduce costs and open itself to new markets.

The rationale behind this initiative is to exploit the platform which the company created for customer businesses and to deal with SME clients.

In addition to its expertise at working with leading technologies and software applications, Albion Infotel provides customized services that staunchly follow industry standards.

Ingenious Strategy

It started concentrating on enterprise customers for cloud computing and managed services platform, in locations like UK, USA and India.

{

Headquartered New Delhi Branches 4 Employees 33 Key Executives Ravinder Vaswan, CTO and President; Atul Tiwari, VP-International Business Key Principals Cisco, Microsoft, HP, Oracle, IBM, EMC2, Amdocs Key Technologies Cloud computing, Managed services Focus Verticals Auto/Logistics, IT/ITeS, Manufacturing, BFSI

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Allied Digital Services

{

Headquartered Mumbai Employees 3,000 Key Executive Sanjiv Patki, COO Key Principals HP, Huawei, Cisco, Amazon Web Services, Verint, Lenovo, Microsoft Key Technologies Security, Networking, Servers, Cloud computing, Virtualization, Managed services, Facility Management/ Helpdesk, Storage Focus Verticals Government, Manufacturing, Media, BFSI, Healthcare/Pharma

Paresh Shah Global CEO

M

UMBA I-BASED ALLIED

Digital Services built ADiTaaS, an in-house developed tools platform, to add value to its customer services.

To sustain technological growth, the solution provider strategically pushed itself hard into the area of cloud computing. ADiTaaS is built on the company’s proprietary integrated service delivery framework, and its key objective is to bring standardized processes, comprehensive asset controls, strong-, adaptive-, and integrationfriendly architectures, rapidly

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configurable and customizable layouts and workf lows in a single ‘IT Service-in-a-Box’. For many customers, that’s exactly the sort of offering they are looking for.

This will considerably reduce the organization’s IT management costs. Currently, ADiTaaS is supporting one lakh concurrent users. The company also became the consulting partner for Amazon Web Services.

Allied Digital Services helps clients overcome challenging environments by helping them make better IT decisions.

Ingenious

Strategy

It focused on customer service and strategically pushed itself in the cloud computing domain. It also became the consulting partner for Amazon Web Services.

Archon Consulting Systems Sachin S. Rao Managing Director and CEO

A

backed by concrete plans, is pretty much a fool-proof way to achieve growth. It definitely worked for Bangalore-based Archon Consulting Systems, when it moved its focus from a vendor-productcentric go-to-market (GTM) strategy to a completely account-centric and customers-first GTM. It also increased focus on pitching solutions around virtualization, and on client computing solutions. Archon Consulting Systems also started selling packaged solutions.

CLEAR VISION,

The effort of investing in market research and working closely with its principals to identify early adopters of data analytics, resulted in the company being part of the Hadoop cluster in two customer locations.

Archon Consulting Systems made a significant investment in skilling and certifying its sales, pre-sales, and services team to help them understand and better pitch various back-up technologies, which typically involve long sales cycles. With this, it proved that long sales cycles do not equal to poor results.

Ingenious Strategy

It focused on an account-centric and customer-first goto-market strategy. It also emphasized on virtualization and client computing solutions, and started selling packaged solutions.

{

Headquartered Bangalore Branches 1 Employees 25 Key Executives Ramanujam S., Director; Prakash R., Director Key Principals HP, VMware, Symantec, Microsoft, Cisco, NetApp, Hitachi Data Systems Key Technologies Datacenter solutions, Managed services Focus Verticals Infrastructure, Government, IT/ITeS, Manufacturing, BFSI, Healthcare/ Pharma

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SPECIAL AWARD CLOUD

Aryan Computers & Peripherals

Sandeep Jain Director

A

GOOD BUSINESS leader envi-

sions something, articulates it, passionately owns it, and relentlessly drives it to completion. Sandeep Jain, partner at Aryan Computers & Peripherals, walked on the same path and succeeded in transforming the company from a boxpusher to a complete solution provider.

Kanpur-based solution provider, Aryan Computers & Peripherals focused more on software and ITeS and collaborated with an IBM cloud offering, SoftLayer. The company strengthened its relationship with a key ven-

dor, which allowed it to offer cloud services to its customers, a move that many of its peers had not thought of.

It also made a significant investment in rebranding itself and on social marketing through TSL, a Pune-based company, a strategy that increased its turnover.

With the assurance of a sustained top and bottom line growth, Aryan Computers & Peripherals took these initiatives that helped the company witness a quantum leap in business, something that would not have been possible through conventional growth strategies.

Ingenious Strategy

It focused on domains like software and ITeS. It also collaborated with IBM’s cloud offering, SoftLayer.

{

Headquartered Kanpur Branches 1 Employees 50 Key Executive Yogesh Agarwal, Partner Key Principals IBM, Lenovo, Cisco, Motorola, Microsoft, Cambium, Cyberoam, Airtel, TVS, VMware, V-Guard, Adobe Key Technologies Security Networking, Servers, Cloud computing, Virtualization, Storage

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Ashtech Infotech

HALL OF FAME

Saurin Shah Managing Director

D

and services while focusing on integrating the same with existing technologies and providing the required automation to customers to help them achieve their business objectives, has definitely worked for Mumbai-based solution provider Ashtech Infotech.

With the ability to see opportunities where others don’t, Ashtech’s major growth came from an increased focus on professional services, infrastructure management ELI V ER I NG PRODUCTS

Headquartered Mumbai Employees 263 Key Executives Vinod Menon, JMD and CTO; B. Shankar, Director Key Principals Oracle, HP, IBM, EMC, Hitachi Data Systems, NetApp, VMware, Microsoft, Dell, Cisco, Lenovo Key Technologies Security, Networking, Servers, Cloud computing, Datacenter solutions, UC/AV/Collaboration, Virtualization, Managed services, Facility management/Helpdesk, Storage

services, datacenter consulting and build services. In terms of investing in Oracle products and solutions, the company has some major wins. Besides, it also recruited smart personnel with MBAs. The company went against conventional wisdom and used micromanagement as a strategy, and this helped it to grow its market share in small and medium businesses.

It resulted in revenue f low from clients in multiple sectors and the company grew by 32 percent in the last fiscal.

Ingenious

Strategy

It shifted its focus towards professional services, infrastructure management services, datacenter consulting and build services.

{ JULY 2014

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B4B IT Solutions

{

Headquartered Hyderabad Branches 4 Employees 23 Key Executives Brajesh Kumar Singh, Director; Hari Shankar PD Singh, Head Technical Key Principals Microsoft, Cisco, HP, IBM, Dell, Schneider, Digilink, Tyco, Ruckus, Fortinet, Cyberoam, McAfee Key Technologies Security, Networking, Servers, Datacenter solutions, UC/AV/ Collaboration, Facility Management/ Helpdesk, Printers and managed print services, Storage

Suresh Prasad Singh CEO and Co-founder

I

F ONE wants to stand out, one has to be willing to take the risk of doing things differently.

B4B IT Solutions knew this well and thus, strategically positioned itself as a system integrator in the structured cabling industry and acquired profitable margins.

Growing at a rate of 33 percent, the renewable energy sector is one of the fastest growing sectors in India. B4B IT Solutions approached the top key consumer players with the support of its vendor partner. As a result 36

INDIAN CHANNELWORLD JULY 2014

of this strategy, it managed to successfully get a POC and product evaluation done by the Greenko Group from Hyderabad.

It deployed its best engineers to target the market and applied best industry practices, because of which, it was able to reap tangible benefits and reduce operational costs.

With a proven track record in providing IT solutions and services, B4B IT Solutions has the right set of people, skills, solutions and technologies to meet the individual needs of its clients.

Ingenious Strategy

It strategically positioned itself as a system integrator and approached the top players in the renewable energy sector.

Binary Systems Edward Jeevan Director

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E ALL know that a man

cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore. Bangalore-based solution provider, Binary Systems, did that when it waded deeper into existing accounts with a major focus on green IT, saving power and saving space.

Started in 1986 as an elite partner for Wipro, the company has today moved out of its traditional cabling business, and has shifted focus to consulting and services. This saved a lot of costs and manpower.

By ensuring its customer got what they wanted, Binary Systems managed to bag more business. It made a strong move towards green IT and has also developed better internal expertise to back its efforts.

Today, Binary Systems is reaching a level where it no more falls back on its vendors for any kind for postsales su pport.

With an educated team, opportunities have opened up for the company to bag opportunities that it didn’t have earlier.

Ingenious Strategy

It focused on existing accounts, green IT and consulting services.

{

Headquartered Bangalore Employees 110 Key Executives Vidya H. Shetty, Managing Director; Harish Kumar Shetty, Chairman Key Principals IBM, Lenovo, Cyberoam, D-Link, Symantec, Microsoft, VMware, Lexmark, Raritan, HP, Emerson, Check Point, Axis, Milestone Key Technologies Security, Networking, Servers, Cloud computing, Virtualization, Managed services, Facility management/ Helpdesk, Printers and Managed Print Services, Storage

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Bodhtree Consulting Rama Krishna SVP-Global Sales

G

ROWTH IS never by mere

chance; it is the result of forces working together. Bodhtree Consulting, a Hyderabadbased global IT consulting and product engineering services provider, has maintained a consistent YoY growth by never shying away from competition and never leaving its business up to chance.

Bodhtree Consulting invested in Singapore operations to land better business opportunities and within six months, the company was able to access multiple accounts in cloud com-

puting, analytics, and the integration space. Targeting new vertical domains like healthcare and life sciences, and the government, helped augmented its growth in the current fiscal year.

The solution provider believed that better skills sets on its part will always result in better solutions to customers, and that’s why it invested nearly Rs 2 crore in people, processes, and IP solutions.

Bringing in the right global leaders and banking on internal domain consultants, Bodhtree overcame its initial challenges regarding target areas.

Ingenious Strategy

It invested in Singapore operations and in untapped markets to secure more business. It also started new vertical domains like healthcare and life sciences.

{

Headquartered Hyderabad Branches 8 Employees 850 Key Executives Pal Natarajan, CEO; Kiran Kumar Naik, Head-India Sales Key Principals Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Salesforce.com, Informatica Key Technologies Cloud, Enterprise apps, Virtualization, BI and analytics, Managed services Focus Verticals Infrastructure, Auto/Logistics, Education/ Nonprofit, Govt, IT/ITeS, Manufacturing, Media, BFSI, Healthcare/Pharma

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C.I. Infotech Vineet Singh Panwar Vice President-Sales and Operations

C

.I. INFOTECH’S winning strategy was to increase its focus on service projects which helped it increase its bottom line by almost 40 percent.

C.I. Infotech majorly started working on cloud services after partnering with Efficloud, a brand initiative by HP. It closed one of the biggest deals for Efficloud with an MNC where the company’s complete retail application was moved from an in-house datacenter to a cloud.

Though it’s headquartered in New Delhi, C.I. Infotech enjoys a

Headquartered New Delhi Branches 2 Employees 200 Key Executives Irvinder Singh, Director; Praveen Gupta, General Manager-Service and Procurement Key Principals HP, Emerson, Microsoft, WatchGuard, Symantec, Trend Micro, McAfee, Cisco, Red Hat Key Technologies Security, Networking, Servers, Virtualization, Facility Management/ Helpdesk, Printers and managed print services, Storage

nationwide footprint. The spirit of the organization is embedded in its principles of customer-centric approach, a fixation for quality, and its rich partnerships.

It also created extensive reporting processes for its sales team and followed it up with regular and periodic monitoring.

Currently, it has started working more closely with OEMs to ensure maximum profits and growth in this financial year. This has helped them in directly getting bottom line revenues from new clients.

Ingenious Strategy

It started working on cloud services to open up new business opportunities. It also increased its focus on bottom line through service projects.

{ JULY 2014

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SPECIAL AWARD DATACENTER

Cache Peripherals

{

Headquartered Hyderabad Branches 2 Employees 111 Key Executive Srinivas Gumidelli, MD; K.V.N. Kumar, Manager-Finance Key Principals HP, Oracle, VMware, CA Technologies, Radware Key Technologies Security, Networking, Servers, Cloud computing, Enterprise applications, Virtualization, Managed services, Printers and managed print services, Storage

Sailesh Gumidelli Director

H

Y DER A BA D -BASED CACHE Peripherals

built a strategy to implement and maintain a complete range of customer network infrastructure which includes core switching, routing, WAN acceleration, software defined networks, campus-wide networking, campus-wide wireless connectivity, and complete network security.

At the same time, the company also created new business opportunities at within its existing customer base and won over 10 sizable deals—along with 40

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the confidence and the loyalty of its customers.

Cache Peripherals’ magic formula didn’t end there. Cache Peripherals also collaborated with other large system integrators to capitalize on mutual strengths and work on multi-location projects.

According to the company’s executives, acquiring and retaining a certified support team was the most crucial challenge for the company. It put employee satisfaction as a priority and moved to a state-of-the-art office to keep up the motivation.

Ingenious Strategy

It focused on implementing and maintaining complete network infrastructure.

It extracted newer business opportunities from its existing customer base.

HALL OF FAME

CCS Computers

Pradeep Johri VP-Sales

W

HEREVER THERE is risk,

there lurks opportunity, and wherever there is opportunity, there lurks risk.

The two are inseparable. That didn’t stop Delhi-based CCS Computers from taking the risk of expanding its business by adding a new vertical: Information security solution.

The company specifically focused on the banking segment and has successfully executed many projects in the above domains in the last fiscal.

It extended its services related to sales and consulting, auditing, and

VA/PT, giving its customers a single point of contact, which resulted in steady flow of orders from public sector companies and other referral business. CCS also strengthened its Mumbai and Bangalore operations to better focus on banking.

The company invested in manpower, skill enhancement, and infrastructure, which has definitely resulted in tangible benefits in terms of new projects. CCS stepped away from small businesses like dealing in PCs and laptops and focused more on the enterprise segment.

Ingenious Strategy

The company shifted its focus to information security assurance services and paid attention to its banking segment.

{

Headquartered New Delhi Branches 65 Employees 438 Key Executives Rajesh Bhatia, MD; Tarun Malik, Vice President-Projects Key Principals Dell, Hitachi Data Systems, HP, IBM, Fujitsu, EMC, Cisco, APC, Emerson, Red Hat, Oracle, Microsoft, Symantec, Quest Software, CA Technologies, Citrix, VMware, Cyberoam, Websense, Array Networks, WatchGuard

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CDP India

SPECIAL AWARD STORAGE

{

Headquartered Mumbai Branches 5 Employees 110 Key Executives Ankit Desai, Director; Zameer Syed, Director Key Principals Lenovo, IBM, HP, Dell, Microsoft, D-Link, APC Key Technologies Security, Servers, Cloud computing, Datacenter solutions, Mobility, Virtualization, Managed services, Facility Management/Helpdesk, Printers and managed print services, Storage

Nikesh Sakaria Managing Director

W

ITH THE vision to build expertise around niche, high-value solutions in the finance sector, CDP India enriched its portfolio by expanding its product line. It offered customized products for a large swathe of industries and launched two new software products (using a SaaS model) inspired from cloud computing—1MarketView and 1ConsoleView.

Revisiting its existing products and services and providing Free Trade Warehousing Zone (FTWZ) facilities were the key contributors 42

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to the organization’s profit growth.

FTWZ helped the company save costs regarding customers and facilitate large enterprise orders. With this on board, CDP can now independently fulfill overseas commitments.

Transforming an internal warehouse into a quality check center helped it improve its efficiency. This also helped in reducing its implementation cycle time and servicing machines. The company’s focus is to become a complete end-to-end solution provider along with becoming a onestop shop for any customer.

Ingenious Strategy

It expanded its product line and rolled out two new software products in the market.

It also worked on providing Free Trade Warehousing Zone facilities.

SPECIAL AWARD CLOUD

Central Data Systems

Kota Subramanya Director

W

ITHOUT CHANGE, there is no innovation, no creativity and no incentive for improvement. Those who initiate change have an opportunity to fare better. That’s why Bangalorebased Central Data Systems underwent the painstaking process of doing market research to expand its portfolio and incorporate more relevant products and solutions.

Central Data Systems had a twopronged strategy. It expanded the scope of its offerings, and also added other advanced service

offerings for customers. Second, it acquired three new networking specializations—borderless, visualization and collaboration.

At the same time, Central Data Systems ensured it had a greater impact on its customers by engaging more deeply with them. And the company still found the time to add new customers for higher profitability.

Finally, it make huge investments on skills enhancement, certification and process optimization within the organization, which provided it with greater productivity per person.

Ingenious Strategy

It expanded the scope of its engagement with customers by following a breadth and depth approach.

It also focus on skills enhancement and process optimization.

{

Headquartered Bangalore Branches 4 Employees 65 Key Executive Suresh H.R., Director Key Principals Cisco, APC, Schneider, HP, Citrix, VMware, EMC, Hitachi Data Systems, Microsoft Key Technologies Security, Networking, Servers, Cloud computing, Datacenter solutions, UC/AV/ Collaboration, Virtualization, Managed services

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Compusoft Devesh Aggarwal Managing Director and CEO

A

SLOWDOWN IS a great time to

change course and innovate.

Thane-based Compusoft used this insight and profited.

Last fiscal, during a slowdown in the market, customer payments became irregular. The company realized this condition and analyzed its internal strengths and opportunities that could be used to overcome the situation.

Compusoft decided to add new product technologies to its basket and started advising its customers on security solutions from Symantec and McAfee. With cloud technologies

getting more and more mainstream, it also focused on cloud services for Microsoft. The company plans to add more cloud solutions to its kitty in the future.

The solution provider identified its lack of activity in the international market and decided to invest in resources this fiscal so as to enter certain targeted market in the following years.

Compusoft believes in being competent and resourceful, making it one of the most dynamic and highly-adaptable solution providers in the market.

Ingenious Strategy

It analyzed its strengths and opportunities and decided to focus on security solutions from Symantec and McAfee.

{

Headquartered Thane Branches 3 Employees 40 Key Executive Shiv Choudhry, Technical Director Key Principals Microsoft, Symantec Key Technologies Security, Cloud computing, Enterprise applications, Mobility Focus Verticals Infrastructure, Education/Nonprofit, IT/ ITeS, Manufacturing, BFSI, Healthcare/ Pharma

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SPECIAL AWARD CLOUD

Computers Network & Telecom

Dipesh Mangla Director

U

SING BOTH capex and opex

models, Computers Network & Telecom created a customer engagement model, which it believes, will guarantee growth opportunities for a minimum of five years from now.

The company formed a hardcore pre-sales team that was an expert on emerging technologies and was responsible for gathering information on the current IT infrastructure situation of its customers along with their pain points. Computers Network &

Telecom expanded its solution portfolio to include new technologies like surveillance, cloud computing, and enterprise mobility. It also joined hands with independent software vendors for bundled offerings like IPBX Server-20/50/100 seats solution and for mailing solutions for 100, 200 and 500 users on different platforms.

The company also invested in setting up a demo/PoC center consisting hardware, trainers and certified skilled resources who could provide the customer with a live picture of a proposed solution.

Ingenious Strategy

It formed a pre-sales team which was wellversed in emerging technologies. It also set up a PoC center that gives customers a first-hand feel of its solutions.

Headquartered New Delhi Branches 2 Employees 65 Key Executive A.S. Mangla, Director Key Principals IBM, Symantec, VMware, Microsoft, Juniper, HP Key Technologies Security, Networking, Servers, Cloud, Datacenter solutions, Mobility, UC/ AV/Collaboration, Virtualization, BI and analytics, Managed services, Facility Management/Helpdesk, Printers and managed print services, Storage

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D M Systems

{

Headquartered New Delhi Branches 1 Employees 36 Key Executive Amit Bajaj, Director-Technical Key Principals Dell SonicWall, Cyberoam, Trend Micro, IBM, Dell, VMware, Citrix Key Technologies Security, Servers, Virtualization, Facility Management/Helpdesk, Storage Focus Verticals Infrastructure, Education/Nonprofit, Government, IT/ITeS, Manufacturing, Healthcare/Pharma

D.K. Bajaj Managing Director

S

in a cycle—growth and contraction, balancing and unbalancing—all while you’re encountering hurdles. Delhibased D M Systems is one of the very few security partners that was able to overcome those hurdles by focusing on information data security that works with almost all leading security OEMs. D M Systems use to focus primarily on the private sector but when it saw a market slowdown, it shifted its focus to the government sector last year. It also

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UCCESS WORKS

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compensated its sales by upgrading its existing customer base with either replaced technology or products.

The solution provider upgraded its sales team and informed the customers about its centrallymanaged solutions for security, virtualization, DLP and server protection.

Another thing that added to the success of this company is that when everyone was concentrating on services maintenance, D M Systems decided to go for solutions.

This foresight helped it gain value.

Ingenious Strategy

It started focusing on the government sector due to a slowdown in the private sector.

It also upgraded its existing customer base.

Datasoft Network Solutions

{

Headquartered Mumbai Employees 85 Key Executives Blossom Nandi, Director; Mayur Trivedi, VP-Sales Key Principals IBM, Cisco, GajShield, Kaspersky, NetApp, EMC, Dell Key Technologies Security,, Networking, Servers, Cloud, Datacenter, Enterprise applications, Mobility, UC/AV/Collaboration, Virtualization, BI and analytics, Managed services, Facility management/Helpdesk, Printers and managed print services, Storage

Irvin Pinto Managing Director

B

Y EXPECTING the best, preparing for the worst, and capitalizing on opportunities, a leader can achieve profitable growth. Mumbai-based Datasoft Network Solutions realized the importance of the same and collaborated with storage giants NetApp and EMC to improve its margins.

Since profitability is always an issue in the IT hardware industry, it understood the great demand for storage and made its presence felt in that domain. The strength of its technical team allows it

to meet new customers, address their pain points, and implement the right solutions.

The company’s branches in Pune and Ahmedabad gathered more business opportunities from their clients who were sourcing products from other suppliers in those regions.

An investment was made in IBM entry-level storage which ultimately resulted in a good ROI. Its management also constantly motivates its sales and services teams.

Presently, SMBs and mid-markets contribute to over 60 percent of the company’s revenues.

Ingenious

Strategy

It foresaw the increasing demand for storage technology and tied up with NetApp and EMC to improve its margins.

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Dev Information Technology Pranav Pandya Founder Director and Chairman

D

EV INFORMATION Technology identified new business opportunities in new markets, partnered with other businesses, found new ways to expand its reach to existing markets, products and services, and then tried to exploit these opportunities to bring in more revenue for the company.

With national branches in Rajasthan, Maharashtra, and Madhya Pradesh, and international ones in destinations like Australia, New Zealand, West Indies, the UK, the USA, and Canada, this Ahmedabad-based com-

pany has widely expanded its managed information technology services and solutions.

It also broadened its managed services and cloud offerings portfolio with the acquisition of a North-American company.

The solution provider standardized its e-governance solution, which resulted in the reduction of its government clients’ overall costs.

The company also helped in efficiently executing projects with its 17-years of experience in the domain of e-governance.

Ingenious

Strategy

It went out to new locations and identified better business opportunities. It also standardized its e-governance solution to reduce overall costs.

{

Headquartered Ahmedabad Branches 16 Employees 952 Key Executives Jaimin Shah, Managing Director; Vishal Vasu, Director and CTO Key Principals Microsoft, Intel, VMware, SafeScrypt, Adobe, Oracle, Symantec Key Technologies Cloud computing, Virtualization, BI and analytics, Managed services, Facility Management/Helpdesk, Printers and managed print services, Storage

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Dhanush Infosol Anil Kumar T.V. CEO

S

a solution provider, Bangalore-based Dhanush Infosol has come a long way.

From a one-man company, the organization today boasts of an employee count of over 45.

Dhanush Infosol’s vision is backed by a strategy of globalization, convergence, and diversification. Along with IT, it provides a platform for customer care and believes in finding its own success with the customers’.

Dhanush Infosol had an idea of providing a virtual CIO service to small and medium businesses within its TARTED AS

Headquartered Bangalore Employees 45+ Key Executives Naveen Kumar K.R., CTO; Srinidhi K.S., Solution Consultant Key Principals D-Link, Digisol, Cisco, Schneider, AMP, Cyberoam, Fortinet, Kaseya, Microsoft, HP, IBM, Lenovo, Dell, Quick Heal, Intel, Tally, Airtel, Apple, Wipro, ATEN, Avitron, Honeywell, Hikvision, Essl, ASUS, NetGear, Iomega, Acronis, Zimbra, VMware, Netrack, Anexgate, Panasonic, NetApp, Capture, Legrand, CP Plus, Citrix, NetConnect

customer base, and it strategized and mapped its resources accordingly.

During the slowdown, Dhanush Infosol took its vCIO and IMS initiatives to international markets, and signed joint ventures with companies in Saudi Arabia, Australia and Singapore.

It also discovered new market segments like manufacturing, pharma and health care, retail, BFSI and renewable energy. To prevent any problems during implementation, Dhanush Infosol makes sure it tests its solutions by simulating the client environment.

Ingenious

Strategy

It introduced virtual CIO service and took it and IMS to new geographic markets and new verticals.

{ JULY 2014

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SPECIAL AWARD SECURITY

Dynacons Systems & Solutions

{

Headquartered Mumbai Branches 10 Employees 518 Key Executives Shirish Anjaria, CMD; Dharmesh S. Anjaria, Executive Director Key Principals IBM, Lenovo, Dell, HP, Apple, Cisco, Microsoft, Oracle, NetMagic, Symantec, McAfee, Airtel, Ruckus, Baracuda Networks, Aruba Networks, Juniper, VMware, Samsung, Panasonic, Axis, Riverbed, EMC, Citrix, WhatsUp Gold, Sony, SYSTIMAX Solutions, Digisol, Red Hat

Parag J. Dalal Executive Director

C

ONFOR MITY IS known as the jailor of freedom and the enemy of growth. With this thought mind, Mumbai-based solution provider, Dynacons Systems & Solutions, broadened its horizons in services. To ease IT infrastructure management, it built datacenters that included IT and non-IT components, and managed IT services.

The company undertook several BFSI and pharmaceutical datacenter projects including for State Bank of India, Bank of India, Central Bank of India, CGG and Glenmark Phar50

INDIAN CHANNELWORLD JULY 2014

maceuticals. It also won datacenter managed services business deals for Maharashtra State Co-operative Bank against a multi-company pitch which included companies like Wipro and Trimax.

The solution provider, last year, focused on the growth of its system integration and managed services business that helped the company bag huge SI and services projects.

Dynacons Systems & Solutions also invested in training and certifications of its manpower and continuously came up with strategies for competency and technology enhancement.

Ingenious

Strategy

It widened its presence in services. It built datacenters that included IT and non-IT components and managed IT services to ease infrastructure management.

E-Connect Solutions Jaimin Patel Director

D

ON’T LET where you start

dictate where you end. That piece of wisdom is exemplified by E-Connect Solutions, an Udaipur-based system integrator that went beyond not only the bounds of its city, but also of India in search of business.

The company opened an overseas unit, E-Connect Solutions FZC in Sharjah, UAE, to address the requirements of system integration in the Gulf. This helped the company extend its reach to new domains. It bagged orders worth $1 million (about Rs 590

lakh) from two prestigious customers in the Gulf.

An investment of approximately 150,000 AED (about Rs 24 lakh) in capex was made for opening E-Connect Solutions in the FZC unit. A good employee base lent solidity to the organization, which helped it improve its bottom line.

It also went sub-contracting with large partners like IL&FS and KPIT Technologies to reach new markets within the country with less financial requirements, thereby rotating working capital multiple times.

Ingenious

Strategy

It opened an overseas unit to address system integration requirements. It also sub-contracted with larger partners within the country to reach new markets.

{

Headquartered Udaipur, Rajasthan Employees 499 Key Executives Alka Bhatia, Marketing Coordinator-E Governance; M.K. Agarwal, Chairman Key Principals HP, Oracle, IBM, Apple, Microsoft, D-Link, Cisco, Cyberoam, Esri Key Technologies Networking, Datacenter solutions, Virtualization, BI and analytics, Managed services Focus Verticals Auto/Logistics, Telecom, Government, IT/ITeS, Healthcare/Pharma

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SPECIAL AWARD CLOUD

Emicro Data Technologies

Sanjiv Khushu CEO and Director

L

EADERS ESTABLISH a vision for the future and set a strategy for getting there; they cause change. They motivate and inspire others to go in the right direction. One of such visionaries is Sanjiv Khushu, director of Delhibased Emicro Data Technologies.

Emicro Data Technologies brought on board skilled manpower to explore new geographical areas such as Africa, US and Dubai. Owing to its skill-based approach, the solution provider is quickly growing in the markets of Africa and SAARC.

After sensing its potential, the company made huge investments in the field of cloud computing, especially in workload management. It also standardized its cloud offerings, providing customers with a f lexible and automated service offering.

Emicro Data Technologies has always believed in the importance of understanding a business issue first and then finding a solution, which, more often than not, is based on its knowledge of business operations and its exceptional IT skills.

Ingenious

Strategy

It adopted virtualization and cloud computing, providing customers with flexible and automated service offerings.

{

Headquartered New Delhi Employees 25 Key Executives Vineet Mittal, Director; Tarun Bhateja, SBU Head Key Principals NetApp, Citrix, IBM, Hitachi Data Systems, Microsoft, EMC Key Technologies Networking, Servers, Cloud computing, Virtualization, Storage Focus Verticals Infrastructure, Telecom, Government, IT/ITeS, Manufacturing, Mining/Oil/ Gas, BFSI

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INDIAN CHANNELWORLD JULY 2014

Esconet Technologies Santosh Agrawal Director

A

CUSTOMER-CENTRIC BUSINESS will only have

one worry around profits: They will be embarrassingly large. For Esconet Technologies, a balance in hard work and fortune had a major impact on its growth during the last few quarters.

Esconet focused on its existing customer base and created solutions for them that were based on their business needs and revolved around technologies which were cost effective and gave impressive returns. That ticks off almost

every box on a CIO’s checklist.

Realizing the importance of ‘what the customer wants’, the company started contacting each customer separately and offered them solutions.

This includes design, management, and implementation of numerous endto-end services for enterprises of all capacity in diverse sectors.

Esconet Technologies effectively comes in at this opportune juncture to value customer needs and provide quality services that will induce success and efficiency in its objectives.

Ingenious

Strategy

It started focusing deeper on its existing customer base and created cost-effective requirements around their business needs.

{

Headquartered New Delhi Employees 48 Key Executive Sunil Agrawal, Director Key Principals Intel, Cisco, VMware, EMC Key Technologies Security, Networking, Servers, Datacenter solutions, Virtualization, Facility Management/Helpdesk, Storage Focus Verticals Education/Nonprofit, IT/ITeS, Manufacturing, Mining/Oil/Gas

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Essenvision Software

{

Headquartered Mumbai Branches 1 Employees 27 Key Executives Ronny Ferrao, COO; Pallavi Tiwari, Relationship Manager-Enterprise Key Principals Websense, McAfee, Symantec, Radware, IBM, Kaspersky, Skybox, Palo Alto, Seclore Key Technologies Security, Storage Focus Verticals IT/ITeS, Manufacturing, BFSI, Healthcare/Pharma

Nityanand Shetty Managing Director

E

Software’s innovation lay in a strategy of improving the productivity of its existing team, and thereby the profitability of the company. By maintaining the number of employees, it ensured it didn’t increase its overheads.

Emerging from a tough last fiscal, the company decided to optimize the available resources. Execution of this strategy meant the company had to maintain its employee strength and thus, it ensured there was no additional burden on its bottom line. The team was incentivized for its performance.

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SSEN VISION

INDIAN CHANNELWORLD JULY 2014

This also helped the company weed out unnecessary expenses and loopholes in the functioning that existed in the last fiscal. These measures to make the company leaner and profitable had multiple benefits with clients, OEMs, and distributors as they gaining confidence on the company’s abilities.

The company implemented a system of continuous feedback from clients, OEMs, and distributors to keep itself on track. The results were visible with a large proportion of the bottom line and top line targets being met.

Ingenious

Strategy

Essen Vision Software found a way to better productivity with a team, enabling it produce results without adding overheads.

Esteem Infotech Prabhakar S. CEO

I

lot more expensive and time-consuming to look for new business than it is to cross-sell within existing clients. That’s probably why Bangalore-based solution provider Esteem Infotech started focusing more on upselling within its existing accounts.

The company also spread its wings within the security domain by associating with new OEMs and moved from application security solutions to perimeter security.

It applied this strategy without making extra investments; the seT’S A

nior-most technical team was given the responsibility of handling this department. The company’s management took the hard decision of laying off its entire team of sales executives because it wasn’t at par with the company’s standards. Those positions were filled with a 15-plus team of technical staff, who now face the customers directly.

Esteem provides total solutions through its hands-on experience of various technologies, thereby adding value to its customers with its services.

Ingenious

Strategy

The company focused on upselling within existing accounts and moved from perimeter security to application security.

{

Headquartered Bangalore Employees 22 Key Executives Kalyan Kumar, Head Security; Vinod Kumar, Head Sales Key Principals Intel, Cisco, VMware, EMC Key Technologies Security, Networking Focus Verticals Education/Nonprofit, Government, IT/ ITeS, Manufacturing, Mining/Oil/Gas

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Foetron

SPECIAL AWARD CLOUD

Sunny Sharma Co-Founder and CEO

T

grasped that the domestic market was a delicate blend of time, speed, and scale. So it decided to bank upon this opportunity. The company had learned a lot from its implementations on the cloud, mobile, and the solutions space. This favoured its move to automate and integrate mobility into its operations.

Looking to scale sustainably and tap into the growth space, Foetron has aligned its goals to focus primarily on small and medium businesses (SMBs). The company HE COMPANY

adopted a two-fold approach. The company created a new ecosystem surrounding its products and continued improving it. The Gurgaonbased company implemented a powerful digital campaign. Intelligent e-mailing system, remote delivery models, on-the-move office for the workforce were key initiatives undertaken by it.

The Foetron Learn and Grown (FLAG) program was a major initiative launched in campuses and targeted at the youth through which it gained visibility.

Ingenious

Strategy

The company concentrated on SMBs and chose to automate and integrate mobility into its operations which helped it get faster and leaner.

{

Headquartered Gurgaon Branches 2 Employees 26 Key Executives Pranay Mehrotra, Product Marketing Manager; Sudhir Sharma, CFO Key Principals Microsoft, Amazon Key Technologies Cloud computing, Datacenter solutions, Mobility, UC/AV/Collaboration, Managed services Focus Verticals Infrastructure, Auto/logistics, IT/ITeS, Manufacturing, Media

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INDIAN CHANNELWORLD JULY 2014

Fore Solutions Manu Mehta Director

F

came up with a complex but effective, three-pronged solution to tackle the slowdown of last fiscal. The Chandigarh-based company added video conferencing and IP surveillance to its solutions portfolio, focused on pushing products such as Brocade, and used the lead generation engines of its OEMs such as Ruckus, Brocade and NetApp. For video conferencing and IP surveillance sales, the company created a team to drive pre-sales and closures. Vendor relationships such as ORE SOLUTIONS

that with Brocade enabled Fore Solutions to offer excellent value propositions to its prospective customers and this resulted in better margins.

While the company had to make its significant investments initially to execute the strategy—the returns were massive, especially in the networking business, the wireless business, and in video conferencing and IP cameras’ sales.

The company also closed new deals and expanded its client base from the leads generated by the OEMs.

Ingenious

Strategy

It added VC and IP surveillance to its portfolio, focused on pushing new products, and used the lead generation engines of its OEMs.

{

Headquartered Chandigarh

Employees 55

Key Executives Rajesh Puri, Director; Sanjeev Mehta, Vice President Key Principals IBM, Brocade, Ruckus, Cyberoam, Hikvision, HP, NetApp, Cisco, VMware Key Technologies Security, Networking, Servers, Cloud computing, Datacenter solutions, Enterprise applications, UC/AV/Collaboration, Virtualization, Managed services, Facility Management/Helpdesk, Storage

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Fortune Grecells

{

Headquartered Mumbai Branches 1 Employees 28 Key Principals IBM, Microsoft, Intel, Gigabyte, Seagate, Western Digital Key Technologies Servers, Managed services, Facility Management/Helpdesk, Storage Focus Verticals Infrastructure, Education/Nonprofit, Manufacturing, Media, BFSI, Healthcare/Pharma

Kshitij M. Kotak Executive Director and Chief Product Innovator

T

HE BLACKBOX proved to be fortunate for Fortune Grecells. The company ventured into the enterprise segment to cater to a wider clientele by transforming the flagship Grecells data on-demand BLACKBOX into a product from a custom built system. This helped the Mumbai-based company to gain wider reach and entry into unexplored segments and verticals.

The company sponsored large-ticket events and adopted a dual strategy to propel growth.

On one end, it built connections 58

INDIAN CHANNELWORLD JULY 2014

with CIOs and IT leaders to build customized solution on BLACKBOX and on the other end, it set up a channel ecosystem to forward its goal of selling standardized products to address the SME markets. The company also used social media to create awareness and promote itself at very minimal costs.

The company constantly engages with channel partners to update them on the new product developments, features and arrange for experts to brief them about new marketing and sales strategies.

Ingenious

Strategy

It ventured into the enterprise segment to cater to a wider base by turning its flagship BLACKBOX into a product from a custombuilt system.

HALL OF FAME

Future Netwings Solutions

Jaideep Chakrabarti Managing Director

T

HE HIGHEST reward for a

man’s toil is not what he gets for it, but what he becomes by it. That’s true of Kolkatabased Future Netwings Solutions which provided services and support to Myanmar and Bangladesh, along with starting a separate division to offer solutions on big data and data analysis—and created a more valuable organization.

Although, it set up operations in Singapore just last year, the solution provider also realized the untapped demand in Myanmar, so it began to

provide end-to-end solutions. It also added Bangladesh, a logical extension of business since the company had already started off in Bhutan and Nepal.

Resources were invested in manpower, travelling, and setting up offices. While working closely with leading industry vendors, it continued to remain independent and consultative in its approach to ensure that best fit solutions to both its public and private sector clients. As a customer-centric organization, Future Netwings Solutions maintains a huge stock of spares for quick service turnaround.

Ingenious

Strategy

It started business operations in Myanmar and Bangladesh. It also started a division which offers solutions around big data and data analysis.

{

Headquartered Kolkata Branches 11 Employees 150 Key Executives Kunal Dutta, Head-Strategic Sales; Sandipan Dutta, Regional Head-Nepal Key Principals Cisco, Juniper, Tyco, Moxa, Citrix Key Technologies Security, Networking, Cloud computing, Datacenter solutions, Mobility, Virtualization, BI and analytics, Managed services, Facility Management/Helpdesk

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Futurenet Technologies L. Ashok Managing Director

C

HENNAI-BASED FUTURENET

Technologies started in 1996 as a small firm offering facility management services. Today, the company has come a long way, moving far beyond just system integration.

Transformation of managed services using the cloud was one of the ingenious strategies that helped Futurenet Technologies to witness a steady growth and build a strong clientele.

It started a brand, TechOnCloud, to offer new services like strategic consulting on cloud adoption, cloud migration and managed services on the

cloud. This new cloud offering greatly helped the company beef up its bottom line in the last fiscal.

It also observed that IT is a lifeline for businesses, even in upcountry markets, so decided to offer a niche solution like Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI). It bravely invested in this new segment during a year of slow economic growth.

Those investments paid off and helped the company to become a key player for a major VDI vendor in no time. It also built up its internal competencies.

Ingenious

Strategy

The company transformed the domain of managed services by using the cloud and started offering new services.

{

Headquartered Chennai Employees 160 Key Executives K. Tamizhmani, Business Head; M. Baskar, Chief Technology Officer Key Principals IBM, Cisco, Citrix, VMware, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, Acer Key Technologies Networking, Servers, Virtualization, Managed services, Storage Focus Verticals Education/Nonprofit, IT/ITeS, Manufacturing, Media, BFSI, Healthcare/Pharma

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Galaxy Office Automation Sanjay Patodia CEO

G

ALAXY OFFICE Automation planned a strategy that was both thrifty and still profitable. The company improved the efficiency of its sales unit and drove growth without incurring additional expenses by devising some strategies in the last fiscal.

New sales roles—called Solution Specialists—were created and these staffers drove sales around specific solution areas such as security, networking, and business intelligence.

To ensure quality standards were

maintained, a quality assurance division was created that monitored customer satisfaction with regards to service delivery. The department was placed directly under the direction of top management to reduce turnaround time.

No client wants to rely on a vendor without seeing tangible proof and the company reassured its clients—existing and potential—by letting them have a first-hand experience of over 15 solutions developed at the state-of-the-art Galaxy Technology Innovation Centre.

Ingenious

Strategy

The company improved the effectiveness of its sales unit and drove growth without incurring additional expenses.

{

Headquartered Mumbai

Branches 8

Employees 250 Key Executives Anoop Pai Dhungat, CMD; Anand Kekre, Director-Sales Key Principals EMC, IBM, HP, Lenovo, F5, VMware

Key Technologies Security, Networking, Servers, Cloud computing, Datacenter solutions, Mobility, UC/AV/Collaboration, Virtualization, BI and analytics, Managed services, Facility Management/Helpdesk, Storage

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GT Enterprises

{

Headquartered Bangalore Branches 1 Employees 61 Key Executive Geetha Taranath, MD Key Principals Wolfram Research, VMware, Digia, PGI, NVIDIA, EnterpriseDB Key Technologies Networking, Servers, Datacenter solutions, Mobility, Virtualization, Storage Focus Verticals Education/Nonprofit, Government, IT/ ITeS, BFSI

U.M. Taranath CEO

G

took a bold step and ventured into the HPC services market and collaborated with NVIDIA for its compute unified device architecture (CUDA) offerings. The company was quick to spot the enormous requirements and opportunities in the field and put its energies behind the opportunity.

The company noticed a gap between the academics and the industry’s requirements. It, therefore, recommended institutes to incorporate parallel computing

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T ENTER PR ISES

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using CUDA in the course syllabus.

The idea that technologies are interlinked drove the company to adopt new technologies such as cloud AWS, GPU, virtualization, GPU Test Drive to complement its CUDA offering. The company conducted workshops in engineering colleges and bagged orders. It promoted CUDA offerings in VMworld events in the US, SAARC nations, and the Middle East and bagged overseas clients.

Investments made on setting up HPC related in-house research resulted in increased sales.

Ingenious

Strategy

The company spotted an enormous opportunity in the supercomputer services market and collaborated with NVIDIA for its CUDA offerings.

Immunity Networks & Technologies Sumit Garg Managing Director

T

HERE ARE some companies that believe in being everything to everyone, and then there are companies like Immunity Networks & Technologies. This Mumbai-based company decided that focus was its best bet for growth. It’s a strategy that’s worked for many companies, and it worked for Immunity Networks & Technologies.

Immunity Networks & Technologies had a focused approach that enabled it to create a strong identity in a particular domain and it directed

all its internal and external components towards this goal.

One of the youngest companies to get an International Organization for Standardization (ISO) certification, the system integrator has always believed that quality is its differentiator.

The company shifted its entire focus from being an integrator to being a service provider. It provided core offerings to its customers and thus, improved its business opportunities.

The growth of this Mumbaibased company is proof that its strategy worked.

Ingenious

Strategy

Immunity Networks & Technologies created more focus and a stronger market identity for itself

{

Headquartered Mumbai Employees 50 Key Executives Dharmesh Relwani, Sales Manager; Chirag Morawala, Service Delivery Manager Key Principals Symantec, Cyberoam, Check Point, Sophos Key Technologies Security, Networking, Mobility, Managed services, Storage Focus Verticals Telecom, Government, IT/ITeS, Manufacturing, Mining/Oil/Gas, BFSI, Healthcare/Pharma

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Infinite Technologies

{

Headquartered Pune Employees 19 Key Executives Chandresh Vithlani, Partner; Gaurav Agarwal, Corporate-Sales Key Principals Intel, IBM, Lenovo, Microsoft, Cisco, Polycom, Supermicro Key Technologies Security, Networking, Servers, Datacenter, Facility Management/ helpdesk, Storage Focus Verticals Auto/Logistics, Education/Nonprofit, Government, IT/ITeS, Manufacturing, Media, Healthcare/Pharma

Manish Vithlani Managing Partner

W

ITH THE straight-forward approach of offering hardware solutions to its customers, Pune-based Infinite Technologies has bagged many business opportunities.

The solution provider entered into the HPC server solutions and storage market to expand its business with customized solutions from companies like Intel and Supermicro. It also concentrated on transforming its rental services with more products like servers, workstations, switches, and Microsoft licensing. Taking into account 64

INDIAN CHANNELWORLD JULY 2014

the changing IT scenario across the globe, Infinite Technologies invested in setting up of an in-house lab for its engineers so that they could get hands-on experience in all latest developments.

The solution provider arranges regular road shows on the latest technology trends and updates for its corporate clients. The company also organizes meets with systems integrators Seventy-five percent of its revenues now emerges from systems integration and components.

Ingenious

Strategy

It entered into the HPC server solutions and storage market to expand its business with customized solutions.

HALL OF FAME

Infobahn Technical Solutions

Rajeev Krishnaswamy Director

E

VERY SMART business needs at least has two key components— marketing and innovation.

Mumbai-based Infobahn Solutions used an innovative marketing strategy and that was to identify a few areas which required better focus that could help the company boost its revenues.

One of these areas was a digital signage practice. By understanding the nitty-gritties of the eco system, today Infobahn is one of the few system integrators in the country that has the capability and the skill to implement an end-to-end enter-

prise-class digital signage system. A huge amount was invested in equipment and software. It then gave its customers the choice of picking up only solutions that were best-suited for their respective requirements and that helped its sales bloom.

Infobahn Technical Solutions strategized and fought off the challenges posed by a slow economy by changing its focus from products to services.

It managed to bag customer wins despite tough economic times, even when many were unwilling to invest in newer services.

Ingenious

Strategy

The company better identified its focus areas and introduced a digital signage practice to boost its revenues.

{

Headquartered Mumbai Branches 4 Employees 55 Key Executives Anand Karapurkar, Director; Sagar Singh, Sales Head Key Principals HP, Samsung Key Technologies Networking, Servers, Virtualization, Facility Management/Helpdesk, Storage Focus Verticals Auto/Logistics, IT/ITeS, Manufacturing, BFSI

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Infotech Computers & Communications Harbhajan Singh Founder and CEO

T

HE KEY to success in business is to do what you do better, and to keep doing that. Keeping this in mind, Haryana-based Infotech Computers & Communications have been targeting ERP prospects and have begun to close orders.

The solution provider also realized the importance of offering consultancy in the SME segment and started to provide it, a move that resulted in 5.5 percent growth in the last fiscal. It then further boosted its bottom line with major cost cutting by lowering pre-sales visits and direct advertise-

ments. Also, by increasing its focus on iOS and Android with targeted executives, the bandwidth of the company improved.

Launch on January 2, 1986, Infotech Computers & Communication has been in business for over two decades and now supports more than 900 customers across North India.

It has kept pace with the evolving needs of its clients and the ever-changing IT industry. Infotech Computers & Communications measures its success only by the satisfaction level of its customers and associates.

Ingenious

Strategy

It targeted small and medium enterprises for its ERP offerings and consultancy business.

It also reduced presales visits and direct advertisements.

{

Headquartered Haryana Branches 2 Employees 21 Key Executives Sadhna, Finance; Harminder Singh, Manager Key Principals Apple, APC, IBM, HP, Lenovo, Cisco, D-Link, Molex, Microsoft Key Technologies Security, Networking, Servers, Datacenter, Enterprise applications, Mobility, Managed services, Printers and managed print services, Storage

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Innovative Telecom & Softwares Moin Shaikh Director

N

ECESSITY IS the mother of

invention and it was essential for Innovative Telecom & Softwares to devise a strategy to tackle the slowdown. It was concerned that the volatile economy was adversely impacting the company’s profitability.

It realized that it needed to innovate and find new ways of working to grow in a competitive and challenging market. The first step was to evaluate the company’s growth in terms of parameters like win revenue ratio, cost-effectiveness of sales strategies,

lead generation, finance control, target achievements, resource up-gradation, and scope for geographical expansion, among other things. It resolved to manage and develop company resources, and maintain strategic focus on growth.

It took on high-end projects that contributed to the company’s capital and helped its business grow. This strategy helped the company reach new customers. It also expanded its focus to major IT streams in order to grow its business. It did not compromise on customer satisfaction and this

Ingenious

Strategy

It tweaked its internal processes and focused only on projects that promised good returns and customer satisfaction.

{

Headquartered Surat Branches 4 Employees 135

Key Executives Mihir Chahwala, Director, Azim Shaikh, Director-F&A, Zaki Shaikh, eArchitect-IT enabled Infra Solutions Key Principals IBM, Lenovo, MS, Oracle, Verint System, VMware, TYCO Electronics, Cisco, Delta Electronics, Symantec

Key Technologies Security, Networking, Servers, Virtualization, Facility Management/ Helpdesk, Storage

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INSIGHT Business Machines

{

Headquartered Mumbai Branches 18 Employees 202 Key Executives Piyush Vibhakar, MD; Sanjeev Nimbkar, VP Key Principals Lenovo, IBM, HP, Microsoft, Extreme Networks, Huawei, Citrix Key Technologies Security, Networking, Servers, Cloud, Datacenter, UC/AV/Collaboration, Virtualization, Managed services, Facility Management, Printers and MSP, Storage

Neel Shah Chairman

N

EEL SHAH, chairman of Mumbai-based INSIGHT Business Machines, has always believed that successful warriors are nothing more than average men with laser-like focus. With that in mind, the solution provider made investments in infrastructure, sales, datacenter, and CRM and transitioned from being a box-pusher to being a solutions- and services-centric organization.

INSIGHT Business Machines also targeted energy-, transportand services-based organizations, which dramatically increased its 68

INDIAN CHANNELWORLD JULY 2014

revenues, and helped open new business units. It identified new markets and invested in setting up offices in new locations, which resulted in the growth of service revenues.

The company aims primarily at diversifying itself in the many arenas of digital information technology. It also sought to understand focused verticals and develop its technical competencies for targeted customers. This unique approach helped the company increase its foothold in services-based organizations and the power sector.

Ingenious

Strategy

It shifted its focus from product sales to business-solution sales.

It also targeted energy-, transport- and servicesbased organizations.

Intensity Global Technologies Aditya Narain Kakkar Director

I

NTENSITY GLOBAL Technologies

believes in technological innovation with rich user experience, meticulously laid-out processes, a value-based philosophy, and a highlyskilled and committed workforce.

In the last fiscal year, the solution provider used a strategy that focused on storage, virtualization, and the consolidation of compute that lowers the total cost of ownership to the customer.

Further, it also reduced the cost to customers through a strategy of consolidation of different application servers.

With this optimized use of resources,

cost was also cut in terms of power, cooling and space.

It moved up the value chain from being a key player in providing customized software solutions, to a solution provider offering integrated turnkey solutions in areas of telecom network integration and information technology-enabled services. The company took the initiative of better using the current infrastructure by reviewing its cloud strategy.

The company has also evolved into a private limited company, making its corporate ambitions clear to the market.

Ingenious

Strategy

It focused on storage, virtualization, and the consolidation of compute to reduce the total cost of ownership of its clients.

{

Headquartered New Delhi Branches 2 Employees 35 Key Executives Ranjan Pandita, Business Head Corporate; Ravinder Singh, VPGovernment and Defense Key Principals HP, Fortinet, ATEN, VMware Key Technologies Security, Networking, Servers, Datacenter solutions, Virtualization, Managed services, Facility Management/Helpdesk, Printers and managed print services, Storage

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InterCAD Systems Cinu P. Thomas Managing Director

I

specialized in providing niche solutions to the engineering and media Industry. It had expanded its portfolio to increase its turnover.

But it realized that it was missing a lot opportunities because it was not able to provide support for enterprise software solutions to its customers.

To amend that, the company started an enterprise solutions division by tying up with leading software and hardware solutions companies.

The rationale behind the initiative NTERCAD SYSTEMS

was to prepare the company to become a specialized system integrator for both niche applications like CAD as well as cater to enterprise customers at large.

This strategy increased the volume of business, provided better customer satisfaction, and as a result, the company was able to acquire new customers as well.

In addition, the strategy yielded considerable returns in terms of a large turnover and better customer reach. It helped the company penetrate deeper into the market.

Ingenious

Strategy

It expanded its solutions portfolio by creating an enterprise software solutions division, thereby getting more from the same customer base.

{

Headquartered Cochin Employees 70 Key Executives David Gainneos, VP-Operations, Ajay Gopinath, Head-Sales Key Principals Autodesk, Adobe, Bentley, Oracle, HP, Apple Key Technologies BI and analytics, Printers and managed print services Focus Verticals Infrastructure, Auto/logistics, Education/Nonprofit, Government, IT/ ITeS, Manufacturing, Media

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Ishan Group

HALL OF FAME

Keyur Jathal Executive Director

K

EYUR JATHAL, executive director, believes in doing everything as best as can be done and that’s why the solution provider decided to address the IT infrastructure and services requirements at a holistic level as opposed to treating it as a transactional engagement.

With this strategy, the company started approaching big-ticket accounts, and started winning larger business opportunities. It also invested in certifications related to computing, storage, virtualization

and ITIL-related processes. The Ishan Group also has a datacenter set up at Rajkot where customers visit to have a first-hand experience of demos and proof-of-concepts.

Having seen positive results, the company also invested in building one more technology showcase in Ahmedabad by May 2014.

While the focus is on solution selling, the company also acts as a facilitator by giving better credit terms or logistics support. This is managed by the sales team so as to understand customer requirements better.

Ingenious

Strategy

It focused on better addressing IT infrastructure and services requirements.

It also invested in certifications related to computing, storage and virtualization.

Headquartered Rajkot Branches 13 Employees 160 Key Executives Pinkesh Kotecha, Chairman and CEO; Key Principals HP, IBM, EMC, Aruba, Cisco, Microsoft, Symantec, Lenovo, APC, Rittal, Adobe, Autodesk, VMware, Cyberoam, ADC Krone Key Technologies Security, Networking, Servers, Cloud, Virtualization, Managed services, Facility Management, Storage

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SPECIAL AWARD SECURITY

Jainam Technologies

{

Headquartered Mumbai Branches 9 Employees 410 Key Executives Mehul Doshi, MD; Navin Salian, Finance Head Key Principals F5, Arbor Networks, Juniper, Symantec, CA Technologies, Palo Alto Networks, ShoreTel, Tenable Network Security, Apposite Technologies, Blue Coat Systems, Aruba Networks, Verisign Key Technologies Security, Networking, Enterprise applications, Mobility, UC/AV/ Collaboration, Managed services, Storage

Ratna Singh COO

J

AINAM TECHNOLOGIES was established in 1995 and has since been catering the entire spectrum of information systems service to its valued customers. These include the development of turnkey solutions for network cable design, installation and commissioning of servers, and IP telephony.

As a part of its strategy, the company covered security in depth for systems, networks, datacenters, security operations centers, covering the flow of intelligence and vulnerability management with a 72

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core focus on service assurance to customers and engineering support.

The 2013 strategy of the company was to adopt a strong base of architecture in security. To make the strategy work, entire processes were reworked and equal emphasis was laid on people and the technology used.

This strategy required a huge investment. While benefits are yet to f low in, customer confidence in the company has shot up. Its existing customer investments have also increased by 40 percent.

Ingenious

Strategy

It increased service strategies to cover areas in security. Information systems security and services were also made into a complete comprehensive solution.

Konnet Solutions

{

Headquartered Pune Branches 4 Employees 45 Key Executives Prashant Indulkar, Head-Business Development; Ketan Havele, HeadSystem Integration Key Principals Honeywell, MOBOTIX, Bosch, TE Connectivity, Cisco Key Technologies Security, Networking, Datacenter solutions, UC/AV/Collaboration, Managed services, Storage

Balkrishna (Raju) Kondalkar CEO

P

Solutions has never been afraid of keeping abreast with latest technologies, which, it believes, the enterprise will need.

A video surveillance player, the company invested in setting up a subsidiary, Vian Technologies, which develops video analytic application modules like automatic number plate recognition and cloudbased city surveillance solutions, like a parking management solution.

It also registered itself with Microsoft under the vendor’s BizSpark program. In collaboration with UNE-BASED KONNET

Central Institute of Road Transport (CIRT), it developed an Intelligent Driving Test System (IDTS) program, which will be proposed to all RTOs in India for automation of driving tests.

In addition to all this, Konnet Solutions has produced a solution for automatic reading of rail wagon numbers, people detection and counting, directional detection, face detection and recognition, and abandoned object detection.

Its strategy of focusing on niche technologies has helped it double its revenue.

Ingenious

Strategy

It setup a subsidiary and developed a cloudbased city surveillance solution. It also registered itself with Microsoft under the BizSpark program.

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Magic Systems Gautam Verma Director

T

O BE a

success, it is necessary to work on multiple fronts.

Ahmedabad-based Magic Systems did that, and managed to grow 35 percent in the last fiscal due to the addition of new customers and nearly 100 percent renewal of the existing ones.

The ingenious strategy of the solution provider was to increase its reach to new customer and to better focus on the existing ones to generate greater finer business opportunities. The company planned an upgrading activity and did POC

of some of its additional components with them. It has an almost balanced customer base—42 percent is enterprise, 38 percent is mid-market, and 20 percent are SMBs. Addressing such a wide spectrum helped Magic’s team to understand the distributed adoption cycle of security offerings across the various segments.

Magic Systems are able to get a 100 percent ROI with its knowledge of high-skilled techniques and its expertise in bridging the gap between technology, networking and information security.

Ingenious

Strategy

It actively reached out to newer customers and at the same time better focused on its existing customer base for greater business opportunities.

Headquartered Ahmedabad Branches 2 Employees 15 Key Executive Anita Verma, Director Key Principals Check Point, RSA, Trend Micro, Symantec, Juniper, Websense, WatchGuard, Riverbed, Imperva, Radware, Cyberoam, SonicWALL Key Technologies Security Focus Verticals Education/Nonprofit, Telecom, Government, IT/ITeS, Manufacturing, BFSI, Healthcare/Pharma

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Medley Marketing Akshay Kumar Sharma Director-TSG Group

D

ELHI-BASED MEDLEY Market-

ing has a business secret: It looks deep into its clients’ needs suggests appropriate solutions to them. It’s a simple yet an effective strategy.

Medley Marketing invested majorly in growing product segments like thin clients (instead of PCs), enterprise wireless, digital signage and video walls. The company realized how much its customers valued good solutions and used that insight to help its client differentiate themselves from their competition.

This also helped clients innovate and grow. Some other key offerings from this solution provider are unified threat management, customer relationship management, sales force automation, CCTV/IP-based surveillance, video conferencing solutions and VoIP solutions.

Initial gaps in expertise was overcome by regular training sessions. The company also initially faced long sales cycles but worked around those using requirement analysis before the PoC so that it could showcase solutions to customer pain points.

Ingenious

Strategy

It focused on a couple of growing product segments like thin clients, enterprise wireless, digital signage and video walls.

Headquartered New Delhi Branches 2 Employees 30 Key Executives Amita Sharma, Director-Marketing; V.K. Gupta, Managing Director Key Principals VXL Instruments, Ruckus, Extreme Networks, WatchGuard Key Technologies Security, Networking, Cloud computing, Mobility Focus Verticals Auto/Logistics, Education/Nonprofit, Government, Manufacturing, Media, Healthcare/Pharma

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Megahertz Infotech

Headquartered New Delhi Employees 67 Key Executives Madhu Arora, Director; Dharamender Rao, Senior Manager-Technical Key Principals IBM, Cisco, APC, Radware, F5, Cyberoam, Dell, HP Key Technologies Security, Networking, Servers, Cloud computing, Datacenter solutions, Virtualization, Managed services, Storage Focus Verticals Education/Nonprofit, Telecom, Government, IT/ITeS, Manufacturing, Healthcare/Pharma

Rajan Arora Director

W

extra mile is a habit at Delhi-based Megahertz Infotech.

By offering system integrator and IT infrastructure solutions services, the company pioneered in these domains pretty early. It has maintained its high standards across operations and strategic initiatives.

Introducing cloud technology in the company helped Megahertz to shift from a system integrator to a solution provider. Great care was taken in terms of training and 76

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educating its internal team. It also expanded and found new, untapped markets and technologies to bag better business opportunities.

Megahertz Infotech invested time, effort, and resources in upgrading the skill sets of its teams, as well as hiring new talent. Deep diving into its existing account base with new products and technologies helped the company sailing through tough times. Megahertz Infotech acquired positive growth by expanding its horizon to product portfolio, technology offerings and skill set up-gradation.

Ingenious

Strategy

It introduced cloud technology, and opened itself to new, untapped markets. It also better focused on its existing account base with newer products.

Meridian Infotech Devang Jasani Director

B

focusing on customer requirements, Gujarat-based Meridian Infotech has built a long-standing relationship with its customers.

This has helped the company drive a significant portion of its revenues.

As part of its growth strategy, the solution provider started focusing on solution-centric business. First, it tied up with a software solution partner for the Cisco UCS business, and second, it collaborated with leading vendor of digital signage, interactive media and enterprise video caching Y CONTINUOUSLY

to tap new-age markets. It also added a real-time location system solution that utilizes wi-fi infrastructure.

Meridian realized that its total solution offering could help end-users achieve lower TCOs. After brainstorming with all the department heads of the client including the shop floor, operations, safety and security, both companies agreed on a relevant solution that utilizes the existing IT infrastructure. It also regularly evaluates new technologies and suggests them to its customers.

Ingenious

Strategy

It focused on solutioncentric business by collaborating with a software solution partner for the Cisco UCS business. It added a real-time location system solution.

{

Headquartered Gujarat Employees 55 Key Executives Atul Dhokiya, AVP-Technology; Parag Trivedi, AVP-Service Delivery Key Principals Cisco, Juniper, Palo Alto, Startacache, TE Connectivity Key Technologies Networking, Servers, Mobility, UC/AV/ Collaboration, Facility Management/ Helpdesk Focus Verticals Auto/Logistics, Education/Nonprofit, Government, IT/ITeS, Manufacturing, Mining/Oil/Gas

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Meta Infotech Venu Gopal Peruri Managing Director and CEO

W

ITH A sportsman’s fortitude and an adventurer’s spirit, Mumbai-based Meta Infotech took on a number of risks and faced down obstacles to turn into a big name in the channel space.

The solution provider introduced a power management tool helps clients lower their IT infrastructure energy consumption, and extended the life of various IT investments including servers, desktops, laptops, mobiles and tablets. It also helped cut carbon dioxide emissions. Meta Infotech partnered

with top OEM’s like HP, Cisco and IBM to promote its solution.

Though the system integrator was initially a volume-player like many others in the market, it soon realized the importance of a ‘solution-selling’ approach. The company looked at the ‘solutions business’, even when the concept of ‘IT solutions’ was relatively new.

Its bold management decisions and the introduction of support services has seen its revenues increased by over 30 percent and its customer base triple.

Ingenious

Strategy

It launched enterprise flash storage on PCIe slots. It introduced a power management tool that helps lower IT infrastructure energy consumption.

Headquartered Mumbai Branches 1 Employees 18 Key Executives Saravanan N., Director-Sales; Gopinath, Director-Technology Key Principals Fusion-io, Webtrends, Arahe, Blue Coat, iDashboards, Websense, F5, Aruba Key Technologies Security, Networking, BI and analytics, Managed services, Storage Focus Verticals Telecom, IT/ITeS, Manufacturing, BFSI, Healthcare/Pharma

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Microlink Solutions Ketan Khimani Director

I

F THERE’S something that Ahmedabad-based Microlink Solutions is afraid of, it certainly isn’t the new. That’s what led it to revamping its approach to cater to new customers and their requirements, which significantly helped it mark its presence in the market.

Microlink Solutions added different domains such as power, CCTV, videoconferencing and AV solutions to its existing data networking business. It’s a strategy that gave the company larger value purchase order closures with the same set of customers. It also en-

sure that it burrowed itself in deeper with its clients.

The solution provider also invested a huge amount in building manpower and recruiting new people.

Having been a vendor neutral partner company for networking brands in the past, Microlink Solutions is comfortable in continuing its strategic tie-up approach with AV and surveillance brands.

The solution provider pays keen attention to customer requirements and then works upon the offerings with the vendors.

Ingenious

Strategy

It focused on different areas including CCTV, VC and AV solutions and made these new offerings work within its existing data networking business.

{

Headquartered Ahmedabad Branches 6 Employees 330 Key Executives Amit Dave, Director, Rajendra Patel, Head-Pre Sales Key Principals Cisco, Tyco, HP, IBM, D-Link, VMware, Sony, DAX, Molex, CommScope, FortiGate, Cyberoam, VIVOTEK, Krammer, Samsung, Siemon, Dell Key Technologies Security, Networking, Servers, Datacenter solutions, Virtualization, Facility management/Helpdesk

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MKT Softwares

Headquartered Kanpur Branches 3 Employees 78 Key Executive Bhavana Tiwari, Director Key Principals Sify, BT Group, Ramco, Microsoft, Newgen Key Technologies Cloud computing, Datacenter solutions, Enterprise applications, Mobility, BI and analytics, Managed services Focus Verticals Infrastructure, Auto/Logistics, Education/Nonprofit, Telecom, IT/ITeS, Manufacturing

Amit Tiwari CEO

S

OME OF the top companies got to where they are today because they risked more than others thought was safe and dreamed more than others thought was practical. With this mind-set, Kanpur-based MKT Softwares drove itself to provide end-to-end solutions to customers.

MKT Softwares very boldly went ahead and identified new geographies outside a tier 2 city such as Kanpur. Besides, the company also stationed one sales manager in these new markets.

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new ways of how business can innovatively be combined with IT. As a result, the company successfully got business by providing clients with enough value. From strategizing to implementation, MKT Softwares has managed to solve the most complex, high-impact software problems that companies face.

MKT Softwares combines a culture of innovation with the extensive experience of its employees to deliver a full spectrum of service offerings throughout the entire system development lifecycle.

Ingenious

Strategy

It focused on new geographies and collaborated with local players to better manage sales.

MM9 Information Technologies Manoj Sharma CEO

F

EW KNOW this, but the ‘MM9’ in MM9 Information Technologies stands for ‘Monday Morning 9’, the time of the company’s inception on January 9, 1995.

Headquartered in Gurgaon, the company has positioned itself as a single-point solutions company for all IT needs of enterprises.

It has always been a proponent of a ‘customer first’ strategy. MM9 Information Technologies invested in bring-your-own-device capabilities and EPP programs with high-revenue customers and collaborated with an

NBFC (non-banking financial company) to fund these initiatives. MM9 Information Technologies also started transitioning to a cloud mode.

Its strategic plan was to not only leverage the cloud for the customers’ benefits but to get deep insights on it to help them avoid any possible pitfalls.

With its constant zest for knowledge and skill enhancement, its highly talented, professional and experienced team has transformed the company into a ubiquitous technology solution provider.

Ingenious

Strategy

It invested in BYOD and EPP programs with high-revenue customers and collaborated with NBFC for funds.

{

Headquartered Gurgaon Branches 2 Employees 90 Key Executives Surjeet Kumar, Business Head-ESSN; Manish Gupta, Business Head-Security Key Principals HP, Symantec, Samsung Key Technologies Security, Networking, Servers, Cloud computing, Virtualization, Facility Management/Helpdesk, Printers and managed print services, Storage

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Nahar Integrated System Services Shital Nahar Director

F

ROM A mere PC assembler, Pune-based Nahar Integrated System Services (NISS) has risen to become a reputed system integrator. The strategy that primarily worked for NISS was to deep dive into its existing customer base.

The solution provider explored novel ways to sell new and innovative IT products to its customers and also added a lot of sought-after products, such as Plantronics, Red Hat and Microsoft Cloud, in its basket to create growth opportunities at a minimal cost.

Being a novice in the IT field, the customers’ acceptance levels for the solutions that came through NISS were low during the start-up season.

The company, however, braved the storm and has a strong foothold in the industry now.

NISS believes that new products in the managed services domain can be confidently pitched to its existing set of customers as well as the newbies. This would facilitate further growth and also help the company in offering value added services to its customers.

Ingenious

Strategy

It concentrated more on its existing customer base and tried to sell them innovative IT products in novel ways.

{

Headquartered Pune Branches 1 Employees 30 Key Executives Vaishali Shital Nahar, Director-Finance; Suresh Saykar, General Manager Key Principals Cisco, Microsoft, Dell, HP, D-Link, Digilink, APC, Red Hat, Lenovo, Samsung, Plantronics Key Technologies Security, Networking, Servers, Cloud computing, Mobility, UC/AV/ Collaboration, Printers and managed print services

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Netcon Technologies Mahalingam Ramasamy Director and CEO

I

N BUSINESS, one can never rely

upon luck, it is always the determination that gets you at the top.

Coimbatore-based Netcon Technologies demonstrated that it understood that when it created a strategy to focus on service revenues.

This not only helped it acquire new business opportunities, but also improve its employee productivity and customer satisfaction.

The solution provider created a dedicated team for customer support and AMC renewals which enables regular renewals of AMC contracts.

Netcon Technologies also revisited and re-established contacts with its existing customers and renewed their support contracts.

It started a separate, focused team for consulting services, welcoming a new consulting head on board and also invested in certification of its resources in datacenter design and networking technologies.

The company strives to adopt the best practices in the industry in terms of people, products, processes, and technologies to ensure maximum customer satisfaction.

Ingenious

Strategy

It focused on garnering service revenues and created a dedicated team for AMC renewals.

It also formed an inhouse consulting team.

Headquartered Coimbatore Branches 5 Employees 55 Key Executives Senthil Vadivu Mahalingam, Director; Sudhakar Gummadi, VP-Consulting Business Key Principals Cisco, Extreme Networks, Fortinet, Aruba, Emerson, Tyco, APC, Schneider Key Technologies Security, Networking, Servers, Datacenter solutions, UC/AV/ Collaboration, Virtualization, Facility Management/Helpdesk, Storage

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NetSpider

{

Headquartered Mumbai Branches 1 Employees 250 Key Executives Samruddhi Kulkarni, CFO, Ketan Patel, Operations Manager Key Principals Pericom, Gama System, Microform, ProServ, i2s, OWIS Key Technologies Enterprise Applications, DIMS Focus Verticals Telecom, Government, IT/ITeS, Manufacturing, BFSI

Samir Dhingra CEO

N

that the best way to stay ahead in a slowdown was to target the government sector. The rationale behind this move was the fact that the sector was ripe with opportunities in terms of digitization.

It realized that government offices generate a humungous amount of paper and electronic data in a haphazard manner, and digitizing them into meaningful information would be fruitful both for the sector and the company.

In order to take its services to the next level, the company tied up with

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European players such as Microform, i2s, and ProServ among others.

The company undertook the MOD, SIFCL, and the OPEPA project. It won the Prime Minister’s Award in Public Excellence for the OPEPA project. Piggybacking on this success, the company was able to win more projects in the government sector.

This strategy paid off. And that’s evident from the company’s revenue. The government sector doubled company’s revenue. A massive 90 percent of its revenues came from government projects.

Ingenious

Strategy

It capitalized on the digitization trend in the government sector and created niche solutions to be the go-to partner for the sector.

Novo Systems Surinder Pal Singh Palia Director

N

figured that the only way to stay ahead beat competition in a tough market was to increase its customer base by generating new leads and re-connect with customers it had done business with in the past.

Novo Systems decided to create a two-pronged strategy to grow its business. It focused on both servicing existing customers and acquiring new customers by generating leads.

The New Delhi-based company which had earlier explored growth OVO SYSTEMS

opportunities within its existing client base, quickly realized this to be a myopic approach.

The company, thus, went ahead and listed itself on paid services like JustDial and Sulekha to increase its customer base. It also developed its own lead-generation engine and created its own tele-caller base. This ensured that the company had a continuous supply of leads.

This move gave the company good returns from the very outset with some solid leads within months of putting this strategy in place.

Ingenious

Strategy

It acknowledged the power of catering to both old customers and expanding its customer base by investing in lead generation programs.

{

Headquartered New Delhi Branches 4 Employees 55 Key Executives Himanshu Dixit, DGM-Sales Key Principals HP, IBM, Juniper, Tyco, Emerson Key Technologies Security, Networking , Servers Focus Verticals Infrastructure, Education/Nonprofit, Government, Manufacturing, Mining/ Oil/Gas

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One Network Anuradha Makhija Managing Director

O

NE NETWORK set out to do

two things in order to grow its business. One was to follow the customer and foray into cloud computing solutions as the demand for cloud services peaked last year.

It decided to provide cloud application optimization solutions from big players like F5 and Riverbed.

This strategy proved beneficial for the Mumbai-based company as it could cross-sell to its existing clients.

That, in turn, enhanced its value proposition to its customers. Another goal was to acquire new clients. It

realized that a proactive approach is essential to bag new clients and it invested in enhancing its business development and pre-sales team. The strategy of expanding its alliances and increasing resource strength helped it expand its client base exponentially.

The initial investment made by the company on training, certifications and demo units, later helped it during the pre-sales and sales period. It was also able to successfully showcase how its solutions can help clients overcome performance issues.

Ingenious

Strategy

It aligned its growth strategy to its customers’ needs and forayed into technologies like cloud computing to grow its business.

{

Headquartered Mumbai Branches 5 Employees 40 Key Executives Shailesh Kanolkar, Director-Technical; Avvinash Basantani, DirectorCommercial Key Principals Juniper, Cyberoam, Aruba, Riverbed, F5, Cisco, Nexus (Portwise), SecurEnvoy, Multi-Tech Systems, Billion Key Technologies Security, Networking, Mobility, UC/AV/ Collaboration

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Orient Technologies Ujjwal Mhatre Director

O

RIENT TECHNOLOGIES focused on services, virtualisation practises and the mobility business to grow its business. But the real secret to its success is its laser-like focus on the bottomline.

Attempting to improve the top line would have needed the company to undertake considerable risks, something it was not inclined to do amid a severe financial meltdown. It, thus, decided to concentrate less on the top line and focused more on profits and strengthen its bottom line.

An added advantage of this strategy was that the Mumbai-based company did not have to make any additional investments, thereby guarding its bottom line from any added strain.

To align the company to this objective, its employees needed to align with it first. The company trained its staff to stay focused on its core technological domains, along with giving constant attention to the bottom line.

This process, though time consuming, helped hone the team-building skills of the employees and also developed a sense of loyalty in the company.

Ingenious

Strategy

The company focused on services, virtualization, and mobility. It played to its strengths during tough financial situations.

{

Headquartered Mumbai

Branches 7 Employees 1,050

Key Executives Ajay Sawant, Managing Director; Jayesh Shah, Director Key Principals HP, IBM, Citrix, MS

Key Technologies Security, Networking, Servers, Cloud, Datacenter solutions. Mobility, Virtualization, Managed services, Facility Management/Helpdesk, Printers and managed print services, Storage

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Parth TechoComm Solutions

Headquartered Kolkata Branches 1 Employees 60 Key Executives Pradip Sheth, Director; Viren Mehta, Director; Jaydip Mehta, Director Key Principals Cisco Systems, HP, EMC, Dell, Aastra, Matrix, Juniper, AMP, Tyco, Molex, Systemax, Plantronics, Jabra, VMware, Citrix, Cyberoam, Fortinet, SonicWall Key Technologies Networking, Servers, Cloud computing, Datacenter solutions, UC/AV/ Collaboration, Managed services, Storage

Tejas Mehta Director

O

PERATING IN a niche domain and providing end-to-end solutions has helped Parth TechnoComm Solutions become a strong player in the field.

Headquartered in Kolkata, the company belongs to an exclusive league of players who are capable of effectively implementing a combination of voice, network, data, video, and mobility solutions, thereby creating an end-to-end experience for its customers.

Clients find it easier to deal with a single vendor who possesses

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the required domain expertise, resources, and capability to provide proper end-to-end service and further back it up with robust postsales support.

The technical team at Parth TechnoComm Solutions proved to be the backbone of the company as it is certified on voice, networking and datacenter and can handle the most complex technical assistance.

The company’s intense focus on training, solutions, and POC helped it create value in the marketplace and have a successful last fiscal.

Ingenious

Strategy

The company provided end-to-end solutions to clients enabling them to deal with just one vendor.

Peak XV Networks Deepak Hoskere Managing Director

A

BOUT TWO years ago, Peak XV Networks had planned to delve into IP-based surveillance. “We want to be ready for the next wave, and have considered investing time and resources in making the big leap,” said Deepak Hoskere, MD, Peak XV Networks, in 2012.

Today, the company has made that dream a reality. It’s focusing on its networking expertise and is now providing its clients with advanced IP surveillance systems.

The Bangalore-based company

understood the problems its clients faced with security. “We help organizations deploy IP surveillance systems that are f lexible, and scalable. We also integrate it seamlessly with their existing network,” says Hoskere.

In a niche domain like security, customization is a distinctive feature. Peak XV Networks, thus, worked individual clients to devise a plan that fits their requirements.

This strategy proved beneficial and profitable to the company as it was a revenue spinner this fiscal.

Ingenious

Strategy

The company ventured into IP surveillance design, configuration, and implementation to provide cost effective IP surveillance solutions to its clients.

{

Headquartered Bangalore Branches 2 Employees 55 Key Executives Vishwanath Venkatram, HeadNetworks and Security Practice Key Principals HP, Cisco, Dell, Symantec, WatchGuard, D-Link Key Technologies Security, Networking, Servers, Cloud Computing, Datacenter Solutions, UC/AV/Collaboration, Printers and Managed Print Services, Storage

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Pentacle IT Solutions

{

Headquartered Lucknow Branches 2 Employees 25 Key Executives Zuhair Husian, Director-Technical, Ruchi Ratra, Director Key Principals Microsoft, HP, Dell, Cyberoam Key Technologies Security, Networking, Servers, Cloud Computing, Virtualization, Facility Management/helpdesk, Printers and Managed Print Services, Storage

Tilak Raj Ratra Managing Director

P

ENTACLE IT Solutions

was quick to realize that many small and medium businesses were in need of an on-premise mailing system and that they didn’t know how to go about it. The company decided to offer Microsoft Office 365 licenses to these SMBs. Additionally, the Lucknow-based company offered Cyberoam’s UTM solution in the security space. The company devised a strategy to offer UTM to clients who didn’t need telecom products but were interested in the security space.

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To get more clients on board, Pentacle IT Solutions conducted workshops and arranged demos.

To ensure maximum optimization, the company invested in hiring personnel for the product lines that it wanted to highlight and get maximum business from.

While, initially, the response in the market wasn’t overwhelming, the pace of the business gradually picked up. “Consistency in our efforts and support from our principals helped us move ahead,” says Tilak Raj Ratra, Managing Director, Pentacle IT Solutions.

Ingenious

Strategy

The company took advantage of the need for mailing systems in the SMB space and offered Microsoft Office 365 licences to them, thereby winning clients.

Pentagon System and Services Sairaman Mudaliar Director

A

DDING NEW products to complement its existing solutions helped Pentagon System and Services to grow exponentially in the last fiscal. In addition, the Mumbai-based company aggressively promoted its solution-based product line. The new products and services provided multiple benefits to Pentagon System and Services. For example, it was able to target a wider client base, as new potential clients were added to its database, along with improved opportunities in the market. The company turned opportunities into results with

its investments. But recruiting people proved to be a major challenge. The company went ahead and invested on getting experienced personnel on board and obtaining certifications for its new products and solutions. “The tangible return on investment is that new business has grown. We have also achieved intangible assets in terms of goodwill and recognition,” says Sairaman Mudaliar, director, Pentagon System and Services. To boost employee morale— especially for those working in the solutions team—the company introduced incentive programs.

Ingenious

Strategy

The company added new products to complement its existing solutions to sell better and provide clients with the latest technology solutions.

{

Headquartered Mumbai Branches 6 Employees 290 Key Executives Prashant Tukaram Narkar, Director, Anslem Sequiera, Country Manager Key Principals IBM, EMC, NetApp, VMware, Lenovo Key Technologies Security, Networking, Servers, Datacenter Solutions, Enterprise Applications, Virtualization, Managed Services, Facility Management/ Helpdesk, Printers and Managed Print Services, Storage

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QuantM Rajeev Kumar Director

Q

UANTM TOOK a bold step to combat the slowdown last year. It chose to enter the North American market by launching a new technical services unit called TEQGLOBAL to provide managed services to SMB and SOHO segments in that region. This decision helped QuantM grow its business. “Today, this is the fastest growing segment for us with a quarterly CAGR of 35 percent,� says Rajeev Kumar, director, QuantM. To strengthen operations the company acquired a large business

vertical from a niche market player, bringing on board, the existing customer base and the sales, delivery and marketing team of over 40 people.

In addition, the company joined hands with Google for enterprise partnership in the Google Apps business with an objective to improve its cloud portfolio.

This move came with multiple benefits in the mid-market segment.

It also helped the company make its collaborative application stack, TeamworQ Insight, available on the Google platform.

Ingenious

Strategy

The company entered North America to provide managed services to SMBs and SOHOs in that region, thereby achieving a CAGR of 35 percent.

Headquartered Gurgaon Branches 18 Employees 365 Key Executives Pavan Khurana, CEO, Sanjay Bakshi, Managing Director, Renu Chawla, Head-SI Business Key Principals BM, HP, Dell, NetApp, Microsoft, CA Technologies, Cisco, Fortinet, VMware, Symantec, Oracle, Citrix, EMC, Google Key Technologies Security, Servers, Cloud, Datacenter solutions, Virtualization, Managed Services, Facility Management, Printers and Managed Print Services, Storage

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Questa Software Systems Manish Tandon Managing Director

Q

UESTA SOFTWARE Systems

realized that the markets in which it operated had reached saturation point. Therefore, the company started looking at newer markets with low IT penetration. This pointed it to the direction of tier two cities such as Pune, Lucknow, Kanpur, and Indore.

Though it helped the company improve its presence and visibility in the market, setting up operations in new places was an expensive proposition.

The company reduced the overheads by implementing a work-from-home policy.

The new markets the company ventured into are major players in education and government domains—both requiring local contacts and knowledge about the local markets. The company hired personnel fulfilling these criteria.

A lack of experience in local markets was a major challenge for the company.

Questa dealt with it by collaborating with local dealers with experience and knowledge of local markets.

The strategy proved to be successful and profitable for Questa Software Systems.

Ingenious

Strategy

The company expanded into newer markets were IT penetration was limited and implemented a workfrom-home policy to lower opex.

{

Headquartered Mumbai

Branches 5 Employees 20 Key Executives Sonali Nerurkar, AVP Key Principals Microsoft, Oracle, Symantec, Adobe

Key Technologies Security, Servers, Cloud Computing, Storage Focus Verticals Infrastructure, Education/Nonprofit, Manufacturing, Media, BFSI, Healthcare/Pharma

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SPECIAL AWARD STORAGE

Raksha Technologies

{

Headquartered Chennai Branches 3 Employees 60 Key Executives V. Raghavan, Director, K.Saravana Prabhu, VP Key Principals Trend Micro, Fortinet, NetApp, EMC, IBM, Symantec, Cisco Key Technologies Security, Cloud computing, UC/AV/ Collaboration, Virtualization, Managed services, Storage

V. Anand CEO

R

AKSHA TECHNOLOGIES

reaped huge benefits as it created two new lines of businesses within the company to focus on client needs.

The Chennai-based company introduced storage backup and archival, and client management divisions. The company understood the importance that clients attached to working closely with partners to create value.

The company made sure that the two new focus areas recruited more technical people than sales personnel. This helped Raksha

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Technologies to converse well with clients and also reduced the time taken to close deals. This smart strategy of empowering technical leaders helped the company deliver better results and make its way into high end security portfolios APT solutions and governance solutions.

But getting there wasn’t easy.

User resistance was a huge roadblock. The company was able to combat the challenge, and in the end, the strategy paid off as Raksha Technologies managed to earn major profits this fiscal.

Ingenious

Strategy

The company created two new lines of business— storage backup and archival, and client management—to work closely with clients and create value.

Regenersis India

{

Headquartered Bangalore Branches 13 Employees 942 Key Executive Pradeep Prahaladh, Director Key Principals Dell, Asus, Acer, HP, Lenovo, SanDisk, IBM, Optoma Key Technologies Managed Services, Facility Management/helpdesk Focus Verticals IT/ITeS

Suresh Kalburgi Shankar Managing Director and CEO

R

EGENERSIS INDIA was battling a down economy and stiff competition from both the organized and unorganized sectors in the asset recovery domain. But it was able to beat the odds and get ahead by clinching deals with major brands, OEMs, and large format retailers.

These efforts have paid off. In a business that needs a rather large working capital, Regenersis believes that working with major brands and large format retailers is worth the investment since the return on investment is equally attractive.

Apart from focusing on the big players, the company is running a green initiative that along with helping the environment, places both the seller and the buyer in a win-win situation. This strategy helps sellers sell used assets at an attractive value and products, in turn, are affordable for buyers.

Also, in a supremely competitive environment, the company is adhering to quality standards, compliances, and best practices. All these strategies proved beneficial to the company.

Ingenious

Strategy

Regenersis India focused on clinching deals with major brands, OEMs, and large format retailers, in the asset recovery domain.

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Rubik Infotech

SPECIAL AWARD SECURITY

Jitesh Chauhan Managing Director

R

decided to take advantage of the lack of awareness about security products among customers. It identified the opportunity to strengthen its security products portfolio and target customers by educating them about its security products.

The Ahmedabad-based company realigned its focus to concentrate only on its security portfolio and backed it up with the promise of exceptional support. This enabled the company to build goodwill and get a huge number of referral customers in the last fiscal.

UBIK INFOTECH

“Our reference strategy actually helped us in getting some 42 new customer on board. These customers bought both security products and other licensed products as well,� says Jitesh Chauhan, MD, Rubik Infotech.

In order to create awareness about its security products, the company conducted workshops and one-onone interactions with potential clients. This helped clients realize the need for security products, which then translated into a flood of orders in the last quarter of the last fiscal.

Ingenious

Strategy

The company focused only on security products and created a customer-referral strategy for it that won over 40 new customers.

{

Headquartered Ahmedabad Employees 24 Key Executive Prabhat Biswal, Senior Manager-Sales Key Principals Cyberoam, Fortinet, Microsoft, McAfee, Symantec, WinMagic, VMware, EMC, RSA Key Technologies Security, Networking/ Virtualization, Storage Focus Verticals Education/Nonprofit, IT/ITeS, Manufacturing, Healthcare/Pharma

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Sara Infoway ITES Rajiv Gupta Director

T

HE COMPANY realized that the Hyderabad market had reached saturated, and it, decided to offer its SAP-led business solutions to companies across the country.

It engaged with SAP and SAP partners to understand the needs and client demands in different geographies. The company’s success story with SAP projects at firms in Hyderabad gave it the edge to penetrate into new markets and entirely new geographies. “Initially, customers looked at us like any other partner. However, our expertise matched their requirements and cus-

tomer references also brought good business,” says Rajiv Gupta, director, Sara Infoway ITES India.

It adopted a consultant-based approach to penetrate new markets like Delhi and Mumbai. It also analyzed the problem areas of each individual client and then addressed them with handson solutions. The company’s goodwill with existing clients helped immensely as they referred new customers in newer geographies.

With this strategy, the company closed 44 SAP-led infrastructure deals across the country.

Ingenious

Strategy

The company expanded to new markets and concentrated on SAPled business that helped it close 44 deals across India.

{

Headquartered Hyderabad

Branches 3 Employees 70 Key Executives Smita Gupta, Director; Biswaranjan Agasti, AGM Key Principals Dell, VMware, HP

Key Technologies Security, Networking, Servers, Cloud computing, Datacenter solutions, Virtualization, Managed services, Facility Management/Helpdesk, Storage

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Secant Technologies

{

Headquartered Ludhiana Branches 2 Employees 21 Key Executives Sangita Singh, Chief Manager; Anju Bala, Deputy Manager Key Principals HP, IBM, APC, Microsoft, Symantec, Cyberoam, D-Link, Cisco, Samsung, Apple Key Technologies Security, Networking, Servers, Enterprise applications, Mobility, Managed services

Paramjit Singh Juneja CEO

S

automated its entire enterprise management system for all internal processes, from enquiry to payment. As part of the automation process, it has also created a mechanism to send SMSes to clients to keep them updated about the progress of their projects.

The entire process of providing better services at lower costs has not only allowed the company to retain its existing clients but has also enabled it to bring new clients into its fold. This has also improved the company’s profitability and efficiency.

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ECANT TECHNOLOGIES

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The company has also introduced a mechanism of supporting clients remotely. “Since most of our customer calls are related to software or driver issues, we decided to implement remote support to cut costs and reduce turnaround-time,” says Paramjit Singh Juneja, CEO, Secant Technologies.

With 2013 being an essentially slow year, Secant Technologies used this slowdown to its benefit to restructure, and consolidate accordingly. And that has worked brilliantly to its advantage.

Ingenious

Strategy

The company automated its internal processes and created a mechanism to send SMSes to its clients to keep them updated about the progress of their projects.

Secure Network Solutions N. K. Mehta CEO and MD

I

N A challenging economic

environment, Secure Network Solutions, took tough decisions and created strategies that promised good returns.

For one, it had the guts to enter a new market like Kolkata and expand its business in a fiercely competitive sector.

It also decided to focus on its top 50 clients—in other markets—in order to clinch good deals without investing much.

In addition to its tried and tested strategy—of converting US dollars to

Indian rupees to grow its top line— the company had the courage to experiment with larger domestic deals.

“This year we tried larger deals in USD via our distributors, which saved investment and gave us a healthy bottom line,” says N. K. Mehta, CEO and MD, Secure Network Solutions.

The company also invested heavily on building its own centre of excellence (COE) with returns expected to come in after close to half a decade. To get clients to visit its COE, Secure Networks Solutions organized workshops.

Ingenious

Strategy

It leveraged a mix of large domestic deals through its distributors, and global deals to increase both the top line and the bottom line.

Headquartered Chennai Branches 9 Employees 75 Key Executives Syed Wasiq, National Sales-Head; S. Subramanian, Head-National Support Key Principals Check Point, Fortinet, WatchGuard, Websense, IBM-ISS, Cisco, Riverbed, Radware, F5 Key Technologies Security, Networking, Storage Focus Verticals Auto/Logistics, Government, IT/ITeS, Manufacturing, Mining/Oil/Gas, BFSI, Healthcare/Pharma

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Shell Networks & Solutions Chaitanya Datar Director-Technical

S

HELL NETWORKS & Solutions devised a five-pronged strategy to achieve growth.

As part of that strategy, it decided to take steps to build a strong brand equity to gain better influence with vendors, offer more solutions to its existing clientele, and acquire new clients.

The company dived into a new domain and also introduced AV solutions to its portfolio, which it feels, complements its existing business. In addition, it also put in place a strong mechanism to

streamline activities helping the company bag and execute large deals.

The company brought captains of industries on board to obtain a better understanding of client needs and thereby, revolutionize its go-tomarket strategy.

Shell Networks & Solutions had to invest heavily in order to bring about these changes. These strategies have paid off handsomely. And the results are visible in the company’s top line.

This helped the company bring in a revenue and profits this fiscal.

Ingenious

Strategy

It created a fivepronged strategy— which included introducing AV solutions to its portfolio—to build a strong brand image and enable growth.

{

Headquartered Hyderabad Branches 4 Employees 120 Key Executive A.L. Srinath, CEO Key Principals Palo Alto, AMX Key Technologies Security, Networking, Servers, Datacenter solutions, UC/Collaboration, Facility management/Helpdesk, Storage Focus Verticals Education/Nonprofit, Telecom, IT/ITeS, Manufacturing, BFSI

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Shro Systems Anirudh Shrotriya Managing Director

A

DOPTING A new style of selling and focusing on five key verticals was Shro Systems’ strategy to accentuate growth and revenues.

The company decided to focus on the cloud, software testing tools, business intelligence tools, and networking to take its business forward. Another strategy it adopted to grow was to align with ISVs to expand geographically.

It also worked with key ISVs and SIs helped them with the IT infrastructure part of their customer projects by designing and selling it for them.

To improve its visibility, Shro Systems organized customer-centric events—for the Goa, Nasik, and Chakan markets—by selling various software application lifecycle tools and focusing on the business analytics space.

“We wanted to create growth and align with the way the market was consuming IT and what CIOs expected from partners like us,” says Anirudh Shrotriya, MD, Shro Systems.

This bold initiative strained the company’s exchequer by almost 15 percent, but it was balanced by enabling the company to build momentum for future activities.

Ingenious

Strategy

It adopted new ways to sell IT and focused on five key verticals, making it the USP that drove the company ahead.

Headquartered Pune Branches 2 Employees 90 Key Executives Wg Cdr V. V. Shrotriya, Founder Chairman; Vasudha Shrotriya, DirectorFinance Key Principals HP, Microsoft, VMware, Citrix Key Technologies Security, Networking, Servers, Cloud Computing, Virtualization, BI and analytics, Managed services, Facility management/Helpdesk, Printers and managed print services, Storage

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Silver Touch Technologies

{

Headquartered Ahmedabad Branches 13 Employees 700 Key Principals IBM, Cisco, Lenovo, Dell, Acer, Microsoft, Oracle Key Technologies Security, Networking, Servers, Enterprise applications, UC/AV/ Collaboration, Virtualization, Managed services, Facility management/ Helpdesk, Printers and managed print services, Storage.

Focus Vertical IT/ITeS

Vipul Thakkar Managing Director

D

products and services to keep pace with a dynamic business environment has helped Silver Touch Technologies stay ahead of competition.

The Ahmedabad-based company recognized the potential of mobile technologies and devised a strategy around it.

The company, traditionally a box seller, started diversifying and offering services along with its regular platter of offerings. It decided to cross-sell its products to widen its pool of clients and upsell to the existing clients.

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EVELOPING NEW

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Silver Touch was quick to ensure that its employees were equipped with the latest technologies. In addition, the company also has an effective think tank in place to chalk out strategies.

The company has created a broad pipeline of projects which is minutely designed for implementation. These plans are reviewed frequently and tweaked according to changes in the business environment. This has helped the company put the right plan in place and achieve the desired results.

Ingenious

Strategy

It adapted itself to a dynamic market by developing new products and services and adopting cross selling and upselling techniques.

HALL OF FAME

Sterling Infoways

Sandip Sarkar Director-Sales

I

N WHAT was arguably one of the

most challenging years for channel partners, Sterling Infoways found a smart way to get ahead.

The Gurgaon-based company was continuously challenged by escalating service delivery costs and diminishing profit margins.

So, it decided to tie up with the biggest tech giant, IBM. “We have tied up with IBM for multivendor support and this initiative has paid well. We have signed a major service contract with the help of IBM,� says Sandip Sarkar, director, Sterling Infoways.

The company was quick to realize that service sales platform was a rewarding domain in the rapidly evolving market. It analyzed the market trend well in advance and collaborated with IBM to obtain a wider client pool.

In due course, the company was also elevated to Technical Support Services (TSS) partnership by IBM at the national level.

But the challenge lay in recruiting the right people to do the job. Sterling Infoways pulled up its sleeves and trained its sales team with the help of IBM.

Ingenious

Strategy

In order to combat shrinking profit margins and rising service delivery costs, the company tied up with the biggest tech giant, IBM.

{

Headquartered Gurgaon Employees 85 Key Executives Rajesh Kalra, Managing Director, Kapil Sharma, Director-Operations Key Principals IBM, Lenovo, Cisco, Microsoft, Dell, Targus, Symantec, APC Key Technologies Security, Networking, Servers, Cloud computing, Datacenter solutions, Virtualization, BI and analytics, Managed services, Facility management/Helpdesk, Printers and managed print services, Storage

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Sunfire Technologies Sanjay Kulkarni Director and CEO

L

ESS IS more, and this mantra

helped Sunfire Technologies tackle the slowdown last fiscal.

The Pune-based company decided to focus on specific customers and address their needs through aggressive sales and presales strategies.

Sunfire Technologies directed its entire focus on quality by concentrating on only 10 percent of its total customer base.

It had faith in its abilities to achieve quick and efficient return on investments. Piggybacking on

that, Sunfire Technologies revamped its pre-sales and sales teams to make them more successful and to keep them updated with the latest technologies. The confidence yielded results with the returns on the investments being noticeable within two quarters.

Educating clients about such a steep and concentrated change in focus was a major challenge. Sunfire Technologies and its efficient sales team were successful in overcoming the difficulty. The strategy turned out to be a revenue spinner this fiscal.

Ingenious

Strategy

The company focused on specific customers and addressed their needs through aggressive sales and pre-sales strategies.

Headquartered Pune Branches 1 Employees 30 Key Executive Bhaskar Ganjiwale, Director Key Principals Cisco, Hitachi, NetApp, VMware, Citrix, HP Key Technologies Security, Networking, Servers, Cloud computing, Datacenter solutions, Virtualization, Managed services, Facility management/Helpdesk, Storage

104

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HALL OF FAME

Swan Solutions & Services

Kamal Sejpal Director-Operations

R

EALIZING THAT relying on endpoint solutions wasn’t a sustainable strategy, Swan Solutions & Services shifted its focus to providing solutions in the enterprise infrastructure space.

The Mumbai-based company focused on certain key verticals and this strategy enabled it to broaden the client base and reduce the overheads associated with a low-margin business.

Swan Solutions and Services set up a solutions team and backed it up with an experienced execution team. It also built new sales and

pre-sales teams and provided them with adequate training in relevant technologies to position the right solutions to its customers.

The challenges were overcome by the technical team’s ability to successfully demonstrate the company’s abilities to its clients— both existing and potential. It helped the company change its customers’ perception about Swan.

Though the company executed a major shift in focus, the profits earned and the growth posted proved it to be worth the risk.

Ingenious

Strategy

It shifted its focus from providing endpoint solutions to enterprise infrastructure services and this helped it broaden its client base and reduce overheads.

Headquartered Mumbai Branches 7 Employees 117 Key Executives Mohammed Sutarwala, MD; Murtuza Sutarwala, Director; Nitin Alsi, President-Sales Key Principals HP, IBM, Cisco, EMC, Lenovo, Cyberoam, SonicWall, VMware, Citrix, Symantec Key Technologies Networking, Servers, Virtualization, Managed services, Facility management/Helpdesk, Printers and managed print services, Storage

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SPECIAL AWARD DATACENTER

Syndrome Technologies

{

Headquartered Mumbai Branches 4 Employees 110 Key Executives Rajesh Singhal, VP-Managed Services; Bhavesh Thakar, Sales Enterprise Key Principals Cisco, HP, Citrix, Schneider, Dell, Check Point, F5 Key Technologies Security, Networking, Servers, UC/AV/ Collaboration, Facility management/ Helpdesk, Storage

Siddharth Mehta CEO

S

TEVE JOBS once said, “That’s been one of my mantras: Focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.” That strategy worked for Apple and it worked for Syndrome Technologies.

By creating six verticals, the Mumbai-based company ensured that it created more focus, which helped it create new accounts and cut across different technologies within existing accounts.

The six verticals are datacenter builds, 106

INDIAN CHANNELWORLD JULY 2014

networking, collaboration, virtualization, computing, and managed services.

This strategy helped the company create both, depth in technology expertise and breadth in business opportunities. Though it created vertical depth, Syndrome Technologies ensured that its sales force worked across the six verticals. To make it work, Syndrome Technologies needed to ensure greater collaboration within its teams. It did this by investing about Rs 1.5 crore in Microsoft Dynamics.

The ingenious strategy will go a long way in helping Syndrome Technologies get to its target for the year.

Ingenious

Strategy

It ran against conventional wisdom and consolidated multiple offerings into six key technology verticals, thereby creating greater focus.

Taashee Linux Services Manojkummar Garg COO

T

AASHEE LINUX Services provided its clients—both existing and potential—with IT solutions that they did not have the potential to develop. This created new growth opportunities for the company.

To that end, the Hyderabad-based company started an in-house product development unit that utilized the technologies of its partners. The company placed everyone in a win-win situation as the approach delivered maximum value to its clients and at the same time also benefitted its partners.

The investments made by Taashee Linux Services to start its in-house product development unit were recovered in the first year of operations.

One of the company’s biggest challenges was to get the right people on board. So the company brought in a seed team of experts to train the rest of the IT workforce, ensuring that the right person was in the right job at the right time.

The strategy paid off well for the company and helped Taashee drive a profitable growth.

Ingenious

Strategy

It started a product development division in-house to provide clients with IT solutions that they couldn’t develop.

Headquartered Hyderabad Branches 5 Employees 70 Key Executives Abhishek Datt, CTO; Amit Kulkarni, GM Sales-West Key Principals Red Hat, VMware, Alfresco, Liferay, Veeam, MongoDB, EnterpriseDB, AWS Key Technologies Datacenter solutions, Virtualization, Managed services Focus Verticals Telecom, Government, Manufacturing, Mining/Oil/Gas, Media, BFSI, Healthcare/Pharma

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SPECIAL AWARD STORAGE

Targus Technologies

Col. Balwinder Singh Managing Director

G

URGAON-BASED TARGUS

Technologies promptly shut down unprofitable businesses and expanded its existing business through cross-selling and upselling. The company reworked its team strategy and kept the sales team as the core.

Targus focused on employee productivity and reduced labour attrition. The company achieved this by conducting a SWOT analysis of its employees.

As a reward for its efforts, the company bagged the UPLC maintenance

contract handed out by the UP government. With that, the company gained a strong foothold in the domestic market and also enhanced its visibility.

Getting the UPLC project started was a challenge due to limited availability of trained and wellequipped staff. This problem was overcome by setting up a special task force and deploying the team at different sites to ensure that it’s easier to track and manage the project at multiple locations.

All these efforts helped the company drive profitable growth.

Ingenious

Strategy

It had the courage to do away with unprofitable businesses and decided to revamp its internal strategy by focusing on sales.

{

Headquartered Gurgaon Employees 520 Key Executives Raunaq Singh, Director; Amarjeet Singh Walia, Director Key Principals HP, Cisco, Microsoft, Juniper, IBM Oracle, Red Hat, Riverbed, VMware, Commscope, Citrix, Tyco Key Technologies Security, Networking, Servers, Datacenter Solutions, UC/AV/ Collaboration, Managed services, Facility management/Helpdesk, Printers and managed print pervices, Storage

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SPECIAL AWARD DATACENTER

Team Computers

Ravi Dutt Sharma Business Head–IMS

T

RUE TO its name, Team Com-

puters realized that the best way to stay ahead was to collaborate with its clients and strive to provide them with the best customer experience.

To that end, the company created strategies to join hands with its clients’ IT and business teams, and CIOs. It decided to focus on three verticals: Pharma, insurance, and automobile.

In order to provide its clients with the best possible solution and to get an in-depth understanding of its clients’ business, the company hired consul-

tants and domain experts. This way, the company worked with some of the biggest automobile companies across the world and created its own intellectual property for its analytics practice.

This strategy helped the company boost business and get more clients as it wasn’t shooting in the dark and was aware of the business needs of its clients.

Piggybacking on the benefits of this approach the company earned handsome revenue and, at the same time, it helped its clients saved money and increase profits.

Ingenious

Strategy

Instead of shooting in the dark, the company decided to hire consultants and domain experts to get in-depth knowledge into its clients’ business.

Headquartered New Delhi Employees 1,100 Key Executives Ranjan Chopra, CMD, Mahesh Tomar, Director, Deepak Rai, CFO Key Principals Lenovo, Dell, IBM, HP, Qlik, Google, Amazon, MS, Cisco, Apple, Samsung Key Technologies Security, Networking, Servers, Cloud computing, Datacenter solutions, Enterprise applications, Mobility, UC/ AV/Collaboration, Virtualization, BI and analytics, Managed services, Facility management/Helpdesk, Printers and managed print services, Storage

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SPECIAL AWARD DATACENTER

Techniche Consulting Services

{

Headquartered Kolkata Branches 9 Employees 70 Key Principals Tyco, Schneider, HP, Extreme, LG, Samsung, Bosch, Eaton, Dell, Cyberoam, Solus Key Technologies Security, Networking, Servers, Datacenter solutions, UC/AV/ Collaboration, Facility management/ Helpdesk Focus Verticals Infrastructure, Education/Nonprofit, Telecom, Government, Manufacturing, Mining/Oil/Gas

Satish Choudhary Director

U

NDERSTANDING THE needs of customer and keeping up with market trends, Techniche Consulting Service aligned its company goals to focus on two segments: Datacenters (physical build and IT), and IP surveillance, giving the company’s growth plans a major boost.

Understanding the shift towards the cloud, the company acted on datacenter consolidation through tie-ups with OEMs, staff training, and realigning marketing focus.

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building an in-house testing facility which translated into greater confidence in the teams providing solutions to the clients.

The business also grew by almost 40 percent.

The major challenge was that the available products in the surveillance industry far exceeded the total projects to be undertaken.

This was overcome through interactions with SIs in other geographies, OEMs, and understanding the industry vertical and helped the company increase profits.

Ingenious

Strategy

The company aligned to market trends and focused on two segments: datacenter consolidation and IP surveillance to gain profit.

Total Presentation Devices Nandita Singgha Managing Director

A

PIONEER IN the video conferencing domain in India, Total Presentation Devices, posted a year on year CAGR of 30 percent.

That growth was a result of a smart strategy. The company realized the limited spending capacity of large enterprises during the slowdown. So, it decided to focus on SMBs, offering them its VC-in-a-box solution at an affordable price.

The strategy paid off. The company targeted schools, multiplexes, and manufacturing units. Its scheme of

providing clients with a buybackwith-lease option helped the company garner goodwill in the market.

Though the Indian VC market budding, SMBs contributed to almost half the company’s annual revenue last year. This achievement came at the time when the market was weighed down by a fluctuating rupee and economic volatility.

According to the company, it is the only ISO 9001-2000 certified company for excellent services in integration of VC and AC systems in India.

Ingenious

Strategy

In order to combat the slowdown, the company shifted focus to SMBs, offering them its VC-in-a-box solution at affordable and competitive prices.

Headquartered Mumbai Branches 15 Employees 850 Key Executives Sanjay Sarkar, VP; Naveen Gupta, DGM; Ira Sengupta, Senior Manager; Patitapaban, Finance Head Key Principals Own IP-based Solutions, Cisco, Lifesize, Vu Key Technologies UC/AV/Collaboration, Facility management/Helpdesk Focus Verticals Education/Nonprofit, Manufacturing, Media

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Trident Information Systems

{

Headquartered New Delhi Employees 130 Key Executives Mamta Diwan, VP-Sales and Marketing; Rajneesh Bhagat, Operations Head Key Principals Microsoft, SAP, IBM, QlikView Key Technologies Cloud computing, Enterprise applications, BI and analytics, Managed services, Facility management/ Helpdesk Focus Verticals Auto/Logistics, Education/Nonprofit, Government, IT/ITeS, Manufacturing, BFSI

Anita Jain CEO

T

RIDENT INFORMATION

Systems realized that in order to grow its business and stay relevant, it needed to shift its focus to cloud computing.

It was quick to figure that buyers were no longer interested in traditional services and were keen to push the cloud agenda.

“In order to take advantage of the business opportunity that the cloud presented, increase our win rate, and meet our customers’ need for complete, integrated solutions, we realized that we must become cloud solution curators,” says Anita 112

INDIAN CHANNELWORLD JULY 2014

Jain, CEO, Trident Information Systems. This move also meant that the company needed to adopt a differential pricing strategy. Unlike traditional service, the cloud is a pay-per-use model and this thrilled Trident’s customers.

Because the company built its cloud offerings around Microsoft’s Azure Platform, there was no need for upfront investment. But a major challenge was the fact that cloud-based ERP services didn’t have many takers but that changed with the maturity of cloud computing.

Ingenious

Strategy

It read the pulse of the market and let go of traditional services to shift its focus to cloud computing, leading to business growth.

SPECIAL AWARD

Twenty Two By 7 Solutions

STORAGE

Venkata Ramana Murthy Prime Mover

T

WENTY TWO By 7 Solutions

was battling a tough economy and it realized that it needed to adapt to this challenging business landscape by tweaking its go-tomarket strategy.

It turned its GTM strategy on its head by employing a proactive sales approach instead of a reactive one. This meant that the company invests an incredible amount of time to work closely with clients and understand their business challenges.

This approach ensured that the company’s solutions are in tune with its cli-

ents’ business problems. While the innovative change in GTM strategy didn’t require the company to invest—in terms of money—but it had to invest a considerable amount of time to understand the clients’ business challenges and ensure that their needs were met.

The only challenge was to get buyin from employees so that they are able to transition to the new strategy.

Despite the slowdown, a welltrained staff implemented adapted to the change in strategy, thereby retaining existing clients getting new ones on-board.

Ingenious

Strategy

It changed its GTM strategy from indulging in reactive sales to proactive ones, resulting in increased opportunities and revenues.

{

Headquartered Bangalore Employees 40 Key Executives Sudhir Babu, Sales Director; Bharath Kumar P., VP-Virtualization Key Principals EMC, Fortinet, Websense, VMware, NetApp, Symantec, Seclore Key Technologies Security, Networking, Servers, Cloud computing, Virtualization, Facility management/Helpdesk, Storage Focus Verticals Infrastructure, Education/Nonprofit, IT/ITeS, Manufacturing, Media, Healthcare/Pharma

JULY 2014

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SPECIAL AWARD STORAGE

Unified Data-Tech Solutions

Amarish Shah Director

U

Solutions was ambitious in a year when most companies had little to write home about. It wanted to provide the best possible service to its existing client by offering greater value.

And at the same time, it also wanted to acquire new clients.

Rather than have its fingers in many pies, it decided to concentrate on specific brands and solutions.

Devising a strategy and aligning the company in line with that strategy was a major challenge NIFIED DATA-TECH

which the company handled deftly by investing in dedicated sales and an implementation team that ensured delivery of solutions according to customer requirements. This decision proved to be fruitful as it yielded the company benefits in terms of revenues and a healthy client base as well.

Putting in place a system of reviews to keep its projects on track helped the company earn a handsome revenue.

Ingenious

Strategy

It designed niche solutions to increase its footprints in existing accounts and also traverse into new accounts which yielded additional revenues.

{

Headquartered Mumbai Branches 2 Employees 38 Key Executives Hiren Mehta, Director; Ashish Khandelwal, VP-Technology Key Principals IBM, HP, Check Point, EMC Key Technologies Security, Networking, Servers, Datacenter solutions, Virtualization, Storage Focus Verticals IT/ITeS, Manufacturing, Media, BFSI, Healthcare/Pharma

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Value Point Systems

HALL OF FAME

R.S. Shanbhag CMD

T

looked both inward and outward to grow its business and take it to a new level.

In order to expand its business, the company decided to provide direct service in over 300 locations.

It has also taken up a slew of e-governance projects that have helped it garner enormous revenue.

It realized that satisfied customers make all the difference in a down economy and the best way to ensure that is to give customers what they want. To be able to do that, the comHE COMPANY

Headquartered Bangalore Branches 16 Employees 2,450 Key Executives Sampath Kumar H. R., CEO; Govinda Bhat, Group CFO Key Principals HP, Dell, Fujitsu, NetApp, EMC, Oracle, Cisco, Juniper, Xerox, Spectra Logic, Microsoft, Symantec, Adobe, Lenovo, Acer, Blackberry, Nokia, Samsung, Brocade, Kaseya, Sapphire, AMD, VMware, Tyco, QlikView, Jaspersoft, Citrix, Red Hat, Schneider, Emerson, Ruckus, Apple, Huawei

pany consulted customers to move away from proprietary solutions to open platforms.

Internally, the company strengthened its sales force by providing them with mobiles to access business applications and respond to customers in a timely manner. The company also optimized costs by using tools and automation, such as SAP, and putting in place a service desk.

The company trained its staff in analytics and cloud solutions, thereby increasing its client base and revenue.

Ingenious

Strategy

It took a holistic approach by making changes internally and externally to grow its business and increase revenue.

{ JULY 2014

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vCentric Technologies

{

Headquartered Hyderabad Employees 600 Key Executives Venu Gopal Uppalapati, CEO, Nageswar Gupta, AVP-Finance, Sridhar Nandivada, AVP-Sales & Marketing Key Principal SAP Key Technologies Enterprise applications, Mobility, BI and analytics, Managed services Focus Verticals Infrastructure, Auto/Logistics, Education/Nonprofit, IT/ITeS, Manufacturing, Mining/Oil/Gas, BFSI, Healthcare/Pharma

Roop Kumar Keesara Senior Vice President

V

CENTRIC TECHNOLOGIES

figured that the best way to stay ahead of its competitors in a slowdown is to play to its strengths. To that end, it analysed areas--region- and industry- wise--that provided immense opportunities and then it positioned its service offerings based on them.

Understanding the need for innovative and packaged solutions that give predictable outcomes in terms of costs, scope, and benefits for customers helped vCentric Technologies leave others behind.

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The challenge for the Hyderabadbased company was to package solutions in such a way that it would meet most of the requirements of its clients.

To be able to do that well, vCentric Technologies started by investing in market research followed by further investments in building the necessary solutions.

Therefore, it revamped its sales, delivery, and operations. This enabled vCentric to carve its service offerings in such a way that it could meet the growing demands of its customers.

Ingenious

Strategy

It played to its strengths and analyzed the areas that provided immense opportunities and positioned its service offerings based on them.

VDA Infosolutions Deepak Jadhav Director

V

DA INFOSOLUTIONS

understood the volume—and value--of the mid-tier region and focused on greater penetration in this market with its current range of services and solutions. It realized that there was more value in investing in training its staff than introducing a new range of products and services.

This strategy clicked as it helped the company cater to a greater number of clients and increase its footprint across the country. The company used its expertise in its

verticals and enhanced its reach by recruiting more resources in its sales and tech teams.

In order to optimize its resources, the company invested heavily on hiring staff and training its personnel. As a part of that, it also helped its sales and tech team complete certifications in various technologies.

Armed with a potent sales team and a qualified tech team, the company was able to set new benchmarks. It added over 30 new clients in the last year.

Ingenious

Strategy

Instead of introducing new products, it believed in investing in training its personnel and creating an army of qualified sales and tech teams.

Headquartered Mumbai Employees 500 Key Executives Vikas Save, Director, Ashutosh Deuskar, Director Key Principals IBM, EMC, Microsoft, Symantec, Red Hat, Cisco Key Technologies| Security, Networking, Servers, Cloud computing, Datacenter solutions, Enterprise applications, Mobility, UC/ AV/Collaboration, Virtualization, BI and analytics, Managed services, Facility management/Helpdesk, Printers and managed print services, Storage

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Veeras Infotek

HALL OF FAME

{

Headquartered Chennai Branches 2 Employees 160 Key Executives Sudarshan Ranganathan, CEO; Kumar Somayajilu, COO Key Principals NetApp, Microsoft, Symantec, ACL, McAfee, VMware, FireEye, CommVault, Adobe, Cisco, Citrix, HP, Dell, IBM Key Technologies Security, Networking, Servers, Cloud computing, UC/AV/Collaboration, Virtualization, BI and analytics, Storage

T.N. Srinivasan President-Business Value

V

strove to achieve higher standards of customer satisfaction.

It wanted to ensure that every customer got what he or she wanted. And the best way to do that was to ask customers. “We met 30 CIOs across customer organizations to find out what they expected from us. Today, customers want IT to drive business outcomes. Based on these trends and expectations, we went back and relooked our strategies,� says T N Srinivasan, Veeras Infotek.

It realized that it needed to

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change its entire service delivery model and move to an outcomebased engagement one. It used its CRM to plot its customers in terms of their existing infrastructure, growth indicators of the verticals they operate in, their business outlook, and existing processes, among other things.

Then, it trained its staff to enable them to have discussions with customers not from a product, but from a business outcome perspective. As a result, Veeras has executed about 12-14 projects.

Ingenious

Strategy

It listened to its customers and transformed its service delivery model to an outcome-based engagement one, thereby winning bigticket projects.

Veetrag Computers Praveen Naik Founder and Business Head

I

N 2013, Veetrag Computers

focused on the educational sector.

It ventured into a new business domain—installing CCTV and IP cameras—in educational and healthcare institutions.

The Sangli-based company devoted a large part of its time working with schools in Maharashtra and Karnataka. Apart from CCTV and IP cameras, it deployed thin clients in over 250 schools.

As the concept of digital and virtual classrooms saw increased adoption in the educational sector, the company

latched on to the opportunity and collaborated with Epson, and executed the project in engineering colleges.

Because adding new resources would have increased the company’s investment, it outsourced a major chunk of its skilled manpower requirements, while imparting the necessary training to its existing staff.

In addition, it also promoted and installed Dell’s VRTX computer hardware product in financial institutions.

Apart from that, it also took on the task of providing cloud-based solutions to its clients.

Ingenious

Strategy

It focused primarily on digitizing the education sector and entered into the CCTV and IP cameras domain to propel its growth.

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Headquartered Sangli Branches 3 Employees 19 Key Executives Mahesh Mahajan, General Manager; Chandrakant Chougule, Service Manager Key Principals Dell, Epson, Microsoft, D-Link, Quick Heal Key Technologies Networking, Servers, Cloud computing, Virtualization, Printers and managed print services

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Veltronics Sanjeev Gupta Director

V

ELTRONICS TOOK a bold and courageous step to move away from its tried-and-tested retail business.

The decision to shift focus from the retail segment to government projects, enabled Indore-based Veltronics to drive growth. It also helped the company move out of the LFR and online business model, which was not price competitive.

In order to be aligned to its strategy, the company deployed more manpower towards government projects.

One of the biggest challenges was the

number of deals finally closed, which according to Sanjeev Gupta, director, Veltronics, is rather low, at approximately 15 percent, due to a totally different kind of competition from the retail and LFR business.

Even with these challenging impediments, Veltronics posted a significant year-on-year growth.

While Veltronics still had to make additional investments in EMD (earnest money deposits) and BG (bank guarantees), the quantum of investments was brought down by restricting the stock levels to a minimum.

Ingenious

Strategy

It took the bold step of shifting focus from the retail segment to deploy more manpower on government projects.

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Headquartered Indore Branches 1 Employees 15 Key Executives Vikas Gupta, Director; Nasir Ali, Director Key Principals Dell, Microsoft, HP Key Technologies Security, Networking, Servers, Cloud computing, Mobility, Managed services, Printers and managed print services, Storage

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Versatile Infosecurity

SPECIAL AWARD SECURITY

Sudhir Sharma Director

I

HATED EVERY minute

of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.’”

Muhammad Ali’s words resonate with the strategy that New Delhi’s Versatile Infosecurity took when it wanted to drive up growth. Towards that end, the company set up an internal lab where it could train its engineers after obtaining know-how from original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).

The company extensively tested concepts in its labs and collated data

Headquartered New Delhi Employees 15 Key Executives Pankaj Rajput, CFO; Vivek Rajput, Head-Engineering Key Principals WatchGuard, Sophos, Smoothwall, Trend Micro Key Technology Security Focus Verticals Infrastructure, Auto/Logistics, Education/Nonprofit, Telecom, Government, IT/ITeS, Manufacturing, Mining/Oil/Gas, Media, BFSI, Healthcare/Pharma

from these tests to equip its engineers with the latest technical skills and know-how in the field of network security, the company’s main area of operation. The strategy increased the productivity of its main assets: Its people.

Realising that closures are slow in this domain, the company also prioritized the availability and visibility of its products, resulting in a yearon-year growth. “We have not had to make any additional investments for our strategies yet,” says Sudhir Sharma, director, Versatile Infosecurity.

Ingenious

Strategy

The company set up an internal lab to train its engineers after obtaining the know-how from original equipment manufacturers.

{ JULY 2014

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HALL OF FAME

Vitage Systems

Headquartered Bangalore Branches 2 Employees 36 Key Executives Ajay Badrinath, VP-Marketing & Communications; Jobi Thomas, VP-ETS Group Key Principals IBM, HP, Cisco, Lenovo, Juniper Networks, NetApp, Fujitsu, FireEye, CheckPoint, Symantec, VMware, Nevis, Microsoft Key Technologies Security, Networking, Servers, Cloud computing, Datacenter solutions, UC/AV/ Collaboration, Virtualization, Managed services, Storage

Jayanth Gojer COO

L

AST YEAR, Vitage bagged a BFSI project in Africa that called for a scale up like never before and the company sensed a huge opportunity there.

Jayanth Gojer, COO, Vitage, said, “In large overseas heterogeneous network deployments, we had little or no access to products and skillsets locally. Everything for this project was sourced out of India.�

Given these odds, the solution provider had to strategize its Africa debut well.

Poor connectivity and

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infrastructure around the continent could have been a roadblock, but Vitage handled it by posting a 24/7, on-site team and also by remote handling problems. Vitage invested in skilled manpower and in certifying existing sales and pre-sales teams to support the additional portfolio of products and solutions offered by the African company.

Over the last year, Vitage optimized its existing resources to meet client expectations and improve its client base, which helped the company boost sales.

Ingenious

Strategy

The company sensed the huge potential of the BFSI sector in the underexplored African markets and advanced in that direction.

Wysetek Systems Technologists Rajesh Mathkar Director

I

F THERE’S one company that’s the epitome of dedication, it’s Wysetek Systems Technologists. And that’s evident from its unwavering focus on virtualization and niche technologies around this domain.

Last year, Wysetek Systems Technologists, had added desktop virtualization to its portfolio. It had also delved into niche solutions like virtualization security.

It was a timely move as there was incredible demand for technologies like cloud computing and virtualization in 2013.

Latching on to this opportunity, helped the company expand its client base. And the revenue generated from it helped post a healthy growth.

The company also invested in recruiting personnel for pre-sales, technical, and solution sales and also awarded certifications in virtualization.

The only hurdle was changing the mindset of its employees. The company’s sales team was more comfortable selling products—not solutions—and Wyestek knew this needed to change if it had to grow.

Ingenious

Strategy

Its dogged dedication to virtualization and focus on niche solutions helped the company create a mark in the industry.

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Headquartered Mumbai Employees 260 Key Executives Cherian Thomas, Director; Rahul Nalawade, Enterprise Sales Manager; Bosco Remedios, Technology Sales Manager Key Principals VMware, Citrix, Symantec, EMC, IBM, HP, Dell, Lenovo, SonicWall, Cisco, McAfee, Apple, CheckPoint, Veeam, Trend Micro Key Technologies Security, Servers, Datacenter solutions, Virtualization, Managed services, Facility management/ Helpdesk, Storage

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TRIUMPH OF

INGENUITY

The ChannelWorld Premier100 Awards and Symposium Ceremony brought together India’s most brilliant minds in IT, including the IT industry’s senior-most executives, respected CIOs, and of course, one hundred of the country’s smartest channel partners.

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“Ingenuity plus courage plus work equals miracles.”

—Bob Richards THIS year’s Premier 100 recognized and awarded the 100 most ingenious channel partners in India at an Awards and Symposium Ceremony, held in Pune, on June 6, 2014.

Over the last six years, The ChannelWorld Premier100 Awards, has become a benchmark for brilliance in the Indian IT enterprise channel space. But the ChannelWorld Premier100 is more than an awards ceremony. It is complemented by a symposium that brings together some of the

INGENIOUS 100 SPECIAL AWARDS PARTNERS

PARTNERS

best minds in IT, from across the stakeholder spectrum. This includes the IT industry’s seniormost executives, respected CIOs, and, of course, India’s smartest channel partners.

The ceremony held keynote sessions from some of India’s leading thinkers, technology briefings with global IT leaders, feedback sessions with celebrated CIOs, and peer-to-peer networking—all over a two-day event.

In addition, ChannelWorld also presented special awards in storage, datacenter, cloud, and security to honor these winners, who have excelled in these areas last fiscal. Besides these, the Hall of Fame award was also presented to those who have consistently performed for over four years.

Here’s what you missed.

ASSOCIATE PARTNERS

POWERED BY

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Partnering for Profit At the ChannelWorld Premier100 2014, some of India’s top IT providers discussed what goes into market development from a channel partner perspective and how to ensure profitability and increase customer pipeline.

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IN a first of its kind initiative, the Premier100 2014 event launched the Captains’ Table series. In a two-part panel discussion, it brought together some of IT industry’s top, global, channel-centric players to share their insights on some of the most pressing issues in the channel space.

In one such panel titled, Market Development: Partnering for Profit, the panelists—Nikhil Pathak from Schneider Electric India, Rajesh Janey from EMC, Sameer Garde from Samsung India, Surendra Singh, from Websense—discussed what goes into market development from a channel partner perspective.

They also shared insights on how to make it a win-win situation for both principals and partners, in terms of pipeline and profitability.

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP | PREMIER 100

Panelists Nikhil Pathak from Schneider Electric India, Rajesh Janey from EMC, Sameer Garde from Samsung India, Surendra Singh, from Websense, and Vijay Ramachandran, IDG Media ,discuss how OEMs can help channel partners ensure profitability, increase pipeline, and what goes into market development.

Market development is a complex term in an OEM-partner relationship and entails a host of things such as funding, joint marketing activities, lead generation, and strategy, among other things.

It can span across mature markets, portfolios or may surround a new geography or technology.

The panelists argued that the onus of optimal utilization of funds allotted for market development would lie with partners, though the source of funding is essentially vested with the OEM. The common observation was that the channel space is a mix of partners who do market intelligence on their own, or explore independently before taking assistance from their principals, or rely on their OEMs. The participants also discussed ROI as a function of market development, saying that ROI is a buzzword not just for customers, but for partners too. Unless their deals are profitable in a larger sense of the word, they will not see value in doing business with OEMs. The panelists also acknowledged that when the market is new, much of the evangelism happens at the OEM end. Significantly, the moot point that OEMs and partners must note, according to the panel, is that funds and actual spending power lie with customers. Unless customers are educated about the shift in markets and technology trends, the wheel of market development would not move in the long term.

Value creation and customer lifecycle management is a joint, complementary effort by both OEMs and their partners.

NIKHIL PATHAK VP & Country GM-IT Business, India & SAARC, Schneider Electric

Evangelizing and educating customers is the critical piece in the game because the actual funds lie with them.

RAJESH JANEY President, India & SAARC, EMC

RoI is a critical measure to see how vendor-partner relationships go. It’s a thumb rule to see the value that the parties derive from each other.

SURENDRA SINGH Regional Director, India and SAARC, Websense

Partners give us a greater degree of market intelligence than the other way round. This is a significant process of market development.

SAMEER GARDE SVP and Country Head-Enterprise Business, Samsung India

Vendors Take Responsibility At the ChannelWorld Premier100 2014, some of India’s top IT providers discussed how to manage controversial vendor-partner challenges including poaching and direct incentivization of partner employees.

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AT the ChannelWorld Premier100 2014, IDG brought together some of the IT industry’s top leaders in a panel discussion called Captains’ Table.

One such panel, The Captains’ Table on Employee Responsibility, moderated by IDG’s Editor-in-Chief, Vijay Ramachandran, brought together industry leaders such as Ashish Dhawan from Juniper Networks India; Sanjay Rohatgi from Symantec India; Anil Valluri from NetApp; and Dr. Alok Bharadwaj from Canon India. These India heads of some of the biggest global IT companies deliberated on the dynamics of vendor-partner relationship through its different dimensions such as revenue performance, access to training, certification, soft skills, marketing resources, and employee retention, among others.

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP | PREMIER 100

Panelists IDG’s Editor-in-Chief, Vijay Ramachandran, alongwith industry leaders such as Ashish Dhawan from Juniper Networks India; Sanjay Rohatgi from Symantec India; Anil Valluri from NetApp; and Dr. Alok Bharadwaj from Canon India, discussed the intricacies of vendorpartner relationships and how both parties can benefit from each other.

Some of the churn that happens in the industry is positive because it calls for enhancement in skillsets, which pan out well for all parties.

ASHISH DHAWAN MD, Juniper Networks India

The discussion also broached on sensitive, controversial areas such as poaching of skilled certified employees from partner organizations by vendors.

While all the panelists unanimously agreed that the onus of retaining an employee in a free market was on the partner organization itself, there was no denying that there are fine lines that had to be drawn to maintain a healthy relationship between partners and vendors and poaching was a big ‘no’. Here’s the writing on the wall: Vendors contribute to the grooming of a partner’s workforce, but they do not ethically exercise the right to wean away those same employees.

The other key issue was whether direct incentivization of a partner employee by a vendor was acceptable. Ruling this out as a dated, shortterm ploy, the panelists remarked that this could be the death knell of the vendor-partner relationship.

It was also noted that an inspired employee is less likely to leave than a detached one. The need was to ensure that employee aspirations are addressed, skillsets refreshed, and that staffs are constantly rewarded and recognized by their employers.

Keeping a 360-degree view from an HR, marketing, technical perspective without being overwhelmed by myopic terms such as revenue performance, can go a long way in keeping equations within partner organizations intact.

The focus of the industry must be on building an ecosystem of higher employee retention and institutionalizing processes and practices.

ALOK BHARADWAJ EVP, Canon India

It is on us as vendors to make sure we are staying true to our commitment of not poaching an employee from a partner organization.

ANIL VALLURI President, India and SAARC, NetApp

The principals play a vital role in grooming and enabling employees in partner organizations, not with a mere selfish motive, but with a long-term goal.

SANJAY ROHATGI President Sales, Symantec India

Mastering Business: The Power What it Takes to Lead Without of Focus a Title Running a business isn’t easy. A lot of businesses don’t see the expected growth curve because eventually they lose focus and aren’t able to adapt to change. Founder Director and Master Coach of Intrad School of Executive Coaching (ISEC), M. Krishna Kumar, explains how one can stay focused and deal with change. He says when changes have to be implemented at the last minute, there is a mixture of anxiety and fear, but change can also be an opportunity.

That’s because, often, the start of a new initiative is exciting. However, a time comes, says Kumar, when that excitement ebbs and performance starts falling. This is the stage when things need to change. But how people react to change makes all the difference.

Another challenge businesses face in today’s dynamic world is mastering the ability to stay focused.

A great leader changes the world. Pawan Bakshi, a certified executive coach, and trainer from the Army War College, believes that high emotional intelligence and a high state of self and social awareness are the two major steps to lead change. “The first step in the journey towards emotional intelligence is self awareness,” he said, during his session at the Premier100 Awards 2014.

Bakshi says that emotional intelligence is the ability to distinguish and control emotions. It helps one to gauge the emotions of other people in order to work effectively with them. The four ingredients of emotional intelligence are self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management.

Bakshi also highlighted Robin Sharma’s new model of leadership known as Leadership 2.0. It is about every

“A very helpful technique to improve focus is to use the

“Emotional intelligence is the ability to control emotions.

STOP method, where S is step back from a situation, T is think, O is organize your thoughts, and P is proceed.”

It’s made up of four ingredients: Self and social awareness, self-management, and relationship management.”

M. KRISHNA KUMAR, Founder Director & Master Coach, Intrad School of Executive Coaching

PAWAN BAKSHI, Certified Executive Coach & Trainer, Army War College

Kumar illustrated this with an example. “Say, there are two lines. The first line is how a person actually performed and the second line denotes ideal performance. People would like both lines to be equal, but it is difficult to gauge if actual performance is potential performance,” says Kumar.

The trick is to figure out what pulls down performance.

The technical word is interference which adversely affects focus, he says.

A very helpful technique to improve focus is to use the STOP method, where S is step back from a situation, T is think, O is organize your thoughts, and P is proceed. These methods can help organizations get ahead.

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participant in a company showing leadership in the work they do. Simply put, any person in any organization has the power to be the CEO of his or her job. One can start with training, coaching, and building a culture of leadership.

Leadership 2.0 also addresses employee productivity, customer service, employee retention and profitability, as business priorities.

Bakshi also says that management and leadership work on parallel tracks. Leadership is one of the several aspects of management. Often the same people play both leader and manager at different points in time and leaders can excel with some degree of management skills.

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP | PREMIER 100

Storage: When Data’s Filled to the Brim

Making Room for a Secure Digital World

“The datacenter footprint is decreasing while the density of the drive is increasing,” said Barun Lala, director, HP Storage, in his session at the ChannelWorld Premier100 2014 event.

Lala said that with time, the storage industry has undergone huge shifts—from floppy disks to HDD to SSD. On the client end, a shift from the client-server architecture to a new economy of scale has happened. This is due to the emergence of a mobile world, where connectivity is constant and unrestrained.

According to Lala, data created in the last two years is equivalent to the data created in the last 98 years. And a major portion of it is unstructured.

With data growing exponentially, the impact has directly been on the 3 Vs: Volume, velocity, and variety of data. As

Gartner predicts that, by the end of 2016, approximately 30 percent of businesses will opt for cloud-based services. Improvising on the trend, Gemalto introduced an array of products which deliver the same high level of security as traditional strong authentication solutions. All this has been done while addressing customer needs for new devices, mobility, and BYOD, said Philippe Inserra, vice president, Identity and Access-Asia, Security Business Unit, Gemalto, at ChannelWorld Premier100 2014.

Inserra says that Gemalto has clients from about 190 countries, and comprises the world’s well-known enterprises, mobile operators, national administrations, transport operators, banks and financial institutions, and number of other industries looking for profits in productivity, security, and simplicity. The company has also developed two types of Prox

“To accommodate the increasing storage demand,

“In a world where the digital revolution is changing

organizations would have to shed their false sense of security regarding the existing infrastructure.”

our lives, Gemalto’s solutions make personal digital interactions easy, secure, and enjoyable.”

BARUN LALA, Director, HP Storage

PHILIPPE INSERRA, VP, Identity & Access-Asia, Security Business Unit, Gemalto

a result, managing client datacenters has become complex and challenging. The storage ecosystem, said Lala, is the most technology-driven among the three verticals of servers, storage, and networking. Storage can be split into three main blocks—primary storage, information retention, and analytics. To accommodate the increasing storage demand, Lala said, organizations would have to shed their false sense of security regarding the existing infrastructure.

He also said that today the five pillars of a converged infrastructure—virtualization, resilience, optimization, orchestration, and modularity—have become industry standards and organizations can’t do without them.

readers—dual interface smart card reader (Prox-DU) and the contactless reader with SAM slot (Prox-SU)—to address the needs of the organization and to reduce the TCO. Headquartered in Amsterdam, Gemalto, a provider of twofactor authentication (2FA) and cloud, earned a revenue of about Rs 1,944 crore in 2013 and expanded to more than 44 countries worldwide. It also provides solutions across a wide range of sectors such as banking, mobile telecommunications, retail, healthcare, and security. “In a world where the digital revolution is gradually changing our lives, Gemalto’s solutions are planned to make personal digital interactions easy, secure, and enjoyable,” he said.

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Building an Energy Efficient Enterprise

The Magic of Untangling Complex Networks

IN uncertain economic times, dependence on energy that powers our world, drives our economy, and sustains our very existence has increased. But ensuring efficient use of energy is a major challenge. But Schneider Electric is trying to make things better. In his session, Rohith Balakrishnan, GM-Enterprise, Schneider Electric, stated that the company is a global expert in managing energy with operations in more than 100 countries. It leverages its portfolio to make energy reliable, safe, productive, efficient and green. “We help organizations make the most of energy by providing integrated solutions, ultra secure and high quality power, efficient energy and endto-end services,” he says.

The biggest concerns for organizations—especially in countries like India—are related to energy cost and low quality of power. Almost 50 percent of the cost of operation in an organization is energy cost.

This leads to downtime. The vision behind Schneider Electric’s services is to provide operational efficiency to customers using technology and expertise. With this vision in mind, Schneider Electric, according to Balakrishnan, is at the forefront of capturing the trends of the new energy world. Urbanization, digitization, and industrialization are opening new market opportunities for Schneider Electric.

In addition, Balakrishnan advised channel partners to look at every green IT deal from a long-term perspective and to broaden their scope and market.

IN today’s world, complex networks and security technologies are difficult to manage. But FireMon is changing that.

It is a leading provider of security management and risk analysis solutions. “The biggest challenge a channel partner usually faces is to reduce complexity through technology and to drive innovation into businesses through the use of technology,” says Ruby Khaira, sales manager, FireMon. FireMon, says Khaira, has solutions that helps organizations visualize and analyze this complexity in real time. “All large businesses, government agencies and managed service providers demand the qualities, which are found only in FireMon solutions. We allow organizations to retain visibility into network security and IT risk, which is required to prevent intrusions,” he says.

In addition, Khaira says, FireMon’s security manager, policy planner, and risk analyzer help businesses to analyze, regulate, and manage firewall configurations centrally.

Founded in 2004, FireMon helps enterprises to find, correct and ultimately omit gaps in their existing network security infrastructure. Its proactive, real-time, enterprise security management platform gives security decision makers key management and operations data to reduce risk and provide appropriate levels of access.

“We have deployed our solutions across a number of industries such as financial services, insurance, healthcare, retail, telecom, energy, and technology. With FireMon, organizations can protect their network and keep business up,” he says.

“Channel partners should look at every green IT deal from a long-term perspective and broaden their scope and market in order to prosper.”

“The biggest challenge a channel partner faces is to reduce complexity and, at the same time, drive innovation by using IT.”

ROHITH BALAKRISHNAN, GM-Enterprise, Schneider Electric

RUBY KHAIRA, Sales Manager, FireMon

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THOUGHT LEADERSHIP | PREMIER 100

On Higher Ground: Reaching for the Clouds CtrlS is a leader in the datacenter market with close to 9,400 racks currently available. It started with a datacenter in Hyderabad and then opened one in Mumbai, with plans of moving forward to Delhi and Chennai subsequently.

Anil Nama, CIO, CtrlS, said that 40 percent of the business is generated from the BFSI segment. Elaborating on the continuity and security aspects of its latest cloud version, he said each VM would have four copies of data and three copies of compute.

It created one of India’s largest CDNs, rolling out 20 India-specific POPS. The company also allows clients to take back-up data and charges them on the basis of usage.

The unified dashboard implemented by CtrlS allows an agent to monitor systems, irrespective of whether they are running SAP, Oracle, or Cognos. The company has also built a partner-dedicated IaaS cloud. Each partner is provided with his own simple IaaS cloud that is personalized and localized as per his portfolio.

With security threats on the Internet becoming a major issue, the company upgraded its bandwidth to a three-tier system. This primarily includes Internet bandwidth, the DDoS bandwidth and the OSP hacking, protected bandwidth.

Nama said the company received and acted upon the feedback from its clients and started providing every VM with an OTP, log analyser and host-based intrusion detection systems. A full SEM tool is also now integrated in the system.

“We have built a partner-dedicated IaaS cloud. Each partner is provided with his own simple IaaS cloud that is personalized and localized as per his portfolio.”

ANIL NAMA, CIO, CtrlS

Road to Growth: The Four Ps to Profit MARKETING a business is mostly about how one sets a position accurate enough to satisfy market’s needs. Praveen Sahai, VP, Channels, EMC India and SAARC, spoke about the four Ps to profit during his chat with editor-in-chief Vijay Ramachandran at the Premier100 2014 awards. Product, price, place and promotion are the essential marketing mantras. Each of these four Ps is a variable that should be controlled to create a perfect mix that attracts profit.

“This marketing mix or the four P model can be used to help a business decide how to take a new offer to market.

And can also be used to assess your existing marketing strategy” he says.

For EMC, enabling channel partners was the key to success and it worked towards developing best practices and well-organized models to create a skilled channel workforce. Another 3P philosophy—profitability, pipeline and performance—helped them in keeping a sharp focus on their channel partners. The solution provider understands that the channel community is vital to build customer confidence. “The major issue a channel partner usually faces is to keep on leveraging the profits” he says.

Sahai says that the cloud has changed the way independent software vendors sell their products by highlighting profitability and ease of scalability. It has also altered the way IT departments now sell and buy software. “The availability of storage capacity will attract more businesses and applications to move towards cloud for affordable and scalable IT investment” he says.

Praveen Sahai, VP, Channels, EMC, India and SAARC, highlighted the four Ps of marketing—product, price, place and promotion in a chat with IDG’s Editor-in-chief Vijay Ramachandran at the Premier100 2014 event.

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Managed Print Services: Print, Protect, Prosper K. BHASKAR, senior director, office imaging solutions division, Canon, in his session, pointed out that the company is focusing on managed print services—a sector towards which both SMEs and large PSUs are migrating to.

In a managed print services framework, the document cycle starts with creating, managing, followed by printing, archival, archival retrieval and finally ends with destruction. This is managed by a workflow solution, where critical documents need to be archived and indexed for proper, easy and quick retrieval. These documents have a lifespan, post which, they need to be securely destroyed.

In order to help organizations achieve that, Canon has introduced solutions and expertise in managing paper resources. In addition, Bhaskar says, when companies move from paper to data (or bits and bytes), security becomes a

“When companies move from paper to data (or bits and bytes), security becomes a big issue. For this, Canon has a two-level security strategy in place.”

K. BHASKAR, Senior Director, Office Imaging Solutions Division, Canon

big issue. For this, Canon has a two-level security strategy in place.

At the first level, it ensures that printed documents remain confidential. This means that other than the person printing it, nobody should be able to access it. At the second level, it introduces a mechanism that lets administrators decide who should have viewing rights and who should have editing rights. This helps minimize manipulation of documents.

Apart from that, Canon is also ensuring that it provides a standardized service quality across over 600 cities that it operates in. With its managed print services solutions, Canon is setting new benchmarks in the industry.

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CIO Viewpoint: The State of the CIO 2014 ON the sidelines of the Premier100 2014 awards, Vijay Ramachandran, editor-in-chief, IDG Media, revealed the findings of CIO’s annual State of the CIO 2014 survey.

In order to give channel partners an overview of the challenges that their clients face, their budgets, and staffing issues, Ramachandran said that Indian organizations spend upto 3.5 percent of their annual revenue on IT. He said that post slowdown, almost all new funding comes out of departmental budgets giving LOBs greater say in projects.

Also, he said, the business’ near-time horizon is now upto 12 months. This means that CIOs are expected to get product justifications, select partners, start rollouts, and get results within this duration. And the slowdown isn’t making it any easier for CIOs. That’s because despite the slowdown,

“The business’ near-time horizon is now upto 12 months. This means, CIOs are expected to select partners, rollout, and get results within this duration.”

VIJAY RAMACHANDRAN, Editor-in-Chief, IDG Media

companies are doing more projects in lesser time, on tighter budgets, and with fewer people.

Apart from that, CIOs feel there are challenges with outsourcing. There is a lot of attrition at outsourcers’ end and talent is rarely replaced, said Ramachandran.

Another pain point for CIOs is the fact that datacenter complexity is increasing and companies are porting to cloud for simplifying IT. The survey pointed out that the hybrid cloud spectrum has breached the 40 percent mark across organizations.

But the good news is that new technologies like augmented reality and M2M are gaining ground.

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP | PREMIER 100

CIO Panel: The New Economics of IT

Towards Stronger Relationships: The Perfect Partnership

AT the ChannelWorld Premier100 2014, IDG Media arranged a panel discussion with some of India’s top CIOs to discuss ‘The New Economics of IT’.

According to Rajeev Mittal, IT/IS head at Piaggio Vehicles, changing business dynamics is what’s driving the new economics of IT. Today, he said, IT projects that improve efficiency are important and tend to be focus areas.

Vijay Ramachandran, IDG’s editor-in-chief, who was moderating the conversation, asked the panel what they thought about the trend of lines-of-business (LOBs) and department heads increasingly funding IT projects.

Sharat M. Airani, global CTO, Intellinet Datasys, said that this is an ideal situation. Funding in IT, he believes, is too restricted. LOBs have different requirements, he said, so it’s better that LOBs get independent budget approvals.

AT the ChannelWorld Premier100 2014, Venkatesh Swaminathan, country head, Novell, spoke broadly about Novell’s portfolio and history—and why it made sense for channel partners to work with it.

Swaminathan said the company has a software presence from infrastructure to cloud to mobile applications. Globally, he added, Novell has 48,000 customers, over 7,000 partners and a revenue of $1.1 billion. Its India operations, based out of Bangalore, has over 700 employees and over 670 developers.

In a 2012 report, Forrester placed Novell among the top worldwide infrastructure services software vendors.

Since then, the company has been placed there regularly

by Forrester. Novell, he said, started its India operations in Bangalore in 1994 with Texas Instruments and is one of the

Vijay Ramachandran, Editor-in-Chief, IDG Media, gathered some of India’s most renowned CIOs to discuss the new economic realities that are changing the IT landscape.

Yogesh Zope, group CIO, Bharat Forge, wasn’t totally convinced that allowing different LOBs run independently was a good idea. This system would make integrating individual solutions with core systems “a painful process.”

Ramachandran pointed out to the panel that many channel partners lament that CIOs like to partner almost exclusively with big players. In response, Mittal said that some of the major parameters that CIOs consider include the dependency of a partner on its OEMs, potential delays in project implementation, what kind of certifications a partner organization has, and what value they can add. The Indian market, he said, works largely on relationships.

“We focus primarily on identity and access management in India. Our NetIQ portfolio grew by a humungous 300 percent in the last fiscal.”

VENKATESH SWAMINATHAN, Country Head, Novell

pioneers of the Bangalore IT boom. In 2011, it was acquired by the Attachmate Group. Novell, as it is now, is essentially an amalgamation of four different companies.

Software created under the Novell and NetIQ (a brand acquired in 2005) portfolios, are created in India by Indian engineers and sold globally. The India operations of the company manage the Asia-Pacific region. The company focuses primarily on the identity and access management segment in the Indian markets.

The last few years have been good for Novell. Its NetIQ portfolio grew by a humungous 300 percent during the last fiscal.

JULY 2014

INDIAN CHANNELWORLD

135

STORAGE SPECIAL AWARD

SPECIAL AWARD

More data means more storage, and more complications.

This award honors some of the best storage solutions in India. Barun Lala, Director, HP Storage, gave away the awards to five channel partners.

AWARDEES CDP India Raksha Technologies Targus Technologies Twenty Two By 7 Solutions Unified Data-Tech Solutions

Storage Special Award

C

LOUD STORAGE, virtual machine (VM) backup, big data and vendor consolidation have caused a significant change in today’s storage market environment. As organizations understand the importance of data management and increase their investments in implementing storage solutions, channel partners have an important role to play in educating their customers on innovative storage technology and providing them with a proven, high quality and cost-efficient solutions. The award-winning partners also maintain strategic relationships with the IT industry leaders which ultimately allows them to deliver best-in-class solutions with a significant competitive advantage. These awards honor channel partners who have delivered exemplary solutions for their customers during the past year and have accomplished extraordinary business challenges.

Congratulations Winners

Presents

STORAGE AWARDS

DATACENTER SPECIAL AWARD

SPECIAL AWARD

The datacenter award honors those channel partners who ensure that their customers run datacenters that adapt to changing business demands.

Nikhil Pathak, VP & Country GM-IT Business, India & SAARC, Schneider Electric India, presented the awards.

AWARDEES Adit Microsys Cache Peripherals Syndrome Technologies Team Computers Techniche Consulting Services

Datacenter Special Award

T

HE ENVIRONMENT in which the modern datacenter operates is fast changing. ‘Doing more with less’ has become a mantra for our times and the channel community has risen to the occasion in an extraordinary manner. They have helped their customers to embrace new trends and broadened their IT capabilities by improving security, boosting operational efficiency, and delivering customer-centric services to meet the overall project objectives, while not compromising the uptime and availability of mission-critical applications. Customer needs are varied and it takes a thorough understanding of the client business to service the client efficiently.

No doubt, partners need to be abreast of the latest datacenter-related technologies. Behind every great implementation, solution or service is a great idea and these awards are about recognizing the ideas and thinking that shape the best datacenter solutions.

Congratulations Winners

Presents

DATACENTER AWARDS

SECURITY SPECIAL AWARD

SPECIAL AWARD

The security awards recognize those who excel at planning and implementing security programs that improve their customers’ security posture. Mangesh Mantravadi, Zonal Manager-West, Cyberoam, gave away the awards.

AWARDEES Accel Frontline Dynacons Systems and Solutions Jainam Technologies Rubik Infotech Versatile Infosecurity

Security Special Award

T

HE NEED of

the hour is to empower organizations to more effectively manage risk, protect critical infrastructure and maintain regulatory compliance. And while they are at it, they need to reduce complexity, manage costs and not compromise on application performance. No wonder then, that this is a momentous challenge for the channel community, and a huge responsibility on them to help ease the worries of their clients with regard to information risk management and allow them to concentrate on their core operations. They need to provide the best-in-class technology to help customers get the most from their IT investments. This award recognizes those in the channel community who are redefining the benchmark of excellence by planning, implementing and managing security programs that significantly improve their customers’ security posture.

Congratulations Winners

Presents

SECURITY AWARDS

CLOUD CHAMPIONS SPECIAL AWARD

SPECIAL AWARD

The cloud champions special awards recognize partners’ ability to provide a solid foundation and help their customers succeed in the cloud, Rajesh Janey, President, India & SAARC, EMC, presented the award to the winners.

AWARDEES Aryan Computers & Peripherals Central Data Systems Computers Network & Telecom Emicro Data Technologies Foetron

Cloud Champions Special Award

I

F CLOUD COMPUTING is a disruptive force within the enterprise, just imagine what the cloud is doing to the vendor landscape. The sheer number of cloud players—or companies that claim to be cloud players—is staggering. Given the hype, anticipated exponential growth, and ambiguous definitions, many technology companies are claiming to be cloud-computing providers. A large number of channel partners appear bullish about the opportunities in cloud computing, however only a select few have distilled the hype from the benefits. The Cloud Champions Special Awards honor those partners who are at the forefront when it comes to adopting new opportunities, understanding new technologies, and tackling the myriad challenges that arise in the cloud computing space. What sets the best cloud solution providers apart is their ability to provide a solid foundation for any solution that they implement for their customers.

Congratulations Winners

Presents

CLOUD CHAMPIONS AWARDS

HALL OF FAME AWARD

HALL OF FAME

The Hall of Fame winners have consistently proved that they push themselves year after year to transform—rather than merely improve—their business.Vijay Ramachandran, Editor-in-Chief, IDG Media, gave away the awards.

AWARDEES Ashtech Infotech CCS Computers Future Netwings Solutions Infobahn Technical Solutions Ishan Group Sterling Infoways Swan Solutions & Services Value Point Systems Veeras Infotek Vitage Systems

Hall of Fame Award

W

HEN SUCCESS repeats itself it reflects the highest level

of achievement. The ChannelWorld Premier100, now in its sixth year, is proud to present the Premier 100 Hall of Fame. The award honors the partners, whose work has made a profound difference to their customers. Solving complex IT challenges can be complicated, and it requires innovative solutions and unparalleled experience. Whether their customers are looking for ways to streamline and modernize their IT infrastructure or want to understand how mainstream IT technologies and solutions can be used to support their ever-changing business requirements, the winners have helped their customers improve infrastructure and application performance, while helping to control costs, enhance productivity, and improve services. They have worked to achieve two objectives: To come up with the strategies needed to overcome their customers’ challenges and to implement those solutions efficiently.

Congratulations Winners

ChannelWorld Presents

HALL OF FAME

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP | PREMIER100

Some of India’s biggest IT solution providers showcased their products on the sidelines of the Premier100 2014 event.

Keynote speaker M. Krishna Kumar, Founder Director & Master Coach, Intrad School of Executive Coaching, enlightened the crowd with his insights.

Apart from regular sessions, this year a new panel discussion made its debut. Titled the Captains’ Table, the session, brought together some of the biggest IT providers in India to discuss issues like vendor-partner relationships among others.

The Premier100 2014 event wasn’t devoid of glitz and glamour. Indian Idol 5 finalist, Shashi Suman, enthralled the audience with popular bollywood numbers. A fusion band called Sur also graced the stage with foot-tapping Indian folk songs in multiple languages.

On the sidelines of the event, the attendees got an opportunity to network with their peers, top solution providers, and CIOs of some of India’s biggest companies.

This provided partners’ with a platform to build relationships.

n PLAINSPEAK

YOGESH GUPTA

Name of the Game Your company’s brand is too valuable to be relegated as an afterthought or to hide behind the banners of your technology partners.

Yogesh Gupta is executive editor at ChannelWorld. He is a computer engineer from Mumbai University. You can contact him at yogesh_ gupta@idgindia.com 142

W

HAT’S IN a name? A brand name to be precise.

A lot, I would say. You could take a company with technical expertise, customer loyalty, tons of experience, a dedicated team, and you’d still be left with a company half as good as it could be if it had brand recall. In today’s hyper-competitive climate, brand equity is critical across companies, immaterial of their size. Traditional channel partners, in particular, continue to grow in the

reflected glow of the brands of their vendor alliances. But with technologies’ colours changing fast and OEMs spreading themselves thin, it will be a ‘mission impossible’ for enterprise channels to continue to piggyback on the brands of their alliances.

Ask yourself: Are you identified first as a channel partner of X or Y and then seen as a competent solution provider or a popular technology company? Do you believe that technology companies that are majorly—or solely—dependent on their OEMs for all branding activities are seen as loyal channel partners? Think again.

Spend time, money, and resources to create your own brand. Allocate the budgets necessary to create vital components of a channel business including marketing, advertising and PR. Many channel folks are reaping the benefits from taking this plunge. Be willing to spend on branding as a portion of your sales targets and profit margins, and cast it in stone at the start of a fiscal.

Enterprise technology companies continuously empower their channel partners at events, awards ceremony, partner meetings and networking conferences. I am not suggesting to impart less importance or boycott these vendor-led activities. The mutual benefits of co-marketing, joint GTM, MDFshared events to both the sides—OEMs and the channel—is colossal.

INDIAN CHANNELWORLD JULY 2014

But partner organizations must also market their stories highlighting technical strengths, domain expertise, and entrepreneurial vision. Customers should weigh your company’s value proposition first, and then weigh your vendors alliances.

Many partner companies seldom bother to redesign their websites. That’s a ‘selfdug’ pit. Websites are the virtual face of your company. Highlight the ‘vendor agnostic’ story you have proudly been asserting with customers—on your site.

Mentioning OEM alliances is great—but it should not always be the ‘poster thing’ on your online space.

Indulge intelligently in ‘almost-zero budget’ social media marketing. Popularize reference case studies among potential customers. Create innovative visiting cards for the team. Design e-brochures that get you noticed. Websites, visiting cards, brochures et al may sound inconsequential but as coach and trainer Mike Marchev says in his blog, “Little things can make or break deals. Remember Elephants don’t bite, mosquitoes do.”

Create a brand in the technology industry and it will garner you more customer mindshare, more brand loyalty, and more business opportunities. Are you a reliable cloud provider or a competent mobile app vendor? These differentiators need to resonate—loud and clear—among CIOs, OEMs, and the competition. 

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