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Game plans

As cloud computing becomes a reality, here is a look at five partners who have successfully encashed on the cloud wave. By Radhika Nallayam

Apps on the Cloud Money on Ground

G

oogle Apps is a

hassle-free product.

A customizable package of simple business applications delivered over the internet. Very flexible, cost-effective and more over, saves companies the trouble of deploying software locally. Incidentally, a lot of partners happen to hate this product, simply because it does not require their involvement. And, if 24

you too happen to think that Google Apps would weaken your opportunities to sell traditional email solutions, think again. Here is a company that has already started making sustained revenues and a healthy bottom line out of it.

Bangalore-based MN World Enterprise today has more than 5000 user accounts for Google Apps.

All the company did was to

leverage an exiting relationship that it had with a telecom service provider. The result — a new and recurring revenue stream besides a smart addition to its exiting portfolio.

The company is a reseller partner for the InstaOffice suite from Tata Communications, which is basically GoogleApps bundled with support services. Offered on a pay-per-use model, this product provides repeated commission to the SI through licensing. “Our association with Tata Communications goes back a long way. We were basically selling their bandwidth to corporates. When Tata Communications launched their SaaS offerings, InstaApps

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suite, last year, we became their exclusive partners for both InstaOffice and InstaCRM,” says Praveen Dwarkanath, Director, MN World Enterprise. While the CRM suite is something that is yet to take off, GoogleApps became a huge success. MN World sold this product to companies of all sizes both in SMB as well as enterprise markets.

While there are many companies that have made direct partnership with GoogleApps itself, MN World’s strategy is a bit off the beaten track. Dwarkanath believes that the services part makes this product even more appealing as a lot of customers do not feel comfortable with just email support. “A customer can buy this product directly from Google if he wants. But Google will only provide him email support, where as Tata Communications offers localized voice-support.

As a reason, we are able to position this in a much better way,” adds Dwarkanath.

And, the numbers speak for themselves — MN World sold 5000 licenses in just six months flat.

Apart from giving recurring revenue in the form of commission, this product also provides better margin to the company. “The revenue from licenses is consistent and I get better margins on this product while comparing with other traditional offerings of the vendor. It’s almost three times higher,” says Dwarkanath. Besides, the product also brings repeat business for the partner. “An offering like internet leased line from Tata Communications, for example, only has limited scope to get repeat order from a customer. But he would undoubtedly add

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email accounts as he grows.

Besides, not many would risk experimenting with email solutions. So, there is no question of loosing the customer. So I am expecting consistent business to come in,” adds Dwarkanath.

The company also wants to ensure that it is one step ahead of others. It has taken a conscious decision to have an unbroken link with these customers. “We don’t stop at taking the licenses to our customers. We also offer them on-site support. There are customers who do not have the in-house expertise to manage their email environment and such people require on-site support. That’s a separate agreement that we have with them,” adds Dwarkanath. Thus services is not just another stream of revenue for MN World, it also ensures that the company is in constant touch with its customers. While it’s easier to take such a product to a set of existing customers, MN World has also cracked new accounts for Tata ComWe don’t stop at munications. taking the licenses While to our customers.

We the success offer them on-site supstory around GoogleApps port as well. And, that’s a is pretty separate agreement that exciting, we have with them.”

MN World expects to Praveen Dwarkanath, repeat it Director, MN World with the Enterprise InstaCRM offering as well. Though it has not closed many deals for this product, the feedbacks so far have been extremely positive. The company’s aim is to target the SMB sector for this product, as it’s an economical option compared to other SaaS CRM offerings that are currently available.

P h o t o b y S r i v at s a S h a n d i lya

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Securely at Your Service Y

ou’re a specialist.

“We have developed an end-point security diagnostic product. When the product was ready to be taken to the market, we realized that it would make more sense to offer this as a service to our customers, on a payper-use model,” explains Anuj Gupta, Director-Sales, MIEL e-Security.

The company is also planning to work closely with its peers (ISODA members to start with) in the industry and offer this service to them so that they in turn can take it to their customers. Cloud, thus, opens many doors for this partner and business comes from far and wide. Its partnership with other SIs in the industry will drastically im-

P h oto by foto c o r p

You have been focusing diligently on developing new skills around one area over the years.

You have been acquiring new customers, adding new products and concepts to your portfolio. It definitely seems like a trouble-free journey. But how would you achieve that ‘quantum jump’ in your business? It’s certainly not possible by continue treading on that ‘trouble-free’ path.

At the same time, it’s only possible through effectively using your expertise.

And that’s exactly what Mumbai-based MIEL e-Security has done. The company started offering its own branded cloud service.

prove the reach of this prod- else currently offers this in uct, which otherwise would the market,” says Gupta. It have been sold among a lim- provides an independent ited set of customers. Bethird-party view of the stasides, as the IP holder, the tus of individual endpoints, company would continue and complements the automaking money as and when matic update-push technolothe licenses are sold. gies implemented by various MIEL has made substanindividual products. tial investments to build its HELIOS, as the product is own cloud service, not just called, runs about 200 such in building the infrastrucchecks off-the-shelf, and ture, but also in the form of can be quickly configured resources to manage that to address more of checks. cloud infrastructure. The It scans hundreds of endinitial responses received by points within the network Gupta, however, have been in negligible time, takes up overwhelming and have negligible resources, and built up his confidence that most importantly, runs on the investment would be agent-less technology, needjustified quickly. ing no client software to be “Our installed biggest difin the endWhen the product ferentiator points to be would be diagnosed. was ready to be our unique To make it taken to the market, we capabilities more attracrealized that it would in security. tive to cusThis prodmake more sense to offer tomers, the uct itself is company this as a service to our something has incorcustomers.” very unique porated a lot and no one of customAnuj Gupta, Director, made feaSales, MIEL e-Security tures and services to the package.

Specialty, sometimes considered a restrain for fast growth, thus becomes the biggest strength of this company. Skills around security give the company an upper hand in the market.

An early realization that security has no future if it’s offered in the traditional way would help the company in a great way in the coming days.

The partner is already seeing solid interest among customers in the SMB sector and from industries like finance and BPO. Though MIEL has not formally announced this product, the company is ready with its action plan.

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No Longer Cloudy A

company that offers

software consultancy and development services to markets outside India should normally have no specific interest in the SMB sector in the country. Its aspirations and opportunities lie outside the boundaries of that market. But curiosity is definitely a strong calling.

And the reason wasn’t different for Delhi-based Compro Technologies to have a partnership with a company like salesforce.com, way back in 2005 — a time during which ‘cloud’ was still strongly related to ‘rain’.

“I had been in the CRM space for quite a few years before starting Compro and CRM as a service definitely sounded like a great idea. We saw a huge potential for that product. I approached Salesforce.com and expressed my

interest to have a partnership and that’s how it started,” recalls Dushyant Jamwal, Head of Practice - Salesforce, Compro Technologies.

Back then, this curiosity did not result in business as most of the customers had not even heard of the concept of SaaS. Compro had a tough time communicating the concept and explaining its advantages.

But, fortunately, time can change a lot of things and it did change the mindsets of customers too. Today, Compro has more than 120 customers in the SMB space who use Salesforce. A major part of its business is from industries like manufacturing and e-learning. “Earlier we were selling the concept of SaaS. Today we are selling Salesforce.com,” says Jamwal. Compro’s success with

were to approach the IT team, we would have to face fierce competition from the traditional IT vendor of that customer,” explains Jamwal.

Interestingly, when the partnership kick-started in 2005, Salesforce had no focus on a partnerdriven model We need to do a lot and Compro of customization at was getting the application level. Then compensation for the we implement it and leads that it passed on. It ensure a seamless wasn’t giving integration with their the company existing applications.” any recurring revenue Dushyant Jamwal, Head as the comof Practice - Salseforce, Compro Technologies mission was Salesforce given only has been so for the first great that it was awarded year and was not repeated ‘The Partner of the year for when the renewal happened.

India’ in 2010 by the vendor.

Today, the same vendor has Besides, a partner like a completely channel driven Compro gets to play a crucial model, at least for the SME role in the chain, rather than market and the resellers are being an ‘agent’ of salesforce. promised recurring revenue com. “We take the concept to for reselling and renewal the customer and convince of licenses. him about it. Besides, it’s not Compro’s investments an off the shelf product. We were more around developneed to do a lot of customiza- ing an internal sales team. tion at the application level.

Since it’s a development Then we implement it and company, technical and supensure seamless integration port teams were already in with their existing applicaplace. Even the sales part tions,” says Jamwal. was not such a challenge for Compro has separate serCompro as the vendor itself vice agreements with some proactively forwards a lot of of its customers for offering leads the company. Currenta lot of such services that do ly, about 80 percent of the not come as part of the CRM leads are passed on by the suite. As a company that vendor to Compro. This defalready has strong developinitely talks volumes about ment skills, Compro could how clear the SaaS vendor is naturally project its services about the role of partners in capability to its customers. a market like India.

The fact that it does not “Salesforce.com does neihave to approach the core ther have the bandwidth nor IT team to sell this projthe interest to serve such a ect helps it in a great way. vast market directly. Thus “CRM is a product that is partners are the key link used by the business people for them, especially for the in an organization and thus small and mid-sized busithey take a call on it. If we nesses,” adds Jamwal. february 2011

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A

its customers more than two having a state-of-theyears ago. art Proof of Concept “We had been adding a lot (PoC) center was definitely of capabilities around our not a small achievement.

PoC over a period of time.

While we can have a long One led to another and we list of how such a PoC later decided to capitalize would help you get more our infrastructure. That’s business, it’s also a fact how we started offering that the world moves on. these cloud services to our PoC thus becomes just anSMB customers,” explains other essential element of Rohit Luthra, Director, Proyour customer acquisition gression Infonet. This was strategy. It at a time becomes an when SalesThe industry is investment force.com rapidly evolving that would was the only and customers want to probably company give you that talked optimize the way they diminishing about the buy computing. We are returns over concept of clearly seeing this shift a period ‘as a service’ happening among our of time. offering.

But, let’s customers.” not jump Rohit Luthra, Director, into such cliProgression Infonet chéd conclusions. There are companies that have found smart and novel ways of how such an investment can be converted into a successful business.

Delhi-based Progression Infonet today is a proud cloud provider who offers platform, infrastructure and software as a service to its customers out of its 10,000 square feet data center (which is currently being expanded to a 25,000 square feet facility), which at one point in time, was just a PoC lab. And, the company wasn’t just jumping on the cloud bandwagon one fine morning. It in fact started offering hosted services to 28

couple of years ago,

their entire IT infrastructure. This is something the company could not have even thought of had it been just focusing on systems integration.

Though Progression has its systems integration business running in parallel, Luthra believes that it makes more sense to have increased focus on its ‘shared services’ business. “The industry is evolving and customers want to optimize the way they buy computing.

We see this shift happening among our customers,” adds Luthra.

The SI also sees huge opportunities around setting up private cloud infrastructure for its enterprise customers. Thus its cloud strategy has been carefully shaped around the concept of both public and private clouds. In future, Progression has plans to extend its datacenter to other SIs, who in turn can offer similar services to their customers.

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From PoC to Profit Center

This early bird definitely caught plenty of worms. Today, the SI has more than 150 companies using its cloud services on a pay-per-use model. The company definitely had to make a huge investment of an estimated $3 million towards building the infrastructure, people, and processes, in the first phase.

It also had to develop new capabilities around security and manageability in the cloud environment. Besides, Progression also developed a strong service team to ensure that the infrastructure and hosted applications are up and running.

Today, the SI also plays a key role in integrating its customers’ private infrastructures seamlessly with the public cloud infrastructure that it offers. In effect, the company has drastically improved its scope to impact its customers through multiple ways — as a cloud service provider, a deployment partner, an integrator and a trusted consultant for

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Virtual Cloud Enabler been a pioneer in the space of virtualization. It has done umpteen implementations, many of them very challenging and interesting, across many industry verticals. While virtualization is a stand-lone opportunity by and of itself, Veeras wanted to take it to the next level and cash in on a lot of opportuniSetting up a cloud ties around this coninfrastructure cept. One improves the span of our of the ways portfolio that we offer to by which Sudarsan a particular customer.

RanganaWe are able to sell all the than, CEO components as a single of Veeras, package to them.” wanted to execute this Sudarsan Ranganathan, was Cloud & BPO serCEO, Veeras Infotek Computing. vices and In fact, consulting Cloud changes a lot of company, to help it offer its things, especially for virtucloud service for its customalization players. “At presers. It was a Rs 200 crore ent, cloud is a great busideal where the SI provided ness proposition as it offers all the components of the us new ways of selling and infrastructure, integrated it, packaging our products. We and is also servicing the cusdo not have so many optomer. “This implementation tions in our traditional sysis very important for us as tems integration business,” it was the very first public says Ranganathan. cloud that we built up. So it Veeras is now focusing becomes an excellent case on building cloud infrastudy for us to further go structure for customers. and convince more customAnd, this is not just about ers. Besides, it was also a setting up private clouds learning experience for us in for companies. It has also understanding our strengths taken up the larger role and weaknesses as a cloud of being a ‘cloud enabler’ enabler,” adds Ranganathan. (a neologism created by “The beauty of the word vendors!) and has already cloud is, it can instantly set-up public cloud infrarelate to and align with the structures as well. business goals of customThe company recently ers. All said and done, IT built an end-to-end infrais otherwise considered a structure for a leading IT ‘spending’. Cloud changes 30

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V

eeras Inotek has

that mind set. IT becomes a ‘return’ all of a sudden,” adds Ranganathan.

Let’s look at the typical components that go into a private or public cloud infrastructure. It has the three basic pillars — the servers, the networking and the storage. Around storage comes storage virtualization and technologies like de-duplication. Virtual machine (server virtualization) is another inevitable part. Security at the virtual layer is also a key factor. When we add backup and recovery as well, we have a ‘cloud infrastructure’ that is ready and complete.

Under normal circumstances, getting a deal that comprises all these elements was a rare case for Veeras. Most of the deals were fragmented and it used to get bits and pieces of this package and in many phases. But today cloud acts

as a binding threat.

“Setting up a cloud infrastructure improves the span of our portfolio that is being offered to a particular customer. Today, we are able to sell all these components as a single package to customers,” explains Ranganathan.

This means improved deal size and even improved margins for Veeras.

Here is where the representation of a ‘virtualization expert’ comes into play for Veeras. Virtualization certainly is the underlying and inevitable aspect of cloud computing and Veeras gets an edge over companies that do not have that skill to showcase. It certainly had to acquire a few new skills, especially around security and change its approach when cloud came into picture. But that was hardly an effort when the returns are taken into consideration. 

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