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TECH PREDICTION / 24
Jithesh Chembil, Head of Channels, India, Pure Storage
TECH PREDICTION / 28
Anil Sethi, VP & GM - Channels, Dell Technologies India
SRIDHAR PINNAPUREDDY FOUNDER & CEO CTRLS DATACENTERS
THE
‘GREEN MAN’ OF INDIAN DATACENTER INDUSTRY TRANSFORMING THE INDUSTRY FOREVER
PG - 18
TECH PREDICTION / 54
Lata Singh, Director – Partner Ecosystem, IBM India/South Asia
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India’s leading IT magazine for channel business GUEST ARTICLE / 36
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Post Pandemic: Cloud Adoption Needs to be Accelerated.
ODM Educational Group Prioritizes Security for Students with Hikvision’s Smart Video Security Systems.
GUEST ARTICLE / 58
Bringing Customer Satisfaction to the Core of Retail and CPG Enterprises with Hyper-automation and AI Engineering
MY EXPERIENCE EDITORIAL
HAPPY AND HEALTHY NEW YEAR 2022 SANJAY MOHAPATRA
sanjay@smechannels.com
Dear Friends Happy and Healthy New Year 2022 to all the entrepreneurs and partners of information technology. I am extremely happy to present this inaugural issue of SME Channels magazine for 2022 and looking forward to your constructive criticism and inputs to make this year better for all of US. Our objective is to offer content which is futuristic. I know that we have gone through a very bad patch for last 2 years due to pandemic and we have not yet been settled down. Many of our workers are still in remote locations and home offices and it is continuing as the new variant of covid 19 – Omicron has spread, and covid-19 cases have increased in various cities. Although this variant is not very strong like the previous one or we have developed strong immunity, but we are adopting covid appropriate behaviour to ward off the pandemic. This situation has a silver lining also. We have adopted many technologies which was not happening. For example, we have adopted to remote working. We have started trusting people, process and deals over virtual encounters. We have adopted zero trust security and access. We have adopted cloud computing, employee management, remote collaboration, cyber security very strongly. With no office or restricted office functioning, we have learnt how to restrict our costs and hence added to our bottom line. We also have started developing practices around remote work, cyber security, cloud computing etc. Having said this there is a huge opportunity for us too. We are seeing less uptake for AR and VR. These technologies have immense potential in training, healthcare, retail, real estate, etc. We need to work upon these emerging technologies too. Big Data, BI and Analytic are other technologies, which are yet to be adopted to its full potential. Look at how much of data being consumed every day and how much of data being created every minute by internal and external sources and customers. If you develop practice around it and brining solutions, BI can be a game changer for the customers. Trust me, today, all the customers are looking at a friend and trusted advisor than a reseller. Try to be a trusted advisor and friend to the customer by investing in right practices I would also advice and predict, there is less done in cyber security and managed security. You have to strengthen cyber security portfolio. RPA and Industrial IOT are other areas where you have look at seriously and make differentiation. So Happy New Year 2022 and keep reading SME Channels magazine and online.
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SME CHANNELS JANUARY 2022
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contents
Trusted Advisor of Channel Business
VOLUME 12 ISSUE 11
2022
JAN h Tec nel ion n a Ch edict Pr
Publisher: Sanjib Mohapatra Editor: Sanjay Mohapatra Sub Editor: Nidhi Shail Content Editor: Manash Ranjan Debata Designer: Shadab Khan Web Designer: Vijay Bakshi Technical Writer: Manas Ranjan Lead Visualizer: DPR Choudhary MARKETING Marketing Manager: Vaishali Shukla Circulation and Printing: Rajkumar Hansa SALES CONTACTS Delhi 6/102, Kaushalya Park, Hauz Khas New Delhi-110016 Phone: 91-11-41055458 / 8587835685 sanjeev@smechannels.com Bangalore #28/1, 3rd Floor, Sri Lakshmi Krupa, Near Shamanna Park, Model House Street, Basavanagudi, Bangalore - 560004 Ph. No. +91 88618 21044 Mumbai Tahmeed Ansari 2, Ground Floor, Park Paradise, Kay-Bees CHS. Ltd.,Opp. Green Park, Oshiwara, Andheri (west), Mumbai - 400 053. Ph. +91 22 26338546, Fax +91 22 26395581 Mobile: +91 9967 232424 E-mail: Info@smechannels.com Kolkata S Subhendu BC-286, Laxmi Apartment, Kestopur Kolkata-700101
Hybrid Cloud, Edge Opportunities, 5G and Intelligent PCs to Rule the Roost / 28
Phone: 9674804389 EDITORIAL OFFICE Delhi: 6/103, (GF) Kaushalya Park, New Delhi110016, Phone: 91-11-41657670 / 46151993 info@ smechannels.com Bangalore #28/1, 3rd Floor, Sri Lakshmi Krupa, Near Shamanna Park, Model House Street, Basavanagudi, Bangalore - 560004 Ph. No. +91 88618 21044 E-Mail info@ accentinfomedia.com
GUEST ARTICLE
DESIGNED BY
POST PANDEMIC / 36
“Post Pandemic: Cloud Adoption Needs to be Accelerated.”
CASE STUDY
Printed, Published and Owned by Sanjib Mo-
HIKVISION / 51
“ODM Educational Group Prioritizes Security for Students with Hikvision’s Smart Video Security Systems.”
hapatra Place of Publication: 6/101-102, Kaushalya
more inside
GUEST ARTICLE HYPER AUTOMATION / 58
“Bringing Customer Satisfaction to the Core of Retail and CPG Enterprises with Hyper-automation and AI Engineering.”
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Barclays Selects HPE GreenLake for Private Cloud Platform Barclays has selected HPE GreenLake to deliver its global private cloud platform. The bank has signed a strategic cloud partnership, in which the HPE GreenLake edgeto-cloud platform will be integral to Barclays’ hybrid multi-cloud strategy and digital transformation across Barclays’ global businesses. The automated and open cloud platform will host thousands of workloads and support the bank in delivering an enhanced personalized banking experience for its customers. The HPE GreenLake edge-tocloud platform will provide a unified on-premises cloud experience, with capacity available on demand and granular consumption-based pricing for compute, memory and storage resources, offering the resilience, scalability and efficiency necessary to meet the high standard
of performance required in today’s digital world. “Banking systems are critical national infrastructure. Resilience, sustainability and security of the underlying technology platform are the non-negotiable fundamentals that enable the provision of personalized digital experiences,” said Marc Waters, senior vice president and managing director UK, Ireland, Middle East & South Africa, HPE. “Given Barclays’ prominence as a UK headquartered global financial services leader, we are immensely proud to be chosen to provide their private cloud. Our fully managed HPE GreenLake platform provides infrastructure, software and services that enable automation, control, flexibility, exceptional experience and a positive commercial advantage.”
Vertiv Joins the RISE Partnership Program Vertiv announced a new partnership with RISE Research Institutes of Sweden, a leading research institute and innovation partner. Vertiv is entering the partnership program for data centre systems technologies at the platinum level, joining founding partners such as Facebook, Ericsson, Vattenfall, ABB, LTU and the Norrbotten region. The data centre research at RISE is based in Luleå, Sweden, and RISE
8
SME CHANNELS JANUARY 2022
is owned by the Swedish state and supported by EU funds. Collaborating with universities, industry and the public sector, RISE performs industrial research and innovation, with the overall objective to support sustainable growth by strengthening industry competitiveness and renewal. Through the partnership with RISE, Vertiv will specifically support the Infrastructure and
Cloud research & test Environment (ICE), which is a data centre testbed providing access to study results and experts, as well as publications and demonstrations by RISE and engagement in small research and development studies. A key value delivered to the partners in the collaboration is the large-scale test environment with data centre modules, climate and heat boxes, wind tunnels, edge and
liquid cooling testbeds, and the ability to take simulations and concepts to the point of implemented demonstrations and tests for data collection and analysis.
Transforming telecommunications enriching the customer experience atos.net
SNIPPETS
TeamViewer’s Augmented Reality platform ‘Frontline’ recognized as number one European enterprise AR offering TeamViewer, announced the fourth major release of its enterprise Augmented Reality (AR) platform, TeamViewer Frontline. Building on the software from the acquisition of Ubimax in 2020 and TeamViewer’s own AR development, the latest version now also integrates the technology of AR specialist Upskill and Mixed Reality (MR) pioneer Viscopic, which have been subsequently acquired in 2021. With this comprehensive AR offering, TeamViewer has been very recently recognized as the number one provider of enterprise AR solutions in Europe and globally achieving second rank according to reputable industry analyst firm ABI Research. “TeamViewer’s recent AR product movement and acquisition has led to a comprehensive enterprise AR platform with best-in-class device support, notable strategic partnerships in place and a large customer base to sell to. TeamViewer’s implementation capabilities are highly scalable and time-to-value from a customer perspective is short. All this gives TeamViewer a market leading position amongst all enterprise AR players, especially in Europe,” says Eric Abbruzzese, Research Director at ABI Research.
Symphony Technology Group Announces the Launch of Extended Detection and Response Provider, Trellix Symphony Technology Group (STG) announced the launch of Trellix, a new business delivering extended detection and response (XDR) to organizations with a focus on accelerating technology innovation through machine learning and automation. Trellix emerges from the previously announced merger of McAfee Enterprise and FireEye in October 2021. “We are incredibly excited to have Trellix in the STG portfolio,” said William Chisholm, managing partner, STG. “Customers can expect Trellix’s living security platform to deliver bold innovation across the XDR market.” The new name evokes the structure of a trellis, a strong and safe framework used to support structured growth of climbing plants and trees. Trellix will deliver its brand promise to build resilient and confident organizations through living security—security technology that learns and adapts to protect operations from the most advanced threat actors. “As today’s organizations push to achieve digital transformation, a strong security foundation is required to ensure continued innovation, growth and resiliency,” said Bryan Palma, chief executive officer, Trellix.
Worldwide PC Shipments Declined 5% in Q4 of 2021
EXECUTIVE MOVEMENT
NUTANIX APPOINTS MICHAEL MAGURA AS VP, CHANNEL SALES, ASIAPACIFIC & JAPAN 4Q21 Shipments
4Q21 Market Share (%)
4Q20 Shipments
4Q20 Market Share (%)
4Q21-4Q20 Growth (%)
Lenovo
21,701
24.6
24,623
26.5
-11.9
HP Inc.
-4.2
Company
18,645
21.1
19,455
20.9
Dell
17,196
19.5
15,944
17.1
7.9
Apple
6,846
7.7
6,447
6.9
6.2 -9.0
Acer Group
6,189
7.0
6,798
7.3
Asus
6,102
6.9
5,359
5.8
13.9
Others
11,714
13.3
14,450
15.5
-18.9
88,392
100.0
93,076
100.0
-5.0
Total
Notes: Data includes desk-based PCs, notebook PCs, ultramobile premiums (such as Microsoft Surface) and Chromebooks, but not iPads. All data is estimated based on a preliminary study. Final estimates will be subject to change. The statistics are based on shipments selling into channels. Numbers may not add up to totals shown due to rounding. Source: Gartner (January 2022)
10 SME CHANNELS JANUARY 2022
TIE HYDERABAD NAMES SURESH RAJU AS PRESIDENT FOR 2022
DeLISA ALEXANDER JOINS QLIK BOARD OF DIRECTORS
BEST POWER EQUIPMENTS APPOINTS MUNESH NANIK SHAHDADPURI TO EXPAND INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MARKET
SNIPPETS
Dell Technologies Speeds Journey to Multi-Cloud with Portfolio Expansion Dell Technologies introduces multi-cloud capabilities that offer a consistent experience wherever applications and data reside. The company also expands support for developer operations (DevOps) with new offers and resources to help choose the right cloud environment combined with the security, support and predictable cost of Dell infrastructure. “Today’s multi-cloud reality is complex as data becomes more distributed across on-premises and colocation data centers, multiple public clouds and edge environments,” said Jeff Boudreau, president, Infrastructure Solutions Group, Dell Technologies. “We have the industry’s broadest technology portfolio, consistent tools, experience building open ecosystems and leading data storage capabilities, services and supply chain. All this uniquely positions Dell to help customers take control of their multi-cloud strategy.” “Our customers want simplicity, agility, and a consistent experience to manage their data across multiple cloud environments. With our sustained investments in expanded multi-cloud portfolio and a vibrant cloud ecosystem, we will enable organizations to improve spend predictability, transparency, and scalability.
More than Half of Organizations Face Gaps in Their Zero-Trust Implementations According to a Fortinet Survey Fortinet unveiled the Global State of Zero Trust Report. The survey reveals that while most organizations have a vision of zero trust or are in the process of implementing zero-trust initiatives, more than half of organizations cannot translate this vision into the solutions they are implementing because they lack some basic core fundamentals of zero trust. For a detailed view of the findings and some important takeaways read the blog. Highlights of the report follow: A FortiGuard Labs Threat Landscape Report demonstrated an increase in the volume and sophistication of attacks targeting individuals, organizations, and increasingly critical infrastructure. Organizations are looking for solutions to protect against these evolving threats and zero trust is top of mind, but for multiple reasons. Additionally, the shift to work-from-anywhere has put a spotlight on zero-trust network access (ZTNA) in particular, as organizations need to protect important assets from workers connecting from poorly protected home networks.
Newgen Software Reports Total Income of Rs 210 cr in Q3 FY’22, up 11% YoY; Net Profit at Rs 48 cr, up 35% YoYa Total Income Subscription Revenues Profit after Tax Rs.209.8 Cr Rs. 61.7 Cr Rs. 47.8 Cr (11% Q3 YoY growth) (20% Q3 YoY growth) (35% Q3YoY growth) Speaking about the results, Diwakar Nigam, Chairman & Managing Director, Newgen Software Technologies Ltd., said – “Q3 has been on the path of continuous progression amidst ongoing uncertain environment. The quarter witnessed 20% YoY growth in subscription revenues however, several of these orders have long gestation leading to deferment of revenues. We continue to see major wins and expansion of business in our existing customers and added 17 new logos as well. Overall, in the first nine months of the year, we have clocked in revenues of Rs 548 crores and profit after tax of Rs 107 crores.”
Twisted Mirror TV rides on Muvi to Reach Global Audience Muvi announced the launch of Twisted Mirror Films’ comedy focused digital VOD streaming service ‘Twisted Mirror TV’ (www.twistedmirror.tv), powered by Muvi’s globally acclaimed no code OTT builder - Muvi One. With Muvi One, Twisted Mirror Films was able to quickly launch a flexible, scalable and quick-to-deploy VOD service on a global level without the need of any IT/ Tech teams or writing a single line of code. The Muvi One platform houses a state-of-the-art VOD experience on Twisted Mirror TV, ensuring a high-quality viewing experience for its customers across all devices including web, mobile and smart TV screens. Muvi’s platform also offers Twisted Mirror to add additional advanced features and monetization options in the future. Twisted Mirror TV aims to become an entertainment platform housing comedy content from around the globe. Their online comedy catalogue will provide a selection of international comedy content along with a multicultural and multilingual online library. The platform aims to open a window for users to experience different culture-based humour shows adding to the richness of content housed in the channel.
M.Tech Solutions India Pvt Ltd partners global cybersecurity firm NETMONASTERY NETMONASTERY NSPL, has joined hands with Singapore-based leading cyber security and network performance solutions provider M.Tech Solutions India Pvt Ltd as their Value Added Distributor (VAD) for expanding its reach and strengthening its network in the Indian market. M.Tech is a cybersecurity and network performance solutions provider for integrated and intelligent end-toend security management of the internet, systems, and applications infrastructure with a strong network of 32 offices spread across 16 countries providing on-site sales, marketing, and technical support to their partners. This partnership will address the rapidly growing demand for cutting-edge cybersecurity solutions to fight against sophisticated cyber threats in the country. The partnership happens at an opportune time when India is emerging as a global powerhouse for cybersecurity products and services amidst rising scares for frauds and breaches since the pandemic broke. Indian enterprises, in 2020 alone, suffered a collective loss of more than Rs. 1.25 lakh crore due to ransomware, malware, and other security breaches. Due to the exponential need for awareness as well as cybersecurity products and solutions, the cybersecurity industry in India today is worth $10.82 billion and is growing at 27% annually.
SME CHANNELS JANUARY 2022
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SNIPPETS
StayQrious, an edtech start-up launches World’s first Neo-School to make international-standard education accessible to all With the vision to make an international standard education accessible to everyone, StayQrious, an ed-tech start up, has launched the concept of a Neoschool. A Neoschool is an online school that teaches children real-world skills, social confidence and learning mind-sets that regular schools and tuitions don’t teach. Children attending the StayQrious online Neoschool in the evening along with their regular school upgrade and get access to an International standard education for a fraction of the cost. Commenting on the launch of the Neoschool Mr. Aanand Srinivas, founder and CEO of StayQrious said “Millions of parents today are frustrated with the traditional schools and want to give their child a better education. They want their child to develop social skills, learning skills, and get exposed to emerging fields early-on. They want their child to get access to progressive teaching methodology, in an environment that respects their mental wellbeing and doesn’t compromise it for short term gain in marks.
Unocoin introduces ADA, CELR, GTO, LRC and SAND for trading
FIWARE Foundation and India Urban Data Exchange (IUDX), announce the formation of the International Data Exchange Alliance (IDEA). Aimed at facilitating the participation of industry in the development and exploitation of data exchange technologies, IDEA will promote the adoption of global standards such as ETSI’s NGSI-LD and Smart Data Models. IDEA will encourage standard-based development of smart solutions, the use of these standards to exchange data among multiple organizations in different application domains, as well as the creation of use cases and applications that can be leveraged globally. The IUDX initiative was initiated by the Smart Cities Mission within the Indian Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs and is being developed and implemented by the Indian Institute of Science.
JANUARY 2022
Optiva announced the establishment of an R&D Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru, India. Optiva chose Bengaluru thanks to its reputation as a thriving technology centre and its concentration of global software companies, universities and talent. With a local leadership team already in place, Optiva aims to grow its headcount rapidly with high-caliber engineers across a number of disciplines. In 2022, the telecom market will continue the process of disaggregating software from network hardware, putting software companies in the driving seat for delivering innovation on service provider networks. Against this backdrop, Optiva intends to lead the innovations in the Business Support Systems (BSS) space, allowing its service provider customers to improve their customer experience, address new markets and drive profitability.
Unocoin expands the portfolio and adds 5 new coins to its trading platform. The portal has been adding new tokens now and then for Indian crypto investors and traders. Catering to the evolving requirements of the crypto community, the platform recently added ADA, CELR, GTO, LRC and SAND coins. From gaming to gifting to other transactional services, these coins will be able to fulfill the crypto trading needs of the investors. ADA, one of the recently added coins, is mainly a blockchain network that is used for many purposes like data handling and providing crypto-asset. It has implemented decentralized finance services, including an upgrade to enable smart contracts and the ability to build decentralized applications. On the other hand, the newly launched Gifto (GTO) has created a new gifting commodity for users for sending and receiving virtual crypto gifts to anyone with just a link.
FIWARE and IUDX Announce the Formation of the International Data Exchange Alliance
12 SME CHANNELS
Optiva Opens R&D Centre in Bengaluru to Accelerate Telecom BSS Innovation
Virtual Forests technology enables Napino Auto Electronics selection under the PLI scheme for White Goods Napino Auto Electronics Limited, with the support of Virtual Forest, was selected under the Production Linked Incentive Scheme (PLI) for White Goods (Air Conditioners and LED Lights). As part of its commitment, Virtual Forest will support Napino in designing & developing control assemblies for IDUs/ODUs/Remotes for ACs. The PLI scheme will be valid for a period of five years and will entail a minimum investment of INR 50 crores. Virtual Forest is one of India’s leading electronics solutions providers — specialising in motor control and human interface technologies for consumer appliances, fluid movement, and mobility. Napino has over 13 SMT lines spread across 7 facilities, and offers world-class manufacturing services, state-of-the-art process management, component verification and traceability for various automotive and home appliance applications.
SNIPPETS
CrowdStrike Expands Zero Trust Support to macOS and Linux for Cross-Platform Protection CrowdStrike announced the availability of CrowdStrike Falcon Zero Trust Assessment (ZTA) support for macOS and Linux platforms, extending comprehensive protection with an identity and data- centric approach across all platforms. Additionally, CrowdStrike announced new Zero Trust partner integrations with Airgap, Appgate, CyberArk, TruU and Twingate, all of whom will leverage CrowdStrike Falcon ZTA to help joint customers reduce their attack surface and simplify, empower and accelerate their Zero Trust journey. These partner integrations expand the CrowdStrike Zero Trust partner ecosystem which includes Akamai, Cloudflare, Google Cloud, Netskope, Okta and Zscaler. CrowdStrike Falcon ZTA expands Zero Trust beyond authentication to enable detection, alerting and enforcement of risk-based access policies driven by device health and compliance checks. With the new support of macOS and Linux, CrowdStrike Falcon ZTA provides visibility into all endpoints running across all operating platforms in an organization.
School EdTech LEAD enters Unicorn club LEAD, has raised US $100 million at a valuation of $1.1 billion to continue its mission of transforming schools in India. This funding creates history on several fronts Makes LEAD the first School EdTech player to enter the Unicorn club Makes LEAD the first EdTech Unicorn of 2022 The Series E funding round was led by WestBridge Capital and GSV Ventures, making this one of their largest EdTech investment to fuel the company’s ambitious vision of providing excellent education to every child. While most other EdTech companies offer supplemental education in K-12 or Higher education, LEAD is the only EdTech unicorn focused on transforming core schooling in India with its techintegrated solutions. The company has seen rapid adoption in the last 4 years and will enter Academic Year 22-23 with 5000 schools across 500+ cities in India with an annual revenue run-rate of $80 million.
JK Tech through their partnership with T-Hub join hands to fund and mentor upcoming startups JK Tech, a digital and IT services company, through its partnership with T-Hub, connects with startups to help pitch their products and solutions for possible collaboration opportunities. JK Tech will be connecting with multiple startups through an open innovation program by T-Hub. This will also open doors for multiple startups to be guided and mentored by the subject-matter experts at JK Tech. JK Tech takes this opportunity to announce that they have set up a grant of $100000, which will be given to startups that match their innovation capabilities, which focus on Hyperautomation in Healthcare/Med-Tech, Insurtech, and Manufacturing, as well as those in the field of Retail AI/ML. In a statement, Aloke Paskar, President and CEO of JK Tech said “India has a strong innovation ecosystem.
3i Infotech wins a multi-year contract with a major US based supply chain and enterprise product company 3i Infotech Limited (BSE: 532628, NSE: 3IINFOTECH), is now providing cloud and managed services to Bamboo Rose, a US based industry-leading Multi-Enterprise Product and Supply Chain Platform. As part of this multi-year contract, 3i Infotech will be the preferred infrastructure managed services provider (MSP) as well as Microsoft cloud service provider (CSP) for Bamboo Rose globally. Additionally, both the companies are committed to working on a joint go-to-market in select geographies. Bamboo Rose connects members of the retail business community to streamline product innovation, development, sourcing, and supply chain operations helping clients bring great products to market faster and at higher margins. It serves 85+ major retailers and 400 brands connecting 50,000 suppliers and 150,000 user members globally.
DIGEST MICRON SHIPS THE INDUSTRY’S FIRST 176-LAYER QLC NAND IN VOLUME AND UNVEILS THE 2400 PCIE GEN4 CLIENT SSD MICRON TECHNOLOGY, INC ANNOUNCED IT HAS BEGUN VOLUME SHIPMENTS OF THE WORLD’S FIRST 176-LAYER QLC NAND SSD. BUILT WITH THE MOST ADVANCED NAND ARCHITECTURE, MICRON’S 176-LAYER QLC NAND DELIVERS THE INDUSTRY’S LEADING STORAGE DENSITY AND OPTIMIZED PERFORMANCE FOR A BROAD RANGE OF DATA-RICH APPLICATIONS. DESIGNED FOR USE CASES SPANNING CLIENT AND DATA CENTER ENVIRONMENTS, MICRON’S TRANSFORMATIVE NEW NAND TECHNOLOGY IS NOW AVAILABLE WITH THE INTRODUCTION OF THE MICRON 2400 SSD, THE WORLD’S FIRST 176-LAYER PCIE GEN4 QLC SSD FOR CLIENT APPLICATIONS. THE NEW 176-LAYER QLC NAND WILL ALSO BE INCORPORATED INTO SELECT MICRON CRUCIAL CONSUMER SSDS, AND AVAILABLE AS A COMPONENT FOR SYSTEM DESIGNERS.
LTI PARTNERS WITH SECURONIX & SNOWFLAKE TO STRENGTHEN CYBERSECURITY OFFERINGS LARSEN & TOUBRO INFOTECH PARTNERED WITH SECURONIX, A LEADER IN NEXT-GEN SECURITY INFORMATION AND EVENT MANAGEMENT (SIEM) COMPANY, AND SNOWFLAKE, A LEADER IN SECURE CLOUD WORKLOAD TO STRENGTHEN ITS CYBERSECURITY OFFERINGS. THE PARTNERSHIP WILL POWER LTI’S ACTIVE EXTENDED DETECTION & RESPONSE PLATFORM (ACTIVE XDR) FOR EARLY DETECTION OF INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL THREATS, CONTEXTUALIZING AND COMBATING THREATS WITH ADVANCED INTELLIGENCE-LED HUNTING OPERATIONS, AND AUTOMATING INCIDENT RESPONSE TIME. LTI ACTIVE XDR USES A SECLUDED DATA LAKE TO SECURE BILLIONS OF SENSITIVE ALERTS AND RECORDS.
CROWDSTRIKE LAUNCHES FALCON FUND II FOR CONTINUED INVESTMENT IN CYBERSECURITY AND TECHNOLOGY TRAILBLAZERS CROWDSTRIKE ANNOUNCED THE LAUNCH OF FALCON FUND II, A $100 MILLION INVESTMENT VEHICLE IN PARTNERSHIP WITH ACCEL FOCUSED ON CROSS-STAGE PRIVATE INVESTMENTS WITHIN CYBERSECURITY AND RELEVANT ADJACENT MARKETS. FIVE TIMES THE SIZE OF THE INITIAL FALCON FUND, FALCON FUND II REPRESENTS CROWDSTRIKE’S COMMITMENT TO GROWING THE CYBERSECURITY TECHNOLOGY ECOSYSTEM ACROSS ADJACENT MARKETS AS ONE OF THE LARGEST STRATEGIC VENTURE ARMS IN CYBERSECURITY. CROWDSTRIKE’S FALCON FUND II WILL BUILD ON THE SUCCESS OF THE ORIGINAL FALCON FUND, WHICH HAS MADE INVESTMENTS IN COMPANIES LIKE CORELIGHT, CRIBL, JUMPCLOUD AND TINES IN 2021.
SME CHANNELS 13 JANUARY 2022
SNIPPETS
IceWarp Expands its Footprint in Middle East In a bid to expand its business globally IceWarp, has set-up a new office in Dubai. The company is now offering a solution ecosystem that transforms how teams share information online and optimizes business processes through its streamlined and seamless team collaboration tools in the UAE. At present IceWarp has offices in Czechia, USA, Germany, India and Russia. The sudden, rapid shift to remote and hybrid working scenarios in recent years has made IceWarp’s family of applications highly sought after, owing to its smooth interface and ability to be used alongside common enterprise collaboration software. Pramod Sharda, CEO, IceWarp India and Middle East said, “We at IceWarp are committed to providing businesses with an affordable, seamlessly integrated and easy to use communications solution that covers all aspects of business collaboration and productivity. Growing enterprises in a business hub like the UAE can benefit greatly from using our solution and we are excited to help them make the switch to a world of uncomplicated, secure, and convenient communications.
Matrix Comsec Confirms Participation in the Intersec 2022, to be held in Dubai Matrix has announced that it will be participating in the prestigious and the world’s premier trade fair for Security, Safety & Fire Protection, Intersec 2022. The expo is in the Dubai World Trade Center, Dubai from 16th to 18th January 2022. Matrix will be launching its new door controller and exhibiting its Time-Attendance, Access Control, and IP Video Surveillance solutions at the event. Matrix is well-known for its indigenous and innovative range of solutions for IP Video Surveillance, Access Control, Time-Attendance, and Unified Communications. The solutions are specifically designed for large, multi-location enterprises, SME, and SMB organizations. Matrix Comsec continuously works towards keeping abreast with the constantly upgrading technology by designing and manufacturing solutions that are equipped with the latest technology. Matrix will be presenting some of its indigenously engineered Security solutions at Intersec 2022 in Dubai.
VinFast taps HERE to accelerate in-car navigation for its smart electric cars VinFast, announced that its first three smart electric car models VF e34, VF 8, and VF 9 will be deploying HERE Navigation, a one-stop navigation application, for its connected in-vehicle navigation experience. VinFast will also be integrating HERE’s software development kit (SDK) into its dedicated smartphone mobile application to deliver a seamless and smart driving experience. HERE Navigation will offer VinFast’s Electric Vehicles (EVs) drivers a peace of mind by providing multi-stop route planning based on the charge level of the car, as well as automatic addition of charging stops should drivers decide to make a re-route, all powered by the HERE EV Charge Points Point of Interest (POIs) and application programming interface (API). With daily updates to the EV Charge Points POIs, global coverage and up-to-date availability information of EV Charge Points, drivers will be reassured to always stay charged and drive efficiently with routes planned for the EV’s maximized range.
Celebal Technologies has earned the Kubernetes on Microsoft Azure Advanced Specialization Celebal Technologies announced it has earned the Kubernetes on Microsoft Azure advanced specialization, a validation of the solution partner’s deep knowledge, extensive experience and proven expertise in deploying and managing production workloads in the cloud using containers and managing hosted Kubernetes environments in Microsoft Azure. Only partners that meet stringent criteria around customer success and staff skilling, as well as pass a third-party audit of their container-based workload deployment and management practices, are able to earn the Kubernetes on Azure advanced specialization. With over 75% of global organizations expected to run containerized applications in production by 2022, many are looking for a partner with advanced skills to migrate their existing containerized workloads to the cloud or assist them in developing cloud-native applications using container technologies, DevOps patterns, and a microservices approach. Anirudh Kala, Co-founder, Director and Chief Data Scientist at Celebal Technologies said,” We are overjoyed to start our New Year by adding this incredible milestone to our repertoire.
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MX Player continues to dominate India’s streaming market MX Player, India’s entertainment super app stayed at the top of the streaming charts in India, and was recognized as a go-to platform for audience to watch original content crafted exclusively for Indian audience. In its latest report—“Blockbuster Script for the New Decade” Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Boston Consulting Group (BCG) shed light on the immense resilience that the entertainment and media industry has shown during the COVID. According to the report, the new developments in the digital space will intensify the adoption of OTT platform thereby resulting in more demand of regional content by the audience. India’s Media & Entertainment industry is expected to grow to $55-70Bn by 2030 at 10-12% CAGR, driven mainly by strong growth in OTT, Gaming, Animation and VFX. While the unprecedented challenges posed by COVID-19 continue to stay relevant for several businesses, it bought in new opportunities for the entertainment industry to grow. The pandemic disrupted and transformed the consumption habits for content – both in home and outside.
SNIPPETS
HERE partners with Ericsson to bring custom map making and location services to the mining industry HERE Technologies, and Ericsson, have teamed up to provide the global mining industry with custom mapping capabilities. HERE is now a member of Ericsson’s industry 4.0 partner ecosystem. The mining industry is in rapid modernization phase, with smart mining operations projected to increase threefold until 2025[1]. A key driver of this transformation is the access to private cellular networks, enabling safer, more productive, and more sustainable mining operations, through reliable and low latency connectivity. Ericsson’s high-performance 5G private networks are purpose-built for mining operations. A business can deploy an on-premises cellular network for its exclusive use. For mining this includes facilities in very remote areas and underground tunnels, both of which are not typically within public cellular range. The combination of Ericsson connectivity and HERE location services deliver true smart mining capabilities, from mapping private terrain, to pinpointing and navigating assets in real-time.
Qlik Announces Confidential Submission of Draft Registration Statement Related to Proposed Public Offering Qlik announced that it has confidentially submitted a draft registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) for a proposed initial public offering of its common stock. The number of shares to be offered and the price range for the proposed offering have not yet been determined. Qlik expects to complete the public offering following the SEC review process, subject to market and other conditions. This announcement is being made pursuant to and in accordance with Rule 135 under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Securities Act”). As required by Rule 135, this press release does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy securities, and shall not constitute an offer, solicitation, or sale in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of that jurisdiction. Any offers, solicitations or offers to buy, or any sales of securities will be made in accordance with the registration requirements of the Securities Act.
Bangalore based prop-tech Strata, crosses 500 crore AUM mark Strata, is the first proptech company in the country to have crossed a significant threshold of 500 crores in Assets Under Management (AUM). The company recently raised $6 million in a Series-A round co-led by Kotak Investment Advisors Limited, Gruhas Proptech (an exclusive fund by Nikhil Kamath of Zerodha & Abhijeeth Pai of Puzzolana Group), and Sabre Investments. The company which doubled its AUM from Rs. 240 crore to Rs. 500 crore in just 9 months also witnessed a massive jump of 300% in its investor base crossing 1500+, which comprises more than 20k+ active users. The company now aims to upscale its AUM by nearly 2X to reach Rs. 900 crore by April 2022. The company is eyeing a host of asset classes such as industrial assets, office spaces, warehouses, data centers, hotels, hospitals, among others.
EasyEcom has secured Series A $2 million funding from IndiaMART IndiaMART, has made an investment of approximately INR 133.5 Million to acquire a 26.01% stake in EasyEcom (Edgewise Technologies Private Limited). Edgewise Technologies under the brand name ‘EasyEcom’, is an AI driven omnichannel inventory & warehouse management Solutions Company that offers SaaS-based online commerce enablement solutions to merchants. Its flagship inventory and warehouse management solutions allow merchants to allocate, track and reconcile inventory across various online and offline sales channels. It also offers additional modules which automate other back office functions of merchants, such as shipping related payments reconciliation and returns reconciliation. Speaking about the investment, Mr.Brijesh Kumar Agrawal, Co-Founder and Director, IndiaMART said “This transaction is a part of IndiaMART’s ongoing efforts to make commerce easy for Indian Merchants. Merchants across India have increasingly started to realize the importance of adopting various online sales channels, and the market in itself is large and fast-growing. EasyEcom’s solutions allow MSMEs to easily manage and sell products across various sales channels. We understand the tremendous potential of the company to cater to major ecommerce marketplaces. Moreover, this investment is aligned with IndiaMART’s long-term vision to provide a holistic ecosystem for all business needs.”
Logistics software leader Yojee teams up with HERE Technologies to unlock value in global supply chains HERE Technologies, and Yojee Limited, has teamed up to create a unique operations intelligence solution to transform warehouse operations and management for global companies. The growth of supply chains and e-commerce trends have resulted in the need for more warehouses worldwide. Experts are predicting that the number of warehouses around the world will grow by 20% between 2018 and 2025 to reach about 180,000, more than half of which will be in China, United States, Japan, India, and Germany[[i]]. At the same time, warehousing costs are rising, and companies are spending approximately €300 billion (USD 346 billion) a year on warehousing, with operational costs accounting for 85% of that expenditure[[ii]]. Combining the expertise of Yojee’s logistics software with HERE’s location intelligence, this joint initiative will uncover and generate crucial data from the warehouse floor.
SME CHANNELS 15 JANUARY 2022
SNIPPETS
Ivanti Extends an AwardWinning Velocity Product with the ‘Ivanti Neurons for IIoT’ Platform Ivanti Wavelink, announced Ivanti Neurons™ for Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) to help organizations further automate and optimize their supply chain operations. With Ivanti Neurons for IIoT, organizations can rapidly build scalable applications which integrate into existing processes, driving operational efficiency. This announcement comes at a critical time, as the global supply chain remains in a state of crisis, facing pressing issues such as a massive labor shortage, poor distribution management, and lack of end-to-end supply chain visibility. To combat these issues, organizations across industry verticals, including transportation and logistics, manufacturing, oil and gas, healthcare, and retail, are urgently seeking ways to accelerate digital transformation initiatives and revolutionize supply chain operations. Today, many warehouses and distribution centers feature smart devices, such as smart conveyors, sensors, cameras, robots, and collaborative robots. Yet the interconnections between these devices and technologies can be complex, expensive, and sometimes risky.
Almond Solutions introduces unlimited leaves, and WFH policies Almond Solutions, introduced an unlimited leave policy and a hybrid work module for its staff. The new policies have been implemented from 1st January 2022, and have been adopted by Almond to create a healthy and quality work culture and to enhance employees’ motivation, workexperience, productivity, and longevity in the organisation. Enabling brands, companies and corporations with its innovative tech based solutions since its inception, Almond has also closed its seed funding last month from HEXA Global Ventures, a Texas (US) based investment firm. As a new-age organization that has achieved professional success amidst India’s growing start-up ecosystem, Almond is reshaping the working environment for the employees. With its core belief in innovation, autonomy, quality and flexibility at the workplace, Almond has developed a HR culture where it hopes none of its employees ever land-up in situations of unmanageable stress, burnout, and no-time-for-personal-activities, especially in todays’ competitive times. The company infuses a ‘mantra’ in its employees that work is a two-way responsibility where office duties are performed with complete commitment and employees get the flexibility they deserve. The new policies are applicable for all the employees of Almond Solutions.
Rocking Deals opens new store in Mizoram to give customers in the region the best deals on brands across numerous categories Rocking Deals, opened a new store in Mizoram. Bringing the most ‘Rocking Deals’ to customers in the region, the store was inaugurated on 18th December, 2021. Present at MSR Market, Near Basket Ball Court, Babutlang Aizawl Mizoram 796005, the feature-rich store houses a wide range of items ranging from home appliances, to mobile accessories, to I.T and speakers, to home invention, glass wear, footwear, sports, toys, luggage bags, watches and much more. With successful stores across every region in the country, Rocking Deals has cemented its position as India’s most authentic one-stop solution for all unboxed, returns excess inventory and refurbished inventory. Investing Rs 50 lakhs into the store at Aizwal, the brand continues to expand its massive footprint across the length and breadth of the country. With ten staff members managing the city’s hottest store for the best brand deals, Rocking Deals is quickly becoming the most popular destination for branded goods in the North East.
Servotech Power Systems initiates the manufacturing of high-tech EV chargers to mark its entry into the EV Market In a bid to establish state-of-the-art technological EV charging infrastructure and bolster the nation’s progression towards the electric revolution, Servotech Power Systems Ltd. a leading entity engaged in the manufacturing of high-end solar products, medical devices and LED lighting solutions initiates the manufacturing of smart tech-driven innovative EV chargers for installation at various EV charging stations across the country. The entity while announcing its strategic foray into the EV market informed that the decision of embarking on this new journey and playing a pivotal role in aiding the creation of EV charging infrastructure is in line with its vision of developing solutions in accordance with the Government’s Make In India initiative and steering the nation towards a greener and sustainable future. Commenting on the recent plan of action for commencing the operations and procedures, Raman Bhatia, Founder & Managing Director, Servotech Power Systems Ltd.
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Tally Solutions Collaborates with AWS Tally Solutions, collaborated with Amazon Web Services (AWS), the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud offering, to make Tally Solutions’ flagship product TallyPrime available on AWS. This availability will enable all TallyPrime users to run their entire business application remotely anytime, anywhere. The collaboration between Tally Solutions and AWS aims to provide entrepreneurs and their teams access to TallyPrime anytime on any network, using laptops, desktops, or mobile devices so they can do business on the move. With AWS, each customer’s data volume is encrypted by default. Security is built into every component of the solution with secure pins, password enabled backups and more. TallyPrime on AWS will empower small and medium entrepreneurs to manage their business more efficiently. Commenting on this collaboration, Tejas Goenka, Managing Director, Tally Solutions said, “While we at Tally Solutions build our next generation cloud and connected infrastructure to bring a series of new advantageous experiences to our customers, this collaboration with AWS will help our customers get access to a more secure infrastructure that will allow anytime access to their data on our current flagship product of TallyPrime.”
CHANNEL TECH PREDICTION
MIKE SENTONAS CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER, CROWDSTRIKE
“NUMEROUS HIGH PROFILE SOFTWARE SUPPLY CHAIN ATTACKS HAVE BROUGHT THIS LOW-HANGING ATTACK VECTOR TO GREATER PROMINENCE THIS YEAR.”
DOUBLE EXTORTION RANSOM MODEL WILL GROW IN SOPHISTICATION IN 2022
2
021 has been a challenging year for security teams and many of the uncertainties that shaped the year are expected to continue into 2022. The cybersecurity landscape is ever-changing as adversaries transform their tools, techniques and procedures (TTPs) to pile even more pressure on often under-resourced and
unprepared security teams. This year we spoke about the rise of the double extortion ransomware model where adversaries demand one ransom for the return of data and another to ensure that data is not leaked or sold. In fact, according to CrowdStrike’s 2021 Global Security Attitude Survey, Indian companies paid around $1.128 million in extortion fees, the high-
est average extortion fee globally. This double extortion ransom model will grow in sophistication in 2022. We’re seeing an entire underground economy being built around the business of data exfiltration and extortion. Data-shaming websites are popping up like street-corner storefronts, providing a hub for ransomware groups to post and auction stolen data that’s being held ransom. These ransomware groups are revamping their entire infrastructure of tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) to hone in on more effectively exfiltrating and selling stolen data. Even if the threat actors can’t get their ransomware to execute past the encryption stage, they’ll pivot and find other ways to gain access to the data to sell for a profit anyway. Numerous high profile software supply chain attacks have brought this low-hanging attack vector to greater prominence this year. They’ve exposed supply chain vulnerabilities and presented opportunities for adversaries to exploit. In fact, 63% of Indian companies have lost trust in either new or existing suppliers according to the 2021 Global Security Attitude Survey. Greater focus needs to be placed on vetting the security posture of suppliers otherwise these attacks will continue to grow in 2022.”
SME CHANNELS 17 JANUARY 2022
COVER STORY
SRIDHAR PINNAPUREDDY FOUNDER & CEO CTRLS DATACENTERS
“AT CTRLS, WE CARE FOR PLANET EARTH. IT IS IMPORTANT THAT WE LEAVE BEHIND A HEALTHY PLANET FOR OUR FUTURE GENERATIONS.”
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COVER STORY
THE
‘GREEN MAN’
OF INDIAN DATACENTER INDUSTRY TRANSFORMING THE INDUSTRY FOREVER
S
ome people are born to do different things. But few are born to do things differently. Sridhar Pinnapureddy is one among the few who in true sense has altered an entire Data Cnter industry in India. A serial entrepreneur of technology and IT infrastructure Sridhar, who holds a BTech degree in Civil Engineering besides being an innovator is currently the Founder & CEO, CtrlS Data Center. Sridhar is passionate about finding unique solutions to industry challenges and CtrlS has witnessed 200+ innovations under his visionary leadership. He constantly challenges the old industry norms and has set several benchmarks in the data center industry. He is credited with launching India’s first and Asia’s largest Rated-4 data center and Asia’s first and India’s only 100 per cent quake and air pollution free data center. Sridhar’s enterprises are value-driven,Industrt by innovation and focused on successful business outcomes for its customers.
He leads India’s largest number of Rated-4 hyperscale green data centers certified by USGBC. He has built world’s first LEED Platinum certified Green Data Center and has orchestrated 200+ innovations and 80 innovations in sustainability and energy efficiency alone. Sridhar is also recognized for building India’s first solar panel covered data center. Recently, he deployed Asia’s largest Gas Insulated Substation (GIS). He has a laser sharp focus on environment, besides giving back to the society. CtrlS is deploying 500-acre solar farm to replace fossil fuel dependency and its Bangalore data center has a 30 KW solar plant operational and is playing a key role in reducing carbon footprint through renewable energy. Sustainability at the Core Sridhar is committed to sustainability and reducing carbon footprint and hence, is silently building a world that is safe for his customers,
future generation and for our planet Earth. His company CtrlS is Leader in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified, a benchmark in the industry. LEED helps data centers become green and sustainable. In fact, CtrlS data centers have advanced cooling systems to reduce energy consumption, improved cooling efficiency, and reduced energy consumption. It uses a clean backup power system, renewable energy, green construction and intelligent design. Gopalakrishnan, Managing Director, GBCI – Southeast Asia & Middle East Markets, says, “Sustainability is embedded in the DNA of CtrlS, as the company is focused on best practices in energy management, good indoor air quality management, water conservation and efficiency management, waste management, etc. All CtrlS Rated-4 Hyperscale datacenters are certified as LEED Platinum v4 O+M by GBCI, setting a benchmark for the datacenter industry both in India and around the world.” Under Sridhar’s leadership, CtrlS has become world’s first LEED Platinum v4 O+M Green Data Center while the Noida data center is North India’s first LEED Platinum v4 O+M certified Rated 4 Hyperscale data center, which powers missioncritical applications across sectors including BFSI, telecom e-commerce, IT/ITeS, hyperscalers, healthcare, retail, utilities and several other industries. The company has implemented over 25 energy conservation and efficiency improvement initiatives with an estimated annual savings of 13.8 GWh in the last few months. CtrlS has already disposed off 77,225 kgs of battery waste and 2.35 tons of e-waste in an environmentfriendly manner in the last three years. Sridhar says, “At CtrlS, we care for planet earth. It is important that we leave behind a healthy planet for our future generations. As a responsible organization, we have embarked on 200 innovations combined with 25 green initiatives to reduce carbon footprint, reduce dependency on fossil fuels, eliminate wastage of water, become a paperless office, achieve near 100 per cent work from home powered by automation, eliminate usage of plastic and air pollution, recycle e-waste, save trees, and maximize usage of renewable energy.” According to a Mordor Intelligence report, the green data center market will reach nearly $181.91 billion by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 23.01 per cent, while another report by ResearchAndMarkets.com predicts the industry to worth $142.8 billion by 2026, rising at a CAGR of 19.7 per cent.
SME CHANNELS 19 JANUARY 2022
COVER STORY
INDIA’S FIRST SOLAR COVERED DATA CENTER CtrlS Mumbai DC 2 Mahape, Navi Mumbai
“CTRLS MUMBAI FACILITY IS THE COUNTRY’S LARGEST SOLAR COVERED DATA CENTER WITH 1.3 MW INSTALLED CAPACITY GENERATING 1.8 MILLION UNITS OF POWER PER YEAR. THIS HELPS OFFSET CO2 EMISSION BY 620 TONS/ YEAR. THE COMPANY IS ALSO BUILDING CAPTIVE POWER SOLAR PLANTS WITH A CAPACITY OF 200 MW TO MINIMIZE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT AND MOVE TO ZERO-EMISSION, ZERO WASTE AND ZERO POLLUTION OPERATION.” 20 16 SME CHANNELS JANUARY 2022
While the acceleration of digital transformation and exponential growth in data demand show no signs of abating, solar energy is the stand-out source of clean energy. CtrlS stands out as a strong contender in this field. The company understands that sustainability and green data centers are no more just boardroom discussion. Here too, CtrlS is leading the pathway. The company invested 21,621 hours on employee training to ensure each one of them are aligned towards its mission of being sustainable and green. Pockets of solar energy are becoming increasingly available for data center operators to tap into. CtrlS has already installed solar panels along the walls of its data center and has installed 1MW BIPV solar plant at Mumbai data center. In fact,
COVER STORY
for the last decade, CtrlS has been the winner of Energy Efficiency Awards. The company has adopted energy efficient technologies and systems akin to chiller plant manager, VFDs for all HVAC equipment, variable cooling system, CTI approved cooling towers, online monitoring and auto chemical dosing to avoid increase in approach of chillers, eco mode UPS system for all mechanical systems, HT dual source automation, 100 per cent LEDs, usage of motion sensors, BMS to monitor various efficiencies & PUE, and hot/ cold aisle containment. Such efforts on energy optimization have led the company to reduce over seven thousand tons of CO2. CtrlS Mumbai facility is the country’s largest solar covered data center with 1.3 MW installed capacity generating 1.8 million units of power per year. This helps offset CO2 emission by 620 tons/year. The company is also building captive power solar plants with a capacity of 200 MW to minimize environmental impact and move to zero-emission, zero waste and zero pollution operation. The company has already eliminated carbon emissions equivalent to 46,379 metric tons while recycles 28,148 metric tons of waste over the last five years. It has adopted green data center designs in building constructed from blocks made from fly ash, and all its facilities are equipped with energy efficient world class equipment. The company follows audit and compliance to ensure performance. This includes Ashrae Level 1 & 2 audit to identify glaring areas of energy inefficiency, APPA custodial effectiveness assessment to keep building occupants and maintenance personnel from being exposed to potential hazardous chemical, biological and particulate contaminants, I-BEAM Audit that cover three sections of the building’s indoor air quality and Indoor Air Quality Assessment that determines the presence of contaminants in your home or office. CtrlS runs India’s largest number of Rated-4 hyperscale green data centers certified by USGBC and has obtained LEED Platinum V4 O+M certifications reinforcing its commitment to sustainability. All of CtrlS data center buildings are constructed from blocks made from fly ash. It has been deploying eco-friendly organic chemicals with sophisticated online monitoring across its data center facilities in addition to an auto dosing system for cooling tower water treatment. CtrlS also monitors water parameters in real time to optimize consumption of water by the data center facilities.
Noida DC - The One-of-its-Kind CtrlS Noida data center is one of the most unique facilities in the data center industry. The entire national capital (NCR) region is faced with challenges of air pollution. However, presence of sulphur in the air across NCR and Noida has the potential ability to cause damage to computer hardware and malfunctioning of devices, as sulphur causes corrosion in metals. To solve this critical problem and safeguard the data of its customers, CtrlS established an air filtration plant which processes the contaminated air, scrubs it and then releases clean air into the data center, thereby ensuring all the servers, storage devices, networking components and other devices located within the facility are protected from such threats. The air is not just good for the IT infrastructure but also for human lungs. The air filtration plant is equipped with air scrubbers, +ve pressurized system along with treated fresh air system. Siddharth Jain, Managing Director, EPI India says, “CtrlS is among the best data centers in the country. It follows Rated-4 standards defined by ANSI/TIA-942 and complies with all its guidelines. Its Noida data center is built to withstand earthquakes and contain air-pollution through its air filtration plant, which is safeguards IT infrastructure from corrosion is safe for human lungs.” The company performs regular indoor air quality assessment at all its data centers to determine the presence of contaminants in any and test for mold, pollutants, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and more. CtrlS has storm water harvesting (70-90 per cent) at all its data centers, recycling of water, setting up of STP/WTP for recycling, collaboration with community STP/ETP/WTP, online monitoring and auto chemical dozing system at all DCs to reduce the blow down water for HVAC systems, adoption of water consumption reduction technologies, usage of low flow plumbing fixtures, usage of dual flush WC, and usage of waterless urinals. CtrlS aims to use 100 per cent renewable energy by 2025 (or as per permissible limit by Govt.), install onsite solar on new buildings and be carbon neutral by 2030 while use 50 per cent of recycles water by 2024 for Mumbai data center. The company has set up a goal for 50 per cent usage of recycled water by 2024 for Mumbai DC and has established waste disposal program. Indeed every step it takes forward is towards ensuring a greener, better and prosperous Earth for us and better business opportunities for customers.
THE OVERALL IMPACT THROUGH ITS GREEN (SUSTAINABILITY) INITIATIVES
225,000 METRIC TONS OF CARBON DIOXIDE ELIMINATED • 10+ BILLION LITRES OF WATER RECYCLED • 95 PER CENT REDUCTION IN PAPER USAGE SAVING 10,000+ TREES • DISPLACEMENT OF CARBON EQUIVALENT TO 149,172 CARS DRIVEN IN THE LAST 900 DAYS • 77,225 TONS OF BATTERY WASTE AND 2.35 TONS OF E-WASTE RECYCLED/DISPOSED OFF IN AN ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY MANNER • 18.5 GWH OF ANNUAL SAVINGS THROUGH ITS 25 INNOVATIVE ENERGY CONSERVATION METHODS • INDUSTRY BEST PUE OF 1.35 THROUGH 80 INNOVATIONS IN ENERGY EFFICIENCY.
RECOGNITION • GOLDEN PEACOCK ECOINNOVATION AWARD • USGBC SUSTAINABLE LEADERSHIP AWARD • ENTERPRISE IT WORLD - MOST SUSTAINABLE DATA CENTER AWARD • CII – ENERGY EFFICIENT AWARD • ENTERPRISE IT WORLD - CIO SELECT AWARD – GREEN DATA CENTER
No individual has ever disrupted the Indian data center industry as much Sridhar has, and hence it would only be appropriate to anoint Sridhar as ‘The Green Man of Indian Datacenter’ and we hope that he will continue to be a role model for the Indian Datacenter Industry today and beyond.
SME CHANNELS 21 JANUARY 2022
INTERVIEW
GAUTAM PAUL, SALES DIRECTOR, IAI INDUSTRIAL SYSTEMS
“WE DELIVER LONG-TERM VALUE TO OUR CLIENTS BY CONSTANTLY MAPPING ONTO AND ADAPTING TO EVOLVING MARKET DEMANDS.”
SPEARHEADING A SILENT REVOLUTION IN DOCUMENT CUSTOMISATION AI has gained a formidable reputation for the design and supply of industrial production systems where laser, optics, precision mechanics and control software have vital roles to play? SME Channel had caught up with IAI’s maverick Sales Director Mr Gautam Paul, whose leadership has enabled the company to gain rapid strides in recent times. Here Mr Paul shares with our readers his key focus areas in marketing, his business strategies, channel engagement policies and much more. Edited excerpts…. Would you please brief us on the latest trends in the security and authentication market? At present, governments and other authoritative bodies are looking for the highest levels of protection and productivity for passports and ID cards, including modernised manufacturing processes and technologies. If you look at the recent developments in the market, there are quite a handful of clearly visible market trends. First of all, there is the transition from PVC/PET G to Polycarbonate material for ID papers, as well as the use of laser for customisation. We’ve observed a similar trend for Driving Licenses in India, where bids in some Indian states
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are shifting to polycarbonate material with laser engraving. Next comes the shift from machinereadable passports to e-passports. India has also announced plans to improve passport security by transitioning to an e-passport. We also see a switching from fully decentralized issuance to regional issuance. This keeps the flexibility of having a regional presence, while improving security by eliminating the need for blank papers in numerous places. There is also a marked migration from grayscale to colour personalization on polycarbonate. Apart from aesthetics, the document is additionally safeguarded by a mix of laser engraving and drop-on-demand inkjet, creating an additional barrier for counterfeiters. Along with all these, digital ID documents coupled with physical documents are increasingly becoming the norm. What are the innovative new technologies in vogue these days? Over the past two decades, IAI industrial systems has been a leader of ID1 and ID3 document customisation, offering unique and advanced technologies to over 40 countries worldwide. Over 25 million ID papers are being customised using IAI technology each year — a figure that is all set to experience a surge in the coming years.
IAI has transformed itself into a pioneer in the field of design and delivery of industrial production systems such as lasers, optics, precision mechanics, and control software due to our uncompromising and dedicated focus on research, specialists, and industry experience. We are able to deliver long-term value to all our clients by constantly mapping onto and adapting to evolving market demands. Our portfolio boasts of a wide product basket. Our offerings include Personalisation Technologies and Security Document Solutions. Under the Personalisation Technologies segment, we have offerings in Laser Engraving, Inkjet Printing, Laser Perforating. And under under the Security Document Solutions division, we have BookMaster® for Passport Personalisation; CardMaster® for Card Personalisation; and for Security features, we have ImagePerf® and ImagePerf®/REV, NumberPerf®, Laser Colour Inkjet (LCI), and Third Party. In all these, what opportunity awaits the partners? How would these benefit them? The opportunity to represent IAI is extremely promising. IAI equipment caters to large value projects in a niche area. Going forward, the projects that will warrant our focus would be three key projects: Passport Project, Driving License Project and the ID Cards Project. We are very optimistic about the Passport Project. As you know, India is looking to migrate to ePassport which will require a change of equipment. Resultantly, it creates lot of opportunity for us there. As far the Driving License is concerned, there is a clear move to upgrading the current DL to a more secure document using polycarbonate and laser engraving. Similarly, in the ID Cards space, there are efforts at making several ID cards such as National ID, ID for Police, Army, etc., are considering secured documents. Partners will have the opportunity to sell equipment and after sales services, parts and consumables for the above mentioned projects. What kind of channel engagement strategy has HID Global kept in place for the upcoming year? When it comes to channel engagement, IAI does not work through multiple channels but through a very limited number of partners. We usually work directly with System Integrators for our projects.
INTERVIEW
SANJAY MANOHAR, MD, MCAFEE ENTERPRISE INDIA
CHANNEL PARTNERS ARE PERHAPS THE MOST IMPORTANT COMPONENT OF THE CYBERSECURITY ECOSYSTEM What is the present IT Landscape of cyber security market? The global crisis precipitated by COVID 19 has brought about an unprecedented change in the cybersecurity landscape. Businesses are being compelled to adapt and reinvent themselves to survive the pandemic, and as a result, the cybersecurity landscape has and is evolving rapidly. Cloud adoption skyrocketed in 2020, and while it has cooled off a bit in 2021, this was the shock needed to propel India towards being a cloud and online economy. All this has opened up a massive frontier of opportunity for criminals in Cloud and that’s where we are focusing our attention on. McAfee Enterprise and FireEye’s recent research revealed that 81% of global organisations experienced increased cyber threats, and closer home, 77% of Indian businesses reported to have faced downtimes due to cyber incidents. Further, while the top three most threatening cyber risks that were detected are malware attacks (47%), data breaches (43%), ransomware and cloud jacking (33% each), over 30% of the IT professionals also experienced vulnerabilities in their ‘Internet of Things’ devices. As more industries go digital and automate
their operations, cyber literacy has become the need of the hour and a critical skill in the workplace. Moreover, the hybrid and work-from-home model has propelled the organisations to mandate cyber security solutions deployment and adapt stronger authentication techniques. What are the best practices for businesses to improve their data protection? The world is hurtling towards Cloud, but for the foreseeable future on-prem and cloud workloads are expected to co-exist. It is critically important to have a comprehensive data protection strategy that seamlessly spans on-prem, network and Cloud components of the workloads. There is an acute imperative for device-to-cloud policies that converge Web, DLP and CASB a) Evangelizing data security: Departments across an organisation must come together and treat data security as a matter that’s integral to business performance and communicate its importance b) Understand how sensitive data is being accessed and shared: Sensitive data can be held securely in the cloud, but you have to monitor
who accesses it and where it goes. Assess the permissions on files and folders in your cloud environment, along with access context like user roles, user location, and device type c) Implement Data Loss Policies: Devise a pervasive set of Data Loss Prevention (DLP) policies that protect data everywhere it’s stored, including the cloud and corporate endpoints, networks, or unmanaged devices. Ideally, set data classifications once to protect data across endpoints, web, and cloud d) Establishing a model for your information security: Based on the requirements of your organization, you could establish a framework for data security. Organizations should ponder on this: o Do they know the value of their data? o Do they know who has access to their data? o Do they know where their data is located? o Do they know who is protecting their data? o Do they know how well their data is protected? Based on the responses to these questions, organizations must take appropriate steps to safeguard their data. What is the importance of channel partners for cyber security specifically in the post Covid scenario? If there’s one thing we’ve learned after decades of cybersecurity experience, it’s that no one person, product, or organization can fight cybercrime alone. Channel partners are perhaps the most important component of the cybersecurity ecosystem. Given the evolving threat landscape, it is channel partners that understand end-customers need the best, are closest to the action and usually the first responders in the event of incidents. Cybersecurity players often bank on the trusted relationship with their channel partners to cater to such needs of organizations. McAfee Enterprise is known as a channel friendly company. We hold our channel relationships paramount and do what it takes to make our channel partners successful. We actively reimagine our channel strategy from time to time to ensure customer success at every touch point. Our mobile transformation initiatives have demonstrated deeper engagement with our ecosystem of partners and vendors across the value chain. We are also helping our partners rapidly mobilize remote sales teams as traditional ways of working have gone digital.
SME CHANNELS 23 JANUARY 2022
CHANNEL TECH PREDICTION
A
mid the increasing blare of the pandemic and the spectre of omicron casting its long shadows over the tech landscape, we have ushered into 2022. Channel success which has always been the holy-grail for any business is all set to get a makeover in the new year. As part of our effort to get the channel community better informed and get an earful of what the who’s who of Indian IT are thinking, expecting, and planning for the channel community in 2022, we have started this new section to record the channel predictions of the most prominent players of the IT industry. Here, as part of this special series of Tech Forecasts, Pure Storage India registers its predictions for 2022. With its expertise in digital innovation, the Mountain View-headquartered Pure Storage has been providing all-flash data storage hardware and software products. The company has been redefining the storage experience and empowering innovators by simplifying how people consume and interact with data. It has enabled customers to embrace the future of cloud and data flexibility with a as-a-service model that’s simple to manage. Pure Storage’s Channel Head Jithesh Chembil has been instrumental in driving demand and loyalty across all channels. Under his leadership, the company has smoothly sailed through the difficult pandemic times. Jithesh has undertaken many initiatives that has transformed Pure Storage’s brand image as a new age brand. In an exclusive interaction with SME Channels, Jithesh Chembil, Head of Channels, India, Pure Storage shares his company’s Channel Predictions for the year 2022. Edited excerpts… As the pandemic continues and a new variant has surfaced, what are the major market trends you are forecasting for 2022? Organizations are accelerating their digital transformation processes for long-term growth and enhancing productivity. This year, organizations will increase focus on finding competitive differentiators that will allow them to stand out from their competitors and to be able to provide customized services to their customers. We will see a greater investment in technologies such as containers and Kubernetes. This technology is
24 SME CHANNELS JANUARY 2022
CHANNEL TECH PREDICTION
JITHESH CHEMBIL HEAD OF CHANNELS, INDIA, PURE STORAGE
“TO INCREASE THEIR CHANCES FOR SUCCESS IN THIS ENVIRONMENT, CHANNEL PARTNERS WILL NEED TO OFFER BOTH A VARIETY OF TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS AND A DEEP KNOWLEDGE IN THE AREAS MOST VALUED BY CUSTOMERS.”
helping reinvent the way we build and run applications, increase enterprise IT efficiency, and its popularity will only continue to grow in 2022. 2022 will be an exciting year for technology as the world becomes increasingly digitized. We are poised for an exciting year ahead with many new developments on the horizon. What major trends are you forecasting in the channel market? In 2022, services and recurring revenue streams will define the winners and losers of the IT channel. The pandemic has accelerated the move to flexible consumption models. Now more than ever, customers crave the ease and flexibility of as-a-service, subscription-based offerings – those that prioritize valuable outcomes, over standalone products. This shift in consumption preferences is driving the evolution of the IT channel. Customers are increasingly opting out of owning and managing their own IT infrastructures, and instead looking to organizations that can provide both a solution and consistent value in the form of critical maintenance, customer support, and opportunities to scale. In turn, services are providing a much stickier business model for the IT channel. That’s why in
SERVICES AND RECURRING REVENUE STREAMS TO DEFINE WINNERS AND LOSERS OF THE IT CHANNEL 2022, the product itself will be only one pillar of a meaningful IT outcome. Instead, providers will need to double down on the services they wrap around a product portfolio to achieve long-term customer loyalty. Which areas do you want to focus on in the channel – skillsets – sales and marketing, vertical and technology practice development, service capability, etc.? All these areas are important for our channel partners. The world is becoming increasingly complex but we try to keep things simple for our partners. First of all, we try to keep our channel ecosystem at a manageable level and work closely with the most dedicated and committed partners. This way we can help tailor their training according to their needs. We also have a comprehensive Partner Portal with the latest sales and technical resources, training, personalized marketing campaigns, a digital asset library, social selling content and more, all at the partners’ fingertips. We also provide them with access to a wide range of tools to support their customers remotely, if necessary, such as our virtual EBCs and remote installs. What percentage of budget growth are you expecting for channel development? Pure Storage is 100 percent channels driven, so our channel growth is the company’s growth. We only set public growth targets at a global level which you can find in our earnings reports.
What is your expectation from the channel this year? In 2022, we expect to see the channel ecosystem itself experiencing transformation. Channel partners will continue to grow and empower customers across their environments. This expansion will offer customers an improved experience while creating new levels of opportunity and involvement for channel partners. To increase their chances for success in this environment, channel partners will need to offer both a variety of technology solutions and deep knowledge within the areas most valued by customers. Are you planning any new product addition for the channel market? Pure Storage continues to push the innovation edge to help our customers and our partners navigate the challenges of managing data. We recently launched our biggest capacity all-flash storage array, the FlashArray//XL. We also announced two exciting solutions late last year which we expect to see general availability this year: Pure Fusion and Portworx Data Services. These two technologies will change the way companies manage their data on-premise and in the cloud. Is there any channel expansion plan in terms of numbers in 2022? Pure Storage does not break out our channel numbers at a country level but we will continue to recruit committed partners where it makes sense.
SME CHANNELS 25 JANUARY 2022
ASSOCIATION TECH PREDICTION
TUSHAR PAREKH CHAIRMAN, ASIRT
“ASIRT AND ASIRTERS BOTH HIGHLIGHT THE IMPORTANCE OF DEVELOPING A “DIFFERENTIATOR” FEATURE.”
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ive a brief introduction about ASIRT ASIRT today, is Mumbai’s largest aggregation of Indian ISVs, SIs, Resellers and Cloud solution providers. Promoted by leading IT service providers in Mumbai, this organisation strives to foster collaboration and assist this community of IT businesses in achieving greater success and expanding their business boundaries. ASIRT is governed by a 13-member governing board. This board has a special agenda: to guarantee that ASIRT touches the businesses of all partners, not just those with enormous volumes, but also those with very modest volumes seeking new horizons. ASIRT’s mission is to grow its membership base to over 500 system builders, system integrators, and retailers in Mumbai, Thane, and Navi Mumbai, as well as to establish additional chapters around the country.
26 SME CHANNELS JANUARY 2022
ASSOCIATION TECH PREDICTION
WE ARE BROADENING THE BREADTH OF THE SI’S DEFINITION ASIRT seeks to foster the development of a unified SI and retail ecosystem. The association serves as a powerful voice for the SI & Retail community. The association’s mission is to act as a conduit between vendors and the SI community in order to benefit both parties. The association hosts educational events for the benefit of the SI and retail communities. The association’s mission is to promote the health and profitability of the SI community and was formed to promote more collaboration between the SI and retail communities. As the pandemic is still there and a new variant is spreading, as an influential association what major market trends do you forecast for 2022? Pandemic status may not continue indefinitely. Given the virus’s waning fatality, it may finish up as influenza or other viral fevers do. Hybrid working solutions are here to stay. Traditional hardware and software sales will continue to be conducted through brick and mortar establishments, with physical staff assisting. The SME sector will prosper. Will be more receptive to services offered.
Which are your current focus areas as a frontline association? Assisting Members with financial solutions to meet their cashflow and growth needs - equipping them and their teams with new technology knowledge and training - enabling them to leverage social media for business growth - connecting them across boundaries to reach out to their PAN India customer base - establishing visibility for Members PAN India to begin with. Today, new-age technologies like AI, Robotics, Big Data and Analytics, IoT, and 5G communications are opening new possibilities and new opportunities for tomorrow. As a tech association, Is ASIRT ready for talk more about this and create awareness among the members? ASIRT’s mission has been to arm Members with domain and peripheral knowledge that enables them to offer futuristic yet realistic solutions to their customers. Interaction with professionals during the monthly TechDay – a gathering of
Members for networking, collaboration, and knowledge sharing – is just one of ASIRT’s efforts. What are your major strengths as a tech association? The diversity of ASIRT’s membership across segments and facets of IT/InfoSec - their experience and subject knowledge - their readiness and eagerness to share, interact, and learn - their business ethics - principled approach - customer care - have all been ASIRT’s assets. What major trends would you forecast in the channel market? Do you have any expansion plans for 2022? What are your plans for onboarding new partners or addition of new business lines for next year apart from Info-sec ? To begin, we intend to expand throughout the state. Our focus would remain on the SI community’s activities outside of typical implementation domains, namely research and innovation. As part of ASIRT, we are broadening the breadth of the SI’s definition to embrace all parts of our business eco-system. These may include service-oriented OEMs, distributors, and start-ups, among others. How would you like to value add to presales, training, post-sales services for your partners and customers? This is a monthly activity that occurs in conjunction with TechDay. Our defined standards for Members and their teams provide ongoing technical and soft skill development through the TechEdge programme. Social media professionals share their experiences with utilising existing technology tools to assist Members in reaching out to and connecting with their customers. We are a firm believer in routinely upscaling and inspiring our members, which we accomplish through the invitation of renowned speakers / TedX speakers to our monthly TechDays. What is your plan for enhancing geospread from Point of Presence? One of the aims is to connect with fellow business people in the information technology area across India. ASIRT and ASIRTers both highlight the importance of developing a “differentiator” feature. Uniqueness of approach - collaboration cohesion of activities - work ethics - camaraderie - transparency - these are the critical components of this “differentiator” that will assist us in expanding our geographic reach beyond state borders.
SME CHANNELS 27 JANUARY 2022
CHANNEL TECH PREDICTION
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mid the increasing blare of the pandemic and the spectre of omicron casting its long shadows over the tech landscape, we have ushered into 2022. Channel success which has always been the holy-grail for any business is all set to get a makeover in the new year. As part of our effort to get the channel community better informed and get an earful of what the who’s who of Indian IT are thinking, expecting, and planning for the channel community in 2022, we have started this new section to record the channel predictions of the most prominent players of the IT industry. Here, as part of this special series of Tech Forecasts, Dell Technologies registers its predictions for 2022. Among the world’s leading technology companies, Dell Technologies has helped to transform businesses and people’s lives all around. From hybrid cloud solutions to high-performance computing, the company has left its imprint everywhere in every segment it’s in. Dell has built up a thriving channel ecosystem in the country which has yielded rich dividends for it. Under the dynamic leadership of Anil Sethi, VP & GM - Channels, Dell Technologies India, the company has been able to consolidate and expand its business footprints across the country. In an exclusive interaction with SME Channels, Anil Sethi, VP & GM - Channels, Dell Technologies India, shares his company’s Channel Predictions for the year 2022. Edited excerpts What are the major technology trends you are forecasting for 2022? We are living in a do-anything-from-anywhere economy, enabled by an exponentially expanding data ecosystem. We will see both near-term and long-term technology predictions that address the way the IT industry will deliver the platforms and capabilities to harness this data to transform our experiences at work, home and in the classroom. In 2022, we will see: • The opening of the private mobility ecosystem will accelerate with more cloud and IT industries involved on the path to 5G • Edge will become the new battleground for data management as data management becomes a new class of workload – demanding specific solutions and skills. This, in-turn, will generate
28 SME CHANNELS JANUARY 2022
CHANNEL TECH PREDICTION
ANIL SETHI VP & GM - CHANNELS, DELL TECHNOLOGIES INDIA
“WE ARE RAISING THE BAR ON PARTNER EXPERIENCE, OFFERING NEW DIGITAL ENHANCEMENTS LIKE INCENTIVE CENTRE, NEW QUOTING TOOL IN OSC AND APEX.” huge demand for storage management, data storage, optimization, protection and analytics for all enterprises – small or large • The security industry will move from discussion of emerging security concerns towards concrete action How is Dell Technologies enabling its partners to improve their quality of engagement, so they are ready for the challenges and expectations of near to long-term future? The Channel ecosystem has played a pivotal role in expanding the footprint of Dell Technologies. We are committed to grow this further by enhancing partner experience levels and building services led go-to-market strategies, aided by new incentives and distribution support. We are raising the bar on partner experience, offering new digital enhancements like incentive centre, new quoting tool in OSC and APEX. Our brand-new Incentives Center gives our partners an increased visibility and insight across all their program incentives in one centralized location – for Rebates, MDF (Marketing Development Funds), and MyRewards (incentive for partner sales specialists). We have also invested in configuration, pricing and quoting through the Online Solutions Configurator (OSC) tool – to reduce turn-around time, and to deliver greater pricing transparency for our partners while quoting and it will also enhance their online self-service capability. We are committed to investing in our partner’s end-to-end experience with us and are excited for the opportunities that will allow Dell Technologies
HYBRID CLOUD, EDGE OPPORTUNITIES, 5G AND INTELLIGENT PCS TO RULE THE ROOST and its partners to create together, partnering for the future. What major trends are you forecasting in the channel market? We are looking for new ways of working, learning, and living with technology as the enabler. In 2022 we will see; Hybrid cloud for the hybrid workforce, Edge opportunities will come into focus; Edge innovations will create urgency for Telcos to accelerate 5G and Intelligent PCs will adapt to hybrid, hyper-connected users. Dell is focused on key six strategic technologies such as Multi-cloud, Edge, 5G, AI/ML, Data Management and Cybersecurity to enable end-to-end, modern IT systems for future. Our focus on sectors like healthcare, online collaboration, education, tele-communication, and digital cities will be more now than ever. These apart, the various consumption models mentioned earlier – Flex-On-Demand, and Project APEX – will help us (and our partners) to meet customers’ expectations and address their demands in the new “as a service” world. Are you planning any new product addition for the channel market? Dell Technologies is investing heavily in customer and market research for not just additional technology and features that customers want, but also identifying new and emerging ways that are used to consume technology. As-a-service is an emerging trend across the board, in fact the analysts expects technology consumption as-a-service model to grow significantly faster, and we’ve launched APEX services to address the same.
APEX is a new offering on the block. We already have APEX Custom Flex-on-demand that offers custom solutions for the partners to position with their customers. We will also be launching various offerings under the APEX umbrella – APEX Cloud Services, APEX Data Storage Services, APEX Compute Services, APEX Backup Services and more. Our partners have both, a significant role to play in rollout of APEX, and an opportunity to build significantly higher profitability in doing business. We are seeing a lot of our partners already showing interest in APEX solutions and are eager to include it in their portfolio of offerings to their customers. Is there any channel expansion plan in terms of numbers in 2022? In technology business, change is a constant and so is expansion. With the technology adoption growing in India, our business has also grown significantly faster than the market. This has resulted in continuous growth with more partners and customers engaging with Dell Technologies. Apart from this, we are also focusing on the new cloud-age partners. These are not the legacy brick-and-mortar partners but relatively newer, hyper-growth cloud-age partners; they are experts at understanding and delivering cloud and as-asservice offerings to the customers. We have already started engaging with some of the large partners in this segment, and we are working on big plans to replicate our success on this dimension as well. We are confident that these new-age cloud partners will help bring the next growth phase for Dell Technologies.
SME CHANNELS 29 JANUARY 2022
CHANNEL TECH PREDICTION
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mid the increasing blare of the pandemic and the spectre of omicron casting its long shadows over the tech landscape, we have ushered into 2022. Channel success which has always been the holy-grail for any business is all set to get a makeover in the new year. As part of our effort to get the channel community better informed and get an earful of what the who’s who of Indian IT are thinking, expecting, and planning for the channel community in 2022, we have started this new section to record the channel predictions of the most prominent players of the IT industry. Here, as part of this special series of Tech Forecasts, BlackBerry registers its predictions for 2022. Reputed to be the brand that created the mobile workforce with trusted security at the incipient, BlackBerry provided the freedom and the assurance to work whenever and wherever. Today, the company secures over 500M endpoints and continues to offer customers trusted and intelligent security. In an exclusive interaction with SME Channels, Graeme Pyper, Managing Director - Asia Pacific, BlackBerry, shares his company’s Channel Predictions for the year 2022. Edited excerpts. Give a brief introduction of your company. The Internet of Things is driving the next great wave in business transformation. For over 35 years, BlackBerry has invented, created, and built security solutions to give people and business the ability to stay secure and stay productive. BlackBerry created the mobile workforce with trusted security at the very beginning and provided the freedom and the assurance to work whenever and wherever. Today, BlackBerry secures more than 500M endpoints including over 195M vehicles, and continues to offer customers trusted and intelligent security, everywhere. Frost & Sullivan determined that BlackBerry is well positioned to secure all IoT endpoints, and protect against upwards of 96% of cyberthreats in the current landscape. This is how we protect everyone, everything, everywhere, every day. As the pandemic is still there and a new variant has surfaced, what major
30 SME CHANNELS JANUARY 2022
CHANNEL TECH PREDICTION
GRAEME PYPER MANAGING DIRECTOR - ASIA PACIFIC, BLACKBERRY
market trends would you forecast for 2022? First, quantum computing will be on top of the mind. The current speed of technological advancement places an emphasis on the importance of securing critical industries, particularly with the development of quantum computing. In just the past few months, security experts have witnessed the damage that hackers can cause using basic artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. Once threat actors can leverage the massive cyber power from quantum computing and develop new attack vectors, ransomware attacks will become even more catastrophic. 2022’s threat landscape will be led by how quickly quantum computing will evolve. While most believe this technology is still years away from being fully applied, the cybersecurity community must start applying resources and bringing together our brightest minds to formulate solutions that can defend against quantum computing once it inevitably falls into the wrong hands. Quantum computing will undoubtedly spur rapid technological advancements across multiple industries. However, if left unchecked, the cybersecurity implications on organisations and their sensitive data will be vast and uncharted. Next, the expansion of 5G will open new threat vectors. 5G is transforming critical infrastructure in almost every industry, including the growth of cloud computing, industrial automation, and augmented reality. As 5G redefines network architecture, the cybersecurity community’s approach to securing it must change in tandem. This accelerated transformation away from hardware-based routing and towards a digitally defined world - a key component of the 5G network - will leave millions more vulnerable to cyberattacks than ever before. The dissipating barrier between digital and physical, as well as the growing number of connected devices relying on this new technology, will open new doors for threat actors to strike. Strategies to secure distributed networks must be embedded into product design and built around 5G capabilities, not the other way around. Going forward, the cyber community must recognise and quickly address the looming responsibilities that await as 5G is implemented throughout every facet of life.
CONSOLIDATION OF VENDORS, USAGE OF AI & ML IN CYBERSECURITY TO DOMINATE Third, the role of cybersecurity in business, as usual. The pandemic upended critical supply chains, fundamental institutional arrangements, communities and everyday life. India is now recognising the need to push ahead and accelerate projects that were cancelled or shelved due to COVID-19. The new normal is tech-driven and organisations simply cannot leave cybersecurity as an afterthought anymore. It must be front and center to enable the delivery of these projects in a COVID-safe manner. What major trends would you forecast in the channel market? The pandemic has brought about a tremendous shift across the B2B channel with changing buyer and customer needs and preferences, evolving partner business models and value, and growing competition for partner mindshare. 2021 saw end-users seek to consolidate vendor solutions due to supply chain disruptions. Channel partners now need to formalise a partner ecosystem strategy that focuses on vendors who are not reliant on other technologies, but offer comprehensive endto-end solutions from edge to core. In 2022, we expect to see: • A consolidation of vendors in cybersecurity, with a focus on prevention. To support value creation for unique partner business models and to address buyer needs for integrated, end-to-end solutions, channel leaders need to become ecosystem orchestrators to programmatically support co-innovation of multipartner, multi-party, buyer-desired solutions. • The usage of next generation technologies The usage of next generation technologies, including artificial intelligence and machine learning, to produce better cybersecurity outcomes. • The future office Remote and hybrid working will still be the primary type of work in 2022, and channel leaders will need to be able to support greater demands and expectations of the workforce with innovative
technology-based solutions. Which areas you want to focus in the channel – skillsets – sales and marketing, vertical and technology practice development, service capability, or any other? India is looking to strengthen the protection of data through the Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) bill, which is similar to Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). To comply with the PDPA, organisations, ranging from small-medium enterprises to large conglomerates, will need strong security controls across applications, devices and IoT endpoints. Recognised for delivering the world’s most secure and integrated mobile solutions, BlackBerry is uniquely positioned and will focus on meeting this increased demand in 2022. Our partners have access to resources and tools to help shape their expertise and aid their customers in securing their businesses. These resources and tools include technical training, a development platform, partner success stories and online learning. We have various programmes, such as BlackBerry ISV Partner Programme, BlackBerry AtHoc Development Partner Programme and BlackBerry Authorised Training Partner programme, designed to suit our partners’ business models and improve their skillsets. Sharing our experiences in global markets with our partners and local teams is the key to our joint success. What percentage of budget growth are you expecting for channel development? India and the wider Asia Pacific region are hyper growth markets for BlackBerry and we are expecting strong growth from our existing and new customers.
SME CHANNELS 31 JANUARY 2022
CHANNEL TECH PREDICTION
A
mid the increasing blare of the pandemic and the spectre of omicron casting its long shadows over the tech landscape, we have ushered into 2022. Channel success which has always been the holy-grail for any business is all set to get a makeover in the new year. As part of our effort to get the channel community better informed and get an earful of what the who’s who of Indian IT are thinking, expecting, and planning for the channel community in 2022, we have started this new section to record the channel predictions of the most prominent players of the IT industry. Here, as part of this special series of Tech Forecasts, Schneider Electric India registers its predictions for 2022. Schneider Electric has been empowering businesses, enterprises, and individuals to utilize the maximum potential of energy and resources, empowering progress and sustainability. The company is driving digital transformation by integrating world-leading process and energy technologies, the endpoint to cloud connecting products, controls, software, and services, across the entire lifecycle, enabling integrated company management, for homes, buildings, data centers, infrastructure, and industries. The person who is instrumental in Schneider’s notable success stories has been Swarup Das, Director, Channel Sales at APC, Schneider Electric India. A strong advocate of open standards and partnership ecosystems, Das is passionate about Schneider’s expanding presence and meticulous about fuelling up channel sales. Here, Swarup Das, Director, Channel Sales at APC, Schneider Electric India, shares his company’s Channel Predictions for the year 2022. Edited excerpts… Give a brief introduction to your company Schneider Electric’s purpose is to empower businesses, enterprises, and individuals to utilize the highest potential from our energy and resources, empowering progress and sustainability for all. We call this Life Is On. Our mission is to be a digital partner towards achieving Sustainability and Efficiency. We drive digital transformation by integrating world-leading process and energy technologies, the endpoint to cloud connecting products, controls, software, and services, across
32 SME CHANNELS JANUARY 2022
CHANNEL TECH PREDICTION
SWARUP DAS DIRECTOR, CHANNEL SALES AT APC, SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC INDIA
“WE STRONGLY FEEL WE WILL HIT OR EXCEED PRE-PANDEMIC BUSINESS LEVELS. 2022 WILL BE A YEAR OF ACCELERATION AND INNOVATION, NOT MERE RECOVERY.” the entire lifecycle, enabling integrated company management, for homes, buildings, data centers, infrastructure, and industries. Being advocates of open standards and partnership ecosystems, we are passionate about our shared commitment, purpose, values, drive, and goals that seek to transform and disrupt approaches towards achieving a more scalable, clean and sustainable future. As the pandemic is still there and a new variant has surfaced, what are the major market trends you are forecasting for 2022? The uncertainty that followed the first wave of lockdowns across the globe created some friction and duress across organizations. Despite the headwinds imposed during this time, IT service companies bolstered their efforts, initiatives and pivoted their approach to counter the impending effects posed by the pandemic. Thus, we do not see any demand-side challenge impacting the sector. A large portion of the digital change that began last year is still ongoing and will not be impacted by the new variant or a precipitated third wave. IT companies are protected by the remote and hybrid working arrangements that have been implemented over the last year, as well as, the current and continuing need for digital solutions. What major trends would you forecast for the channel market? With the ongoing global pandemic, anticipating future trends has become more difficult than ever. However, some changes will translate into excellent prospects for the IT sector, ranging
RATHER THAN COVERING ALL TECHNOLOGICAL BASES, PARTNERS WILL DOUBLE DOWN ON THEIR INDIVIDUAL EXPERTISE from the technology being adopted to customer expectations. Businesses resorted to the cloud, doubled down on security services, and needed new hardware and software deployments to meet their new remote workforce needs because of the COVID-19 outbreak, which fuelled sales growth for several channels. As a result, we expect sales to improve in the following months, resulting in higher revenues this year. This year and beyond, the sheer depth and breadth of knowledge necessary to run the massive estates will redefine the IT channels. Rather than covering all technological bases, partners will double down on their individual expertise. In all areas, we expect the tremendous potential for channel partners. However, urgent investment in technology will assist a few important industries, including the public sector, education, and healthcare. The rising complexity of technology will be a recurring topic this year. Unfortunately, the number of trained individuals needed to assist firms in managing this complexity is expanding. As a result, cross-channel training and upskilling of individuals will be critical.
channel operations model. Our aim is to manage channels and plan to align on achieving larger business outcomes. Managing our channel incentives and partner investment model to promote specific ecosystem performance and results, is resulting in predictability and returns while allowing agility and responsiveness. In addition, this helps in creating incentives to motivate employees and enable them to gauge their efforts in achieving success across multiple fronts.
Which areas do you want to focus on in the channel – skillsets – sales and marketing, vertical and technology practice development, service capability, or any other? We believe that to be a true industry leader, one must excel on all fronts. Therefore, we believe in concentrating our efforts in several areas across all the channels in the future. To manage our team and drive execution excellence, we must define a
What is your expectation from the channel this year? We have got high hopes for development and innovation this year. We believe that we will be able to meet or exceed pre-pandemic business levels. 2022 will shape up to be a year of acceleration and innovation, not merely recovery.
What percentage of budget growth are you expecting for channel development? Our biggest opportunity has been and remains our strong alliance with our channel partners. We can help our partners to increase their topline and bottom line by leveraging our wide portfolio of enterprise solutions and, in turn, helping their customers. We work towards aligning our partner’s core competencies to our business requirements, and help partners differentiate themselves in the marketplace through product understanding and enablement. This requires investment and we are planning to increase our budget in double digits.
SME CHANNELS 33 JANUARY 2022
CHANNEL TECH PREDICTION
A
mid the increasing blare of the pandemic and the spectre of omicron casting its long shadows over the tech landscape, we have ushered into 2022. Channel success which has always been the holy-grail for any business is all set to get a makeover in the new year. As part of our effort to get the channel community better informed and get an earful of what the who’s who of Indian IT are thinking, expecting, and planning for the channel community in 2022, we have started this new section to record the channel predictions of the most prominent players of the IT industry. Here, as part of this special series of Tech Forecasts, Icewarp India registers its predictions for 2022. The Prague-headquartered, IceWarp has been a leading player in developing email communication and collaboration solutions, and has been driving a seachange in how teams share information online and optimize business processes through its streamlined and seamless team collaboration solutions. The steersman of the Icewarp story has been Mr Pramod Sharda, its maverick CEO for India & Middle East. Mr Sharda has been instrumental in growing IceWarp’s business presence and lifting up its market share in India. A well-known technology usability expert; Sharda has that uncanny ability to deliver adoption of far-reaching business and technology solutions to meet business requirements. A passionate professional with proven adaptability and innovation using industry best practices in IT consolidation, program management, and intelligence and enterprise architecture design or solution delivery for leading global or local technology programs. Here, Mr Pramod Sharda, CEO at IceWarp for India & Middle East, relates his company’s Channel Predictions for the year 2022. Edited excerpts… Give a brief introduction of your company. A global leader in developing email communication and collaboration solutions, IceWarp is headquartered in Prague. The company has been operating globally since 2001. IceWarp has changed entirely the concept of how teams share information online and optimize business processes through its streamlined and seamless team collaboration solutions. Our all-in-one collaboration platform has a family of apps with real-time
34 SME CHANNELS JANUARY 2022
CHANNEL TECH PREDICTION
PRAMOD SHARDA CEO, ICEWARP FOR INDIA & MIDDLE EAST
“COMMUNICATION AND COLLA BORATION TECHNOLOGIES WILL CONTINUE TO BE IN HIGH DEMAND, WITH HYBRID WORKING ON THE RISE.” collaboration tools, easy sharing options, integration of various virtual office functions right at the user’s finger tips by integrating everything they need under a single login - Email, TeamChat, and Storage. IceWarp offers its users ease of use, security, and efficiency through its complete solution for all their office work in a single window, without needing any third-party applications. IceWarp aims at continuous and comprehensive innovation considering current trends and requirements of more than 50 million paid users and 50,000 customers worldwide. With a business presence across 50 countries, IceWarp has already acquired more than 1200+ customers in India within a span of 6 years. Currently, IceWarp provides the only alternative to MS Exchange, MS 365, and Google Workspace. As the pandemic is still there and a new variant has surfaced, what are the major market trends you are forecasting for 2022? Both 2020 and 2021, whilst challenging on a personal note, has also been a highly positive one for the technology industry and the channel ecosystem as a whole. Faster adoption of cloud, digital technologies, security and collaboration technologies has driven the need for a whole host of technologies. 2022 seems to be moving in a similar pattern. Communication and collaboration technologies will continue to be in high demand, especially with hybrid working on the rise, which will create the need for providing a quality of service and experience equivalent to what you would get within your offices. At IceWarp, our whole belief of providing a focused unified communication and collaboration platform, is driven by these
CHANNEL SHOULD LOOK AT AVAILING AN AS-A-SERVICE MODEL ethos of providing a quality of service, no matter where you are. What major trends are you forecasting in the channel market? Channel should look at availing the opportunity of moving away from a traditional box or resell model to an As-a-Service model. The ability to allow customers to scale up or down across offerings, whether hardware driven or even service driven, will allow them to create a recurring revenue model and retain customers for a longer period, which, in turn, will create opportunities for upsell and cross-sell as well. Which areas you want to focus in the channel – skillsets – sales and marketing, vertical and technology practice development, service capability, etc.? We have been investing heavily on upscaling our partner network, ensuring that they are trained and certified on IceWarp. We want our partners to be able to go beyond selling and cater to expert implementation and migration service to their customer base. The depth of partnership is defined with the service and support that is provided by the partner in growth. We also encourage on joint marketing activities with our partners to ensure that partner gets the demand for our solution. What percentage of budget growth are you expecting for channel development? At IceWarp, we believe Channel development is key to our strategy. Hence, we allocate almost 15-20% towards channel development.
In IceWarp, we ask our partners to be the True Trusted Advisors to their customers. That’s the best way to help overcome these challenges. One of the biggest asks for the partners is not to look at selling products, but understanding what their customers really need. What are their pain points? And then propose a solution which could be based on a product or a service or a combination of both. Conversations should be around business roadmap, security, regulatory compliance, skills availability, technology, and much more. Are you planning any new product addition for the channel market? Covid and its variants are still running rampant. Customers will still be looking at technologies which can help ensure uninterrupted business execution and hence technologies such as Cloud solutions, Collaboration tools, Security, etc. will still have a major role to play in the coming years. The difference will be in terms of the size of the customers, wherein even SMB & Mid-Market customers, will now be looking for better options in these offerings to ensure they’re able to conduct business. We have been consistently working on feedback from our prospects and customers and enhancing our offerings as per market demands. Is there any channel expansion plan in terms of numbers in 2022? Apart from the traditional cloud offerings of SaaS, IaaS & PaaS, today, even hardware is moving into an as-a-service model with the Hardware-as-aService market expecting to reach $300bn globally in the next 5-6 years.
What is your expectation from the channel this year?
SME CHANNELS 35 JANUARY 2022
GUEST ARTICLE
NILESH GUPTA, HEAD OF CLOUDFIRST & EDGE SERVICES, 3I INFOTECH
We had a lot to learn around us from last two years. We became even more close to our family and friends, celebrated new heroes outside our work environments and of course ‘WFH’ became the most used abbreviated word in English for many enterprises, the impact of Covid-19 has brought the benefits and limitations of their IT landscape into the open. Some were ready to ensure there is no impact at all, but many struggled and learnt the hard way. As companies look ahead to a postpandemic era, many will need to consider how to meet unique needs and priorities with potentially limited resources with WFH being the new norm. In my many discussions with various stakeholders at these companies - many are still overly reliant on legacy infrastructure and business models that still needs to be addressed to ensure any kind of acceleration to cloud journey. While it is especially important, they need to develop a proactive strategy that explores the use of cloud (hybrid or multi) and how to transition away from legacy systems towards modern technologies to embrace the digital podium, it is equally important for a partner to ensure the adoption acceleration is seamless and successful in the end. It is important to engage with a cloud lifecycle management services partner for existing and new enterprises to transform their technology to the cloud faster and without risk. Today, industryleading automation delivers 10x acceleration with complete ease, governance, efficiency, and fine-grained control of multi-cloud environments based on customer’s business and IT ecosystem. Efficient transformational partners use their global delivery capabilities and strong partnerships with established doyens in the space such as Oracle (OCI), Amazon (AWS) and Microsoft (Azure) to deliver cloud computing services that help organizations enjoy substantial reduction in CapEx across hardware, licensing, and software. With the increased agility and flexibility offered by cloud computing services, your organization will be able to cut OpEx costs like cooling and
36 SME CHANNELS JANUARY 2022
power supply, and build affordable, tested business continuity and disaster recovery plans. A suitable service provider needs to provide a wide choice of engagement models - shared, hybrid, SLA-based, and project-based, that help organisations to experiment and innovate. Broadly speaking there are three dimensions to cloud adoption journey: 1. Discover 2. Migrate 3. Manage 1. Discover the Apps & IT Infrastructure: In this phase, there is a 360O analysis of the infrastructure and application to map the dependencies and existing workload performance. We will need to ensure there is full hierarchical view of the application and its dependencies that will help ease easy migration, asset management, and any compliance needs. So, answers to some of the typical questions like below will be addressed during the deep discovery phase: • What services are you planning to move into the cloud? • What are your reasons for moving to the cloud? • Do you have a cloud strategy and how does it define your cloud plans? • Are there agreed business owners for each service and a sponsor for the migration? • What are the dependencies of application on other and how are they connected? It is in this phase that as a partner with a single comprehensive cloud management platform will help build a roadmap for the readiness, prepare an automated discovery plan for the business environment, create a set of cloud transformation sprints, and then formulate the structured road map to address the subsequent sprints to comprehend what should be considered for cloud transformation. 2. Accelerate Cloud Migration: Typically, in cloud migration phase, it is known to be fraught with complications and tedious tasks. The objective is to facilitate a seamless migration of the existing on-prem workloads to hybrid or multicloud environments with an aim to provide uninterrupted services to end-users. Be it migration of monolithic applications into a hosted cloud environment or housing them in containers, the
virtual resources need to be available in minutes as well as manage deployments across multiple cloud-providers such as public, private and hybrid at the same time. It is in this phase, the transformational partner, with a 360O overview of the application, and the cloud management platform, identifies the required virtual infrastructure (OS, supporting software, servers, network) and get the target cloud environment ready. This simple step accelerates the migration and achieves faster time-to-
GUEST ARTICLE
POST
PANDEMIC: CLOUD ADOPTION NEEDS TO BE ACCELERATED
market and optimised cost to migrate. 3. Continuous Optimization and Management: One major concern post cloud adoption is to accommodate for high availability of the applications round the clock. What is needed is to have a full-stack visibility across the required platforms by factoring in unforeseen demands and failure scenarios. Multi-cloud application monitoring is rendered in a detailed and effective method by gathering cloud-specific insights. Artificial Intelligence for IT operations is the critical change in
basic assumptions that is required to manage these digital transformation issues. While ensuring round the clock availability of cloud environment, it is equally important to optimize cloud costs. One needs to ensure the reporting of cloud usage at the application and services level, dynamic scaling up and down of cloud resources, and intelligent rebalancing of workloads are available on real time basis. It helps you stay ahead of the cloud expenses by providing comprehensive chargeback / reports on resource
consumption and enables to cut costs by making recommendations based on the actual usage. Be it public, hybrid or multi-cloud, periodic analysis of cloud usage and associated costs needs to be conducted to prevent overspending. It is important to note that a comprehensive single cloud management platform helps customers broadly in these three dimensions and in accelerating the cloud adoption journey seamlessly. Happy Transformation, Stay Safe, Stay Healthy!
SME CHANNELS 37 JANUARY 2022
DISTIE TECH PREDICTION
times and has successfully forged a dynamic and resilient organization that stays a few steps ahead of competition in the ever-changing distribution landscape. Through his long stint as a business leader and now as the head of the organization, he has built a reputation as a fair and balanced interface between vendors and the channel. Armed with over two decades of experience in the IT industry across multiple organisations like Godrej, Wipro, Redington, LG, and Bharti Airtel, Navneet has donned many hats and handled multiple functions in marketing, sales and business operations and driven various organization-wide initiatives. In a special interaction with SME Channels, Navneet Singh Bindra, Vice President & Country Chief Executive, Ingram Micro India, shares his company’s Channel Predictions for the year 2022. Edited excerpts
A SHIFT FROM CAPEX TO OPEX, MOVE TOWARDS SOLUTION-BASED ENTERPRISE & SMART-TECH WILL SHAPE 2022
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mid the increasing blare of the pandemic and the spectre of omicron casting its long shadows over the tech landscape, we have ushered into 2022. Channel success which has always been the holy-grail for any business is all set to get a makeover in the new year. As part of our effort to get the channel community better informed and get an earful of what the leading distributors, who sit at the most critical point of IT business, are thinking, expecting, and planning for the channel community in 2022, we have started this new section to record the chan-
38 SME CHANNELS JANUARY 2022
nel predictions of the most prominent players of the IT industry. Here, as part of this special series of Tech Forecasts, Ingram Micro India registers its predictions for 2022. A top-of-the-table technology distribution company, Ingram Micro focuses on cloud, mobility, technology lifecycle, supply chain, and technology solutions, and offers support services as well. The architect behind Ingram’s recent tractions is its maverick Vice President & Country Chief Executive Navneet Singh Bindra. Navneet has led the company through the turbulent pandemic
Give a brief introduction about your company. Ingram Micro helps businesses Realize the Promise of Technology™. It delivers a full spectrum of global technology and supply chain services to businesses around the world. It amplifies the value of its position at the intersection of thousands of vendor, reseller and retailer partners by customizing and delivering highly targeted applications for industry verticals, B2B customers and commercial needs. Deep expertise in technology solutions, mobility, cloud, and supply chain solutions enable its business partners to operate efficiently and successfully in the markets they serve. Unrivalled agility, deep market insights and the trust and dependability that come from decades of proven relationships set Ingram Micro apart and ahead. As the pandemic is still there and a new variant is spreading, what are the major market trends you are forecasting for 2022? The pandemic undoubtedly has impacted organisations across the globe, but it also served as an opportunity for many businesses to evaluate their preparedness to handle unprecedented disruptions. The major trends we will be focusing for 2022 are: 1. Government will continue to invest not only in digital infrastructure but also open new fronts like digital currency and data interoperability with other governments. 2.Consumers are expecting significantly
DISTIE TECH PREDICTION
NAVNEET SINGH BINDRA VICE PRESIDENT & COUNTRY CHIEF EXECUTIVE, INGRAM MICRO INDIA
“WE ALSO PROVIDE POSTSALES SUPPORT TO PARTNERS ON HIGH END TECHNOLOGY THROUGH OUR SERVICES BUSINESS AND ADJACENCY DRIVEN CHANNEL EXPANSION.” enhanced digital experience as they now have moved heavily to digital buying mode, e.g., online purchase and transaction etc. 3. Businesses will strive to capture differentiated value through human innovation and creativity – days of digital transformation driving market differentiation are over. Human innovation will mean that employees will be enabled with intelligent technologies and there will be tight alignment between customer and employee experiences. 4. For B2B businesses, competency of seller organization during sales engagement will become far more important than relationship or other customers’ references. 5. Social responsibility and sustainability will move towards centerstage of corporate actions as the external stakeholders will reward companies who execute well on sustainability. Where does India figure in your overall global marketing strategy? The overall global marketing strategy is developed keeping in mind that India is one of the fastest growing economy in the world. In India, we ensure that the implementation of similar approach should be applied in the local market. Further, it is important to understand in detail the country’s individual state markets for their business environments, especially when dealing with such a large and fragmented market. Within the country, there are large regional landscapes, which needs a varied approach as well.
What’s your total headcount in India? Are you planning any significant team expansion or capacity addition in 2022? Our total headcount right now is closer to 3,000 and have plans to expand to approx. 400 more in 2022 mostly under the technology side of the business. We at Ingram Micro India continuously strive to hire good talent in accordance with the business needs and to address the expansion plans. Which product segments are the current focus areas of Ingram Micro in India? Among the areas that receive our attention and focus, currently, are: • Advanced Automation plays a pivotal role in driving innovation which will become a key differentiator in 2022. Automation is moving out of the back office and into the front office to become a powerful enabler of new business and operating models. Enterprises must design an automation fabric as a framework to construct, orchestrate, and regulate a hybrid workforce of human and digital workers to achieve this condition. • Security industry is constantly changing, evolving and now moving from discussion of emerging security concerns to a bias toward action. As a result, the security industry is responding with greater automation and integration. The industry is also pivoting from automated detection to prevention and response with a focus on applying AI and machine learning to speed remediation. • Interplay of multiple technologies to support rapid growth of smart infrastructure. Internet of-things (IoT) and edge technologies that ride advanced networks like 5G have demonstrated that they can empower smart, connected ports, roads, and trains. It’s a strong match, and in 2022 we expect smart infrastructure investments to gain remarkable growth, powered by a government spending windfall in all geographies. • Everything-as-a-service - The adoption of digitization in both professional and personal lives have accelerated. As businesses adopt a digitalfirst strategy, they continue to reap the benefits in terms of increased business agility, reduced redundancy, and increased efficiency. As a technology distribution company, where do you see more traction: cloud, mobility, technology lifecycle, or technology solutions or any other? As a technology distribution company, we see more traction in datacenter, cloud, security and outcome driven solutions. The vast majority of the value the datacenter, cloud and security generate
comes from increased agility, innovation, and resilience provided to the business with sustained velocity. The focus on incorporating reusability and composability so that investments in modernization may be quickly expanded across the business. Instead of evaluating individual applications for potential cost reductions, this method can assist focus programs on where the advantages matter most. Are you planning to transition from ecommerce into an omni-channel experience provider? Please detail us. Yes, for our partners who are our customers. We already have multimodal engagements like IMEcom as well as physical transaction handling and this will be refined further. What major trends would you forecast in the channel market? Against the backdrop of a dynamic tech landscape, we foresee some prominent trends in the channel market. We can clearly see: • Shifting from a CAPEX model to an OPEX model to create a lot of opportunities which allows companies to spread their expenses with low upfront investment. • Shifting more towards the Solution based enterprise as partners are significantly enhancing the digital experience for better business outcomes. • Advancing the digital transformation journey, while offering smart technology, which is significantly more efficient and cost effective in the process. • Partner eco-system to expand into other areas to accelerate their market reach. • Investing on talent acquisition, development and retention which may become a prime focus at channel level As a distributor, do you have any channel expansion plans for 2022? Do you plan any additional investment in terms of skillsets enhancement including technical, sales and marketing for your team? Ingram Micro planned to offer a pathway to increased expertise and expanded core focus, plus the background needed to optimize full solution deployment. Ingram Micro provides top trainings from Industry leading vendors to fit every business need.
SME CHANNELS 39 JANUARY 2022
CHANNEL TECH PREDICTION
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mid the increasing blare of the pandemic and the spectre of omicron casting its long shadows over the tech landscape, we have ushered into 2022. Channel success which has always been the holy-grail for any business is all set to get a makeover in the new year. As part of our effort to get the channel community better informed and get an earful of what the who’s who of Indian IT are thinking, expecting, and planning for the channel community in 2022, we have started this new section to record the channel predictions of the most prominent players of the IT industry. Here, as part of this special series of Tech Forecasts, Juniper Networks India registers its predictions for 2022. As a leading networking solutions player, Juniper strives to transform network experiences. By challenging the inherent complexity in the 5G and cloud era, Juniper’s solutions has been powering the connections in sectors as varied and as critical as education and healthcare to secure banking. Juniper’s Director – Partner Sales, India & SAARC, Harshavardhan Kathaley, has been at the forefront of this growth drive. A Partner-first executive, Harshavardhan has stood by the channel community through thick and thin. Under his leadership, the company along with its partners extended support to all customers irrespective of their level. In an exclusive interaction with SME Channels, Harshavardhan Kathaley, Director – Partner Sales, India & SAARC, Juniper Networks, shares his company’s Channel Predictions for the year 2022 and how Juniper is transforming networking for the cloud era. Edited excerpts Give a brief introduction of your company. Juniper Networks is dedicated to dramatically simplifying network operations and driving superior experiences for end users. We are a collection of innovators coming together to fully connect the world so that our customers, partners and the communities they build can continue to solve our greatest challenges of health, well-being, sustainability, and equality. We place a strong emphasis on software innovation, with products ranging from Junos to Apstra to Paragon to Mist AI that push the
40 SME CHANNELS JANUARY 2022
CHANNEL TECH PREDICTION
HARSHAVARDHAN KATHALEY DIRECTOR – PARTNER SALES, INDIA & SAARC, JUNIPER NETWORKS
“TO UNLOCK THE POWER OF CHANNEL AND IN CONTINUATION OF THE JOURNEY OF HYPER CONNECTED CHANNEL, THIS YEAR’S JPA PROVIDES AN OPPORTUNITY FOR JUNIPER PARTNERS TO INVEST IN SAAS & SERVICES THOUGH OUR UMSP PROGRAM.” boundaries of predictability, programmability, automation, and insights. Together we will shift the focus from operations to outcomes, which will forever change the network and the experiences of the people it connects. This is what we mean when we say we are Driven by Experience. As the pandemic is still there and a new variant has surfaced, what are the major market trends you are forecasting for 2022? Since the pandemic started in early 2020, technology has helped industries all over the world. As the world increasingly relied on technology to ensure remote operations, we saw new innovations and advancements that ensured business continuity. And as we usher into 2022, the world will continue to see technological advancements sweep the world off its feet. Moreover, with the arrival of 5G, operations in large enterprises, small enterprises, and even a small kirana store will be transformed. With its low latency and enhanced security, private 5G will give enterprises the platform they need to implement breakthrough applications that require near-real time responses and actions, as well as faster data processing for AI/ML. The adoption of private 5G is set to transform sec-
PARTNERSHIP PROGRAMS, AUTOMATION, AND ALIGNMENT OF CHANNEL MARKETING WITH DIRECT SALES WILL CALL THE SHOTS tors like health care, gaming, manufacturing and emergency services, with production deployments becoming more common over the next 18-24 months. The home will be further cemented as a staple enterprise micro-branch in 2022, prompting enterprise IT teams to take an even closer look at their network edge. We can expect enterprisegrade networking solutions to begin permeating remote and hybrid workforces to ensure end-toend network visibility, reliability, and security. As the pandemic continues to drive down building occupancy mandates, indoor location will become a requirement for facility managers. Businesses of all sizes should plan to invest in AIdriven data analytics and indoor location technology, including Bluetooth LE technologies (BLE). Previously thought to be a “nice to have,” indoor location technology is now considered a musthave for nearly any business, from retailers to warehouses to large enterprises that need to know who is on their premises. Even as the world slowly opens up and mandates are reduced, the way facility managers think about indoor location has changed forever. What major trends are you forecasting in the channel market? Today more and more enterprise technology vendors are turning to channel partners to optimize reach and relevance of their solutions across markets. In view of this, I believe these trends will see an uptick in the channel market industry: 1. Partnership programs: In the current industry scenario, technology is expected to deliver business value coupled with agility and flexibility. And partnership programs are enabling vendors to provide exactly that to their customers. Today, vendors and channel partners must collaborate to create and deliver value. Recently, Juniper Networks announced new
enhancements to the global Juniper Partner Advantage Program (JPA). Starting January 2022, a new top-tier level of the partner program will be introduced, and a modernized engagement platform that embraces a collaborative sales approach. The JPA 2022 program updates also deliver an enriched learning experience to enable partners to quickly expand their knowledge of Juniper and maximize their business growth opportunities. 2. Today customers need a personalized experience and to deliver that automation will come in the forefront. Automating solutions and channel marketing will result in integrated data, data management and optimization of ROI on MDF investments. 3. Customer experience calls for a one unified team. 2022 will witness technology vendors streamlining and aligning channel marketing with direct sales and marketing strategy for better outcomes and achieving channel partner goals and objectives. Which areas you want to focus in the channel – skillsets – sales and marketing, vertical and technology practice development, service capability, etc.? In 2022, Juniper will prioritize collaboration in the channel. The areas of focus are given below: • Outcome-Based Enablement - In keeping with our focus on collaboration, our JPA partners will have access to the Juniper Networks Learning Academy, which will include new content and webinars for partner education, as well as easy access to valuable training in bite-sized, easy-toconsume modules. • UMSP Acceleration - Expand Routes for Partners • Elevating Partner Success - Building Strong Relationship.
SME CHANNELS 41 JANUARY 2022
DISTIE TECH PREDICTION
leading distributors, who sit at the most critical point of IT business, are thinking, expecting, and planning for the channel community in 2022, we have started this new section to record the channel predictions of the most prominent players of the IT industry. Here, as part of this special series of Tech Forecasts, Iris Global Services registers its predictions for 2022. A leading technology distribution company, Iris Global has established itself as a Services oriented systems and technology integration company with a strong focus on internet-facing and mobile businesses. The main architect behind Iris’s spectacular growth story is its maverick Chairman, Mr Sanjiv Krishen. Mr Krishen, an industry veteran, has led the company through the turbulent pandemic times and has successfully forged a dynamic and resilient organization that has sailed through the ever-changing distribution landscape. Through his long stint as a business leader and head of the organization, he has built a distinct reputation as a conducive interface between vendors and the channel community. In a special interaction with SME Channels, Sanjiv Krishen, Chairman, Iris Global Services, shares his company’s Channel Predictions for the year 2022. Edited excerpts...
ADOPTION OF AUTOMATION, VIRTUAL REALITY PRODUCTS AND DEMAND FOR MAKE IN INDIA PRODUCTS TO GROW EXPONENTIALLY
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mid the increasing blare of the pandemic and the spectre of omicron casting its long shadows over the tech landscape, we have ushered into 2022. Chan-
42 SME CHANNELS JANUARY 2022
nel success which has always been the holy-grail for any business is all set to get a makeover in the new year. As part of our effort to get the channel community better informed and get an earful of what the
Give a brief introduction about your company. Iris was incorporated in 1996 with a major focus on distribution of IT products. Iris today, is an established name in the industry distributing a wide range of products from IT Hardware, Power, Telecom, and Network to Security. During these last 25 years Iris has grown from a turnover of Rs. 5 Crore to Rs. 1800 Crore. Iris has, over the years, invested heavily in building the distribution infrastructure, developing and automating its vast network of offices to cover the length and breadth of the country with ease. Iris is an Authorized National Distributor for all major IT brands like Dell, HP, Acer, LG, Ruckus, APC Schneider along with many other multinational companies and have offices and warehouses in 22 cities across India including Hyderabad, Mumbai, Delhi and Ahmedabad. Iris has a strong base of 10,000 partners, who specialize in verticals like Smart Cities with Government, Telecom, BFSI, Manufacturing,
DISTIE TECH PREDICTION
SANJIV KRISHEN CHAIRMAN, IRIS GLOBAL SERVICES
“CHANNEL FRATERNITY WILL EMBRACE THE WHITE FIELD TERRITORIES AND GREENER PASTURES, ESPECIALLY, WHERE NOT MUCH DEVELOPMENTAL WORK HAS HAPPENED. THERE IS HUGE SCOPE FOR EVERYBODY TO TRY AND SUCCEED IN NEWER INTERESTING SPACE, AS PER ONE’S INCLINATION.” Healthcare, Hospitality, Education etc. Besides this, we also have dedicated vertical focusing only on GEM business. Iris, with years of expertise in distribution of IT products and solutions provides the below offerings: Sophisticated and highly focused distribution network Customer-centric approach for each product Strong team of sales and support executives Flexibility and fast deliveries PAN India coverage In-house Marketing Team As the pandemic is still there and a new variant is spreading, what are the major market trends you are forecasting for 2022? Despite the pandemic, 2021 has been phenomenal for us, both in terms of revenue and profitability. Technology has sustained us through the
pandemic and continues to redefine and restructure how we work, live and interact. We expect 2022 to continue that trend and build on the explosion of technology-enabled growth. Some market Tech trends that will come to the fore are: Automation / Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT): Automation helps the workforce work more efficiently, as automated processes are consistent and auditable, which can help reduce errors and improve quality. It can also free skilled tech talent to focus on higher value-added tasks and results in costs reductions. Hence, more organisations will embrace automation through Industrial Internet of Things IIOT / Robotic Process Automation (RPA). Virtual Reality: Many organizations are already working on life-like VR platforms, and are extending this Metaverse concept to sectors like education, health, entertainment, and gaming. It is an exciting area to track and where large pools of capital will attempt to accelerate adoption. What major trends would you forecast in the channel market? Channel fraternity will embrace the white field territories and greener pastures, especially where not much developmental work has happened. There is huge scope for everybody to try and succeed in newer interesting space, as per one’s inclination. We ourselves are witnessing huge transition from box business to solution providing as customers want to imbibe newest technology to maximize their productivity. We foresee the channel embracing more and more Automation, Virtual reality related products. There will be huge demand from channel partners for make in India products. As a distributor, do you have any channel expansion plans for 2022? Do you plan any additional investment in terms of skillsets enhancement including technical, sales and marketing for your team? As already said before, we are looking forward to newer tie ups and hence, we would want to equip our sales team, our partners with the required skillsets. We are ready to go out of the way in investing for training purposes. We also believe that we can reach out to maximum customers only if our sales team and our partners are technically sound and confident. In addition, as a wise man has said, “only visible things sell,” we have invested large amount
of funds in our marketing efforts for maximum reach. What are your plans for onboarding new brands or addition of new business lines for next year? As this is a fast-changing world of technology, we are very much excited to tie up with various market leaders. It is really important to upgrade ourselves with time. Hence, we are going to tie up with a lot of “Make in India” products, because we feel it to be the need of the hour. Also, we are associating ourselves with latest technology products for our customer’s empowerment. How would you like to value add to presales, training, post-sales services for your partners and customers? We have a certified team to give value-added services to our partners like pre-sales, training and post-sales for products like Servers, Storage and Networking. Further, we are expanding our technical team to give best services and experience to our partners and customers. Moreover, we consider ourselves extremely fortunate to be backed by some of the best OEMs, and wherever required, they also support us with their resources to provide the right products and solutions to our customers. What is your geo - spread? What is your plan for enhancing geographies presence from Point of Presence or sales points perspective? We are present in 22 locations in Northern, Southern, Western and Eastern zones across the country. We have footprints in Delhi, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Goa, Patna, Cochin, Jaipur, Mumbai, Raipur, Chennai, Jammu, Nagpur, Bubaneswar, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Pune, Vijaywada, Dehradun, Indore and Bhopal. Besides that, we have recently deputed manpower in Srinagar and will be further expanding our presence in some more strategic locations like Surat, Trivandrum, Coimbatore and some more cities.
SME CHANNELS 43 JANUARY 2022
CHANNEL TECH PREDICTION
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mid the increasing blare of the pandemic and the spectre of omicron casting its long shadows over the tech landscape, we have ushered into 2022. Channel success which has always been the holy-grail for any business is all set to get a makeover in the new year. As part of our effort to get the channel community better informed and get an earful of what the leading distributors, who sit at the most critical point of IT business, are thinking, expecting, and planning for the channel community in 2022, we have started this new section to record the channel predictions of the most prominent players of the IT industry. Here, as part of this special series of Tech Forecasts, Beetel India registers its predictions for 2022. One of the most reputed brand names in the IT Industry, Beetel is a pioneer in the landline phone category. The company is highly focused on manufacturing as well as distributing a wide range of products, starting from mobile devices, mobile accessories, IT peripherals, enterprise solutions and network solutions, to fixed landlines. The architect behind Beetel’s recent growth story is Ms. Sapna Gupta, Beetel’s dynamic Vice President. Ms Gupta has led the company through the turbulent pandemic times and has successfully forged a dynamic and resilient organization that has sailed through the ever-changing distribution landscape. As a business leader, she has earned a reputation as a healthy interface between vendors and the channel community. In a special interaction with SME Channels, Ms. Sapna Gupta, Vice President, Beetel Teletech Limited, shares her company’s Channel Predictions for the year 2022. Edited excerpts Give a brief introduction about your company. Founded in the year 1987, Beetel is one of the most reputed brand name in the Industry, a pioneer in the landline phone category. Beetel is focused on manufacturing as well as distributing a huge range of products in the form of mobile devices, mobile accessories, IT peripherals, enterprise solutions and network solutions, as well as fixed landlines. Beetel distributes a host of iconic brands like Avaya, Polycom, Samsung, Huawei, Siemens Digital Industries Software, QSC,
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CHANNEL TECH PREDICTION
SAPNA GUPTA VICE PRESIDENT, BEETEL TELETECH LIMITED
“HYBRID MODE OF WORKING HAS GAINED A LOT OF TRACTION. WE FORECAST THIS TO CONTINUE IN THE COMING YEAR AS WELL. ONLINE SHOPPING HAS ALSO PICKED UP A LOT. WE FORESEE A SIMILAR TREND IN B2B WHEREIN E-COMMERCE WILL PLAY A VERY IMPORTANT ROLE IN CY22.” RADWIN, Ruckus, RAD, and Actelis. Beetel is known for its innovative product solutions and latest technology, which are offered to customers at the most prudent prices. In India, Beetel is spread via 10,000 retailers and 500 distributors. Beetel also extends Technical Services (Pre & Post Sales, Installations, Cloud, AMC, etc.) helping with designing Solutions to getting them ready followed by System Configurations & Programming. Beetel covers the entire spectrum of services. Overseas, Beetel’s services are extended to over 35 countries spread across five continents in the world. The company till date has manufactured over 100 million landline phones, a household Indian brand needing no introduction, which has been serving Indian customers since 1987!” As the pandemic is still there and a new variant is spreading, what are the major market trends you are forecasting for 2022? After 2 waves of COVID-19, and multiple lockdowns, hybrid mode of working has gained a lot of traction and the lines between Virtual and physical meetings and work environment has blurred. This has become the new normal and
MARKET EXPANSIONS WOULD HAPPEN AT RANDOM AND WOULD BE NEED BASED, PARTNERS TO FOCUS MORE ON PRODUCTS THAT OFFER SERVICES we forecast this to continue in the coming year as well. Similar trend has been observed in buying/ shopping behaviour wherein online shopping has picked up a lot. We foresee a similar trend in B2B wherein E-Commerce will play a very important role in CY22. What major trends would you forecast in the channel market? Channel partners will be prudent in their approach when it comes to expanding their markets or product offerings. The market expansions would happen at random and would be need based, and they will focus more on products that offer services, solution selling would be the key. As a distributor, do you have any channel expansion plans for 2022? Do you plan any additional investment in terms of skillsets enhancement including technical, sales and marketing for your team? We are always looking at expanding our reach. We have plans to expand vertically and horizontally to meet the needs of our partners and customers. As we always seek to grow and increase our offerings, investment in skillset enhancement is a constant.
What are your plans for onboarding new brands or addition of new business lines for next year? We are constantly scouting for new opportunities and partners and are in touch with a lot of them. Given the market trend and the needs, we are seeking software and cloud-oriented brands to partner with. How would you like to value add to presales, training, post-sales services for your partners and customers? Improving the “learning with Beetel” concept, including identifying, enabling, and supporting T2 and T3 partners. What is your geo-spread? What is your plan for enhancing geographies presence from Point of Presence or Sales Points perspective? We are constantly increasing our footprint when it comes to serviceable areas. Currently, we are strong in Metros and some T2 areas but are constantly expanding with our focus on increasing our coverage in T2 and T3 areas, as well.
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NEUAILES GLOBAL APPOINTS JNR MANAGEMENT AS ITS DISTRIBUTOR The partnership creates a new chapter in Email Security & Visibility
Neuailes Global, a Leading DMARC Service Provider, appoints JNR Management as its Distributor. This was done to empower enterprises in deploying DMARC and be in line with the latest deployments with respect to security & visibility in email authentication. This collaboration will streamline the core communication aspect of email security. The aim of this association is to provide enterprises with the best solutions to secure and streamline their digital assets & com-
munication efforts. DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance) solution authenticates email accurately, protects brands, stops phishing attacks, and improves email deliverability. Using DMARC, enterprises gain complete visibility into email authentication status & gaps of SPF & DKIM. DMARC instructs receiving servers on how to deal with emails that use a customers’ domain.
DMARC can help protect against the following: As email has become more critical than ever for organizations to connect and communicate with their customers, the ecosystem is looking to BIMI (Brand Indicators for Message Identification). BIMI is a new standard that provides a secure, global framework enabling email inboxes to display sender-designated logos for authenticated messages. It allows domain owners to specify
a logo that will appear in the inbox, alongside authenticated email messages sent from their domains. It is an opportunity to increase the wide adoption of email authentication while simultaneously providing senders with a way to provide their customers with a more immersive experience. Email recipients using participating email providers like Gmail will see registered brand logos from BIMI users in their emails.
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Beyond benefiting security, adopting BIMI with DMARC can provide an organization’s customers with a more immersive experience in Gmail. By encouraging the deployment of DMARC and promoting its adoption, BIMI benefits the whole email ecosystem to promote strong sender authentication. Several major brands have already begun adopting BIMI standards and use of VMCs to
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authenticate their email communications. The BIMI standard requires a Verified Mark Certificate (VMC) from an authorized Mark Verifying Authority. The VMC works alongside an organization’s Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance (DMARC) protocol policy. A VMC is a new type of digital certificate that proves the authenticity of a logo tied to an email sender’s domain. VMC certificates are a scalable way to ensure that corporate logos are not used fraudulently. Businesses have long sought ways to better identify themselves to customers in emails, and VMC certs for BIMI will enable verified brand marks to be displayed. BIMI will work only when both the email and the logo are properly validated. The email must be authenticated through the Domain-based Message Authentication, Receiving & Conformance (DMARC) standard with a policy of quarantine or reject; the logo itself will be validated by the VMC. With the widespread use of VMC, BIMI, and DMARC, brands will be able to amplify their online presence in the inbox through authenticated messages to consumers that are instantly recognizable through known, protected brand marks. JNR already distributes DigiCert SSL, TLS, VMC and with JNR & Neuailes coming together to make customers’ domain eligible for VMC in order to make email communications more secured and effective. Why VMC: l Deliver brand recognition and authenticity to the customer’s inbox. l Take control of the brand image that appears on email communications. l Have your message stand out in a busy inbox. l Significantly increase the number of brand impressions by having your logo alongside every email. l Prevent email spoofing with DMARC technology. Using GoDMARC, Enterprises gain complete visibility into email authentication status & Gaps of SPF & DKIM. Go-Simulator educates and tests your end users through automated attack simulations, quality security awareness training, and actionable reporting metrics. Detect and thwart cyber-criminal and hacker activity using our Continuous proactive security monitoring tools. Neumails Email is simple to use, efficient and full-featured email marketing channel with impressive features set.
ALTARO SIGNS DISTRIBUTION PARTNERSHIP WITH RANKSECURE ANIL BHAVNANI, CEO & FOUNDER, RANKSECURE
“THIS IS A MAJOR OPPORTUNITY FOR PARTNERS IN INDIA LOOKING TO BECOME REPUTABLE VM AND M365 BACKUP VENDORS. ALTARO PARTNERS WILL ENJOY THE BENEFITS OF ALTARO’S FULL SUITE OF ENTERPRISECLASS FEATURES, INCLUDING EASE OF INSTALL, MULTITENANT MANAGEMENT AND MONITORING, NEXTGEN GUI AND HIGH MARGINS.” Altaro today said it has appointed RankSecure for distribution of its wide range of backup solutions for virtual machines, Microsoft 365 and endpoints. On the appointment as distributor, Anil Bhavnani, CEO & Founder, RankSecure, expressed delight at this appointment. “Altaro is a very important additional to our portfolio. With its established worldwide presence and easy-to-use, award-winning solutions, Altaro has done an outstanding job of excelling in backup for HyperV and VMware virtual environments and in the Microsoft 365 space.” “This is a major opportunity for partners in India looking to become reputable VM and M365 backup vendors. Altaro partners will enjoy the benefits of Altaro’s full suite of enterprise-class
features, including ease of install, multitenant management and monitoring, next-gen GUI and high margins,” Bhavnani further added. RankSecure, an IT value-added distributor, will leverage its network of Partners across India to fast track the adoption and growth of Altaro in India. With its superior pre-sales and post-sales support, RankSecure looks forward to making Altaro a well-entrenched brand in India in a shorter time. “We are happy to welcome RankSecure on board. Their attention to customer service is a perfect fit to our group,” said Hornetsecurity CEO, Daniel Hofmann. “RankSecure will accelerate our plans for India by using their expertise and established network to provide our products and services to a wider market.”
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RP TECH INKS DISTRIBUTION AGREEMENT WITH ANTEC KEVAN LI, VICE PRESIDENT, SALES, ANTEC INC.
“WE ARE THRILLED TO COLLABORATE WITH RP TECH INDIA. THEIR STRONG CHANNEL ENGAGEMENT WILL ENABLE US TO POSITION OUR SOLUTIONS IN THE RIGHT MARKETS. WE LOOK FORWARD TO DEEPER ENGAGEMENT WITH THEM.”
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P tech India has entered into a distribution agreement with Antec Inc. As per the agreement, the company will position Antec’s high-performance gaming PC solutions and accessories in the Indian market. The partnership is expected to help RP tech India strengthen its PC and Gaming brand portfolio and provide Antec reach and channel network to expand its business. The gaming industry in India is all set to experience a surge. According to a Mordor Intelligence report, the Indian gaming market will reach USD 4.88 billion by 2026. Taking into account the market opportunity, RP tech India is bullish over the gaming hardware industry in the country. The partnership with Antec can be seen in that light. Alok Choudhary, Group Business Manager, RP tech India, said, “We are excited to join hands with Antec to offer holistic PC and gaming solutions to
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consumers. Antec is a pioneer in this vertical, and its solutions are well-positioned in India. We will leverage our wide distribution network to increase the brand visibility in the unexplored regions.” Under the partnership, RP tech will position chassis, power supply, coolers and gaming chairs. It will focus on various channel engagement programs to increase the visibility of Antec’s products and solutions in the market. They will also explore appointing the gaming partners and empower them to position products through training. “We are thrilled to collaborate with RP tech India. RP tech is known in the Indian ICT industry for its 32 years of industry expertise, wider reach and robust distribution network. Their strong channel engagement will enable us to position our solutions in the right markets. We look forward to deeper engagement with them,” said Kevan Li, Vice President, Sales at Antec Inc.
SILICON POWER ANNOUNCES SUPERTRON AS BEST DISTRIBUTOR FOR 2021 Memory product giant Silicon Power has announced Supertron Electronics Pvt Ltd.as Most-Valued Partner for the year 2021 globally in appreciation of its outstanding performance and contribution towards their SSD, RAM and other range of products business in India. The award ceremony was held at SP Head Quarter last week where the trophy was handed over by CEO of Silicon Power Mr. Michael. “We are happy and proud to have Supertron as our distribution partner for Indian market. These achievements have made us proud. SP is confident with the years we will make this relationship much stronger,” said Mr. Mehul and Mr. Marvin of Silicon Power. “It is really good to be associated with Silicon Power and it was a wonderful journey to work with them, as they have always focussed on quality of the products. Silicon Power has very good understanding of technological aspects and it is an opportunity for us to be associated as their national distributor and grow together,” said Mr. Vibhor Agarwal, Director Marketing, Supertron. “This recognition and appreciation will give a moral boost to our entire team to ensure our relationship with Silicon Power gets more stronger in the coming days,” said V. K. Bhandari CMD of Supertron. He also said that we are thankfull to Silicon Power leadership team and all our valued partners for their constant support.
SECURITY
RAJENDRA S PAWAR, CHAIRMAN, DSCI
CYBERSECURITY INDUSTRY HAVE COMBINED REVENUE OF USD 9.85 BN IN 2021: DSCI
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ata Security Council of India, released the ‘India Cybersecurity Industry Report – Services & Product Growth Story’ at the DSCI Excellence Industry Awards. It was launched by Shri Ajay Sawhney, Secretary, MeitY in the presence of Debjani Ghosh, President, NASSCOM; Rajendra S Pawar, Chairman, DSCI, and Rama Vedashree, CEO, DSCI. The report showcases the capabilities, achievements, innovation, and 360⁰ scale-up, that the cybersecurity products and services industry in India have embarked upon. It covers facets such as revenue growth, innovation strategy, global expansion, talent initiatives, advancements in technology adoption, process automation, deployment models, offering capabilities, framework & policy creation. The cybersecurity services and product industry have combined revenue of USD 9.85 Bn in 2021 and grew at a CAGR of ~40% in the last two years. The services industry grew from USD 4.3 Bn in 2019 to USD 8.48 Bn in 2021 at a CAGR of 40.33%. The product industry grew from USD 740 Mn in 2019 to reach USD 1.37 Bn in 2021 at a CAGR of 36.49%. The industry is moving towards a platform-based approach to offer holistic solutions and simplify security integration and deployment. 78% & ~76% of the analyzed services
and product companies respectively offer platform-based services and products wherein 74% leverage AL/ML to enhance their offerings. There is a huge demand for cybersecurity talent with services companies having a cybersecurity workforce of 2.18 lakhs and product companies having ~27K workforce, in 2021. The Indian cybersecurity industry is constantly expanding its global footprint with a presence in the US, Canada, UK, France, Australia, Singapore, and UAE. Shri Ajay Sawhney, Secretary, MeitY, said, “India’s Cyber Security Industry was at the forefront supporting Government and all critical sectors to manage the heightened cyber security risk in the last two years through the pandemic. The report showcases the capabilities of the Indian cybersecurity Services and Start-ups and the continuous innovation in products and services to serve customers in India and globally. Ministry of Electronics & IT is committed to partnering with DSCI to scale up our innovation in emerging areas like 5G, Hardware, IoT Security, and through our flagship ISEA and Future Skills Programmes meet the talent demand of the industry.” Debjani Ghosh, President, NASSCOM, said, “Every crisis has a silver lining and for the pandemic, it has been the accelerated adoption of digital solutions across enterprises and govern-
ment. Decade’s worth of digital transformation has taken place in the last two years and India’s technology industry has emerged as the preferred digital solutions partner with cybersecurity as a key growth vertical. Cybersecurity is now a boardroom agenda and offers tremendous opportunities for India’s tech industry to build innovative solutions and services.” Rajendra S Pawar, Chairman, DSCI, said, “Globally the pandemic has fast tracked digitization and Cyber has now become a predominant risk at a company and country level. It is heartening to note that in line with our vision to make India a Global Hub for Cyber Security, the Product and Services Industry has scaled up to meet the rising demand. While the services industry is expanding its footprint globally through platform-led offerings and cloud-based managed security services, the young product industry is innovating on new solution areas with a cloudfirst strategy to reach global customers.” Rama Vedashree, CEO, DSCI, said, “The Indian cybersecurity product and services industry have been demonstrating tremendous growth while fostering a partnership mindset. The collaboration between ecosystem stakeholders such as academia, government, services majors, start-ups is creating a conducive ecosystem. DSCI has been focused on growing the start-up ecosystem by facilitating incubation and acceleration programs, funding opportunities, new products through use cases, a robust talent pool, and enabling start-ups to expand their global footprint. India is indeed becoming a trusted and natural partner of choice for providing cybersecurity services and products globally.”
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PRIYAM INFOSYSTEMS & BD SOFTWARE JOIN HANDS
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D Soft enters into a strategic partnership with Priyam Infosystems Pvt. Ltd. as a national distributor for its customized add-on tool Smart Tally for Tally users. As an authorized distributor, BD Soft will be responsible for promotion, creating a robust national distribution channel, and educating the employees, partners, and clients about the features and significance of the product. On the other hand, Priyam Infosystems will be the core technology partner. Smart Tally is India’s most popular tally add-on tool used by over 8000 users across India. The customized tool is designed and developed by Priyam Infosystems. It integrates well with the Tally License and gets the users enhanced efficiency and optimization for better functionality. The solution is easy to configure and could be used by users from non-technical backgrounds as well. Smart Tally is available in two editions; Smart Tally.PRO & Smart Tally LITE. The solution is focused on mass tally users. Priyam Infosystems Pvt. Ltd. is a 25 years old organization indulged in IT consultancy, development, and sales of software applications. They have been serving customers from Government, Finance, Manufacturing, Distribution, Automobile, & Transport sectors with an excellent track record. Priyam Infosystems has developed more than 200 solutions including the Smart Tally Add-On tool. The organization has been long associated with Tally as a technology partner The customized add-on tool has gained popularity in small time for its 36+ utilities that not only ease the work of any organization but enhance efficiency as well. Smart Dustbin, Document Attachment & Auto Backup are the key features
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of the solution. Additionally, GST Paid Billing, Smart Invoice, Signature Image, Message Board in Invoice, Terms & Conditions in Invoice, Font Selection in Invoice for Company Name, Auto Email, etc. are some of the features that make the Smart Tally universally useful for all industry types be it hospitality, education, automobile or retail. BD Software Distribution Pvt. Ltd is a renowned name in the sales and distribution of IT solutions in India. It is the national distributor of Bitdefender in the country. The organization has a wide network of channel partners across the country. BD Soft has already staffed over 60 employees for sales, pre-sales, administration & finance functions. Zakir Hussain Rangwala, CEO, BD Software Distribution Pvt. Ltd. added “We are excited about the association with Priyam Infosolutions. Smart Tally Add-On solution includes many exciting features that are of great use for the customers. And, the solution is available for a very attractive price as well. The tool is easy to use and is available in the annual subscription and perpetual licensing models. As we move ahead in this year, we are expecting exponential growth in the segment.” Dhiraj Vijayvargia, Founder and CEO, Priyam Infosystems Pvt. Ltd. says “There are over 2 million users of Tally accounting software. With the increase in digitalization, the new challenges pose a threat to the smooth working of any organization. We have developed Smart Tally keeping in mind the challenges the users face every day using Tally. For example, we have introduced Smart Dustbin, Document Attachment & Auto Backup features so that the data deleted is backed up automatically and the user can cross-check the deleted
ZAKIR HUSSAIN RANGWALA, CEO, BD SOFTWARE DISTRIBUTION PVT. LTD.
“WE ARE EXCITED ABOUT THE ASSOCIATION WITH PRIYAM INFOSOLUTIONS. SMART TALLY ADD-ON SOLUTION INCLUDES MANY EXCITING FEATURES THAT ARE OF GREAT USE FOR THE CUSTOMERS.” entries in the Smart Dustbin. Smart Tally includes many such other features that will ease the functioning of Tally for the users.”
CASE STUDY
ODM EDUCATIONAL GROUP PRIORITIZES SECURITY FOR STUDENTS WITH HIKVISION’S SMART VIDEO SECURITY SYSTEMS
SWOYAN SATYENDU, CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER (COO), ODM EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION
“WE ARE GLAD THAT THE ADVANCED SECURITY SOLUTIONS PROVIDED BY HIKVISION INDIA, ADDED VALUE TO ODM EDUCATIONAL GROUP’S OBJECTIVE OF IMPARTING EDUCATION IN A SECURE ENVIRONMENT.”
DR. SATYABRATA MINAKETAN, FOUNDER AND CHAIRMAN, ODM EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION. The ODM Educational Group is an emerging education conglomerate headquartered in Bhubaneswar, Odisha. It is founded by Dr. Satyabrata Minaketan, Founder and Chairman, ODM
Educational Foundation. The ODM Educational Group houses multiple institutions like ODM Public School, K-12 CBSE affiliated school, ODM Kids World, a pre-school chain, ODM School of Advanced Learning, test prep institute, Institute of Human Excellence, a skill development academy, Astral Institute of Management, a B-School affiliated to AICTE and DIGICHAMPS, an e-learning venture. The ODM Educational Group was formally established in the year 2003; however, ODM Public School, its constituent unit, was established way back in 1989. ODM Public School saw its humble beginning with one rented room and five students and a meagre 10 rupees as tuition fees in 1989. ODM Public School then moved to a small campus in Chandrasekharpur, Bhubaneswar, and grew every year by leaps and bounds. Over the span of 30 years, the ODM Educational Group has branched into imparting Education from KG to PG. Education Security Challenges ODM Educational Group’s management wanted to prioritize security by deploying the best-inclass products and solutions in and around every educational institution run by them. The impeccable clarity, backed by security awareness and technology savvy management team had their wish list ready to counter the day to day security challenges faced by their staff and students. “We had identified the security challenges faced by the ODM Educational Group’s institutions. We were looking for a mission critical physical security system that can serve our objective proactively. The brief was very clear from the day
one, security, compliance, end-to end solutions and best practices. It was a clear instruction from the management to get the best products and cloud-based solutions with zero downtime and system redundancy,” said Swoyan Satyendu, Chief Operating Officer (COO), ODM Educational Foundation. He further added, “Earlier we were not able to know exactly which video security camera is not working properly. Now with facility of remote monitoring and system health check, we were very focused on a Zero Downtime Concept for video security systems as it is quite unprofessional to find a particular video security camera was not working while a particular incident happened in the educational campus. Hikvision video security systems are meant for real time monitoring and proactive mitigation of risks before the security incidents. A site without security service interruption is now possible due to technology enhancement. To achieve such mission critical goals, redundancy becomes a critical requirement at every level of security infrastructure.” Technology Innovations The ODM Educational Group’s management was looking for technology innovations to get solution requirements fulfilled. There was a consensus on having a versatile vendor with multiple systems, technology capability and service support. They were averse to having multiple vendors for their security requirements.
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CHANNEL TECH PREDICTION
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SANJOY MUKHERJEE SENIOR DIRECTOR TECHNOLOGY ALLIANCES & CHANNELS, ORACLE INDIA
“THROUGH OUR CLOUD-FIRST PARTNER PROGRAM, ORACLE PARTNER NETWORK, WE ENSURE ACCELERATION OF TRANSITION TO CLOUD FOR OUR PARTNER ORGANISATION AND SUPPORT THEM IN ACQUIRING NEW CLOUD CAPABILITIES AND SPECIALIZATIONS TO MATCH UP WITH THE EVER CHANGING ENVIRONMENT.”
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mid the increasing blare of the pandemic and the spectre of omicron casting its long shadows over the tech landscape, we have ushered into 2022. Channel success which has always been the holy-grail for any business is all set to get a makeover in the new year. As part of our effort to get the channel community better informed and get an earful of what the who’s who of Indian IT are thinking, expecting, and planning for the channel community in 2022, we have started this new section to record the channel predictions of the most prominent players of the IT industry. Here, as part of this special series of Tech Forecasts, Oracle India registers its predictions for 2022. Enabling businesses to understand data in new ways, discover insights, unlock endless possibilities, Oracle has sailed through cloud and
FASTER ADOPTION OF NEW-GEN TECH LIKE AI/ML, BLOCKCHAIN, AND CHATBOTS BY PARTNERS FOR ENSURING EFFICIENCY license, hardware, and services with equal élan. Its application software business runs the gamut from database, applications, java, operating, engineered, server, and storage systems, to services such as consulting, financing, and training. In an exclusive interaction with SME Channels, Sanjoy Mukherjee, Senior Director - Technology Alliances & Channels, Oracle India shares his company’s Channel Predictions for the year 2022. Edited excerpts What major market and channel trends would you forecast for 2022? With all that the last year taught us, the one imperative that businesses will have to carry into the current year is that constant change is now at the core of every business. With that, business will have to build a robust digital foundation to navigate the situation and ensure continuity, leading to a major trend of higher cloud adoption by enterprises across sectors. This is supported by key market researches including Statista which predicts that organisations worldwide will spend an eye-popping US$1.78 trillion on cloud and other “digital transformation” initiatives in 2022. While cloud has been empowering businesses - big or small, for decades now, however, now as companies become keener than ever before to accelerate migration of critical workloads to cloud, the demand can only be met by an efficient partner network. In the current year, as customers mature their cloud game, a strong partner network will become an imperative in ensuring faster and better ways of empowering customers towards building their businesses. Channel partners will be expected to ensure better experience by offering deeper insights in various important areas and ultimately help businesses realize performance, better security and cost saving. Another key trend
would be faster adoption of emerging technologies like AI/ML, blockchain, chatbots to ensure efficiency. As the organisations increase their dependency on these technologies, partners will have to up their expertise and bring in key consulting skills for a complete experience. What’s your channel focus? What expectation do you have from the channel community? Oracle with its four decades of experience, is the only hyper-scale cloud provider that offers a full stack of cloud solutions. This includes comprehensive hybrid options, IaaS, PaaS, as well as SaaS. Being an extremely customer focused organisation, we aim to help them gain maximum value from their cloud investments and ensure that their business goals are achieved. For this, we highly rely on our partner network. This is proved by the fact that partners account for 80% of all Oracle transactions from an Asia Pacific region. As we consider partners an extension of ourselves, we therefore aim to enable them in every possible way through our Oracle PartnerNetwork program which is a cloud-first partner program. Through this we ensure acceleration of transition to cloud for our partner organisation and support them in acquiring new cloud capabilities and specializations to match up with the ever changing environment. Our partner organisations are familiarized with the technology and how it can be integrated in their businesses, ultimately helping with our goal of making the business of customers efficient. We also continue to expand our partner ecosystem to ensure that the customers are leveraging complete advantages of Oracle’s Gen - 2 Cloud, including Oracle Autonomous Database. This, in turn, helps customers reduce their costs, ensure reliability, and increase security.
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CHANNEL TECH PREDICTION
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mid the increasing blare of the pandemic and the spectre of omicron casting its long shadows over the tech landscape, we have ushered into 2022. Channel success which has always been the holy-grail for any business is all set to get a makeover in the new year. As part of our effort to get the channel community better informed and get an earful of what the who’s who of Indian IT are thinking, expecting, and planning for the channel community in 2022, we have started this new section to record the channel predictions of the most prominent players of the IT industry. Here, as part of this special series of Tech Forecasts, IBM India registers its predictions for 2022. As a leading cognitive solutions and cloud platform company, IBM stresses on innovation as a core business strategy. Offering business and technical consulting, training and support, data storage, analysis, networks, and enterprise applications, IBM India serves a wide clientele worldwide. In an exclusive interaction with SME Channels, Lata Singh, Director – Partner Ecosystem, IBM India/South Asia shares her company’s Channel Predictions for the year 2022. Edited excerpts Give a brief introduction of your company IBM is a leading hybrid cloud and AI company. As a microcosm of the IBM Corporation, IBM India has established itself as one of the leaders in the Indian Information Technology Industry with its regional headquarter in Bangalore and offices across multiple locations including Tier 2 cities. Innovation is at the core of the IBM’s strategy and is reflected in the end-to-end solutions delivered to clients, which span from software and systems hardware to a broad range of AI, cloud and consulting services. IBM helps clients solve complex business and technical issues by delivering deep business process and industry expertise. This is enhanced with advanced analytics, research capabilities and the proven ability to implement enterprise solutions to deliver bottom line value to businesses and government worldwide. IBM has been investing in India including launching development centres that will help contribute to the innovation and growth of our software portfolio. The labs in India are aligned
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LATA SINGH DIRECTOR – PARTNER ECOSYSTEM, IBM INDIA/SOUTH ASIA
“WE WILL FOCUS ON PROVIDING THE SKILLS, RESOURCES AND EXPERTISE TO HELP PARTNERS GET TO MARKET FASTER AND GROW THEIR BUSINESSES. TOGETHER, WE WILL CREATE SHARED VALUE FOR CLIENTS AND A SHARED VISION FOR THE FUTURE OF HYBRID CLOUD AND AI.” to IBM’s global strategy and the pioneering work done across these labs are integrated into IBM products, solutions and services. Partner ecosystem is central to our growth strategy, together we are delivering the best hybrid and public cloud capabilities to clients with Red Hat OpenShift at the core. We are working with a range of partners to provide clients with a greater level of scale, resources and capabilities to accelerate the impact of cloud-driven digital transformation. As the pandemic is still there and a new variant has surfaced, what are the major market trends you are forecasting for 2022? The major market trends that we would like to point out are: • Digital transformation has become a way of life: We have witnessed accelerated investment and adoption of digital technologies over the past two years. Many executives have realized that transformation is here to stay and therefore the focus is on making their organizations more responsive, rather than achieving a perfect end state. Technologies like IoT, Cloud computing and AI will help deliver business results, build
GREATER ADOPTION OF OPEN TECHS & PLATFORMS, AI, 5G AND EDGE COMPUTING TO DEFINE PARTNER ECOSYSTEM resiliency and adaptability. In addition, technologies especially cloud, will also enable faster, more effective collaboration, which will be another driving force for growth this year. According to IBM Institute of Business Value, Covid 19 and the future of business report executives plan to participate in business ecosystems 332% more in 2022 than they did in 2018. To capitalize on ecosystem partnerships, however, companies need a strong technology foundation which embraces an open platform approach with security and compliance embedded at the core. • Tech adoption to reshape business operations: Organizations will embrace a more holistic approach towards reinventing their operations to realize the full benefits of digital transformation. We will see a shift where executives will start focusing on building more integrated systems that revolutionize their business models in 2022 rather than rolling out isolated innovations that streamline individual workflows. The IBM Institute of Business Value 2021 CIO Study found that, since 2019, there have been monumental increases in the number of CIOs whose organizations have advanced hybrid cloud operations (700%) and intelligent workflows (560%) and are seeing these investments start to pay dividends. In addition, high adopters of technology across 13 industries benefitted from a revenue premium of 7%, with the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and cloud yielding the greatest benefit along with those that invested in ecosystems and open innovation saw an average revenue premium of 40%. • Trust and security underpin sustained innovation: As organizations expand the reach and create new opportunities for innovation by using cloud-based technologies, platforms, and ecosystems they need to embed more robust security practices across environments. A recent IBM Security X-Force Report highlights 150% increase in vulnerabilities in cloud environments in last 5
years with 2 out of 3 breached cloud environments caused due to improperly configured APIs. As companies expand their cloud footprint to enable remote work, integrate supply chains, and streamline customer experiences, they must also evolve their approach to cybersecurity. “Zero trust” is a preventative approach to security that assumes malicious actors are everywhere. It requires authentication and verification for every exchange of value, which allows companies to open their boundaries more securely. Embracing evolving security practices for cloud-era along with open, secure cloud networks will help organizations to drive innovation and collaboration while achieving better business results. What major trends are you forecasting in the channel market? Among the major trends in the channel market would be: • Ecosystem Partners embrace open technologies and platforms to achieve growth and deliver value: In 2022, partners will continue to transform their business models for driving growth and delivering value to their customers. An important aspect of this transformation will include leveraging their expertise to build and offer technology solutions to their customers. With Open Hybrid Cloud becoming the dominant architecture across most enterprises, ecosystem partners like ISVs, MSPs will embrace open technology and platforms that enable them to build and deliver products and services securely, and at speed and scale. • Partners will continue to play a critical role in accelerating enterprise modernization journey: Digital transformation requires modernization.
SME CHANNELS 55 JANUARY 2022
CHANNEL TECH PREDICTION
A
Amid the increasing blare of the pandemic and the spectre of omicron casting its long shadows over the tech landscape, we have ushered into 2022. Channel success which has always been the holy-grail for any business is all set to get a makeover in the new year. As part of our effort to get the channel community better informed and get an earful of what the who’s who of Indian IT are thinking, expecting, and planning for the channel community in 2022, we have started this new section to record the channel predictions of the most prominent players of the IT industry. Here, as part of this special series of Tech Forecasts, NETSCOUT India registers its predictions for 2022. As a leading provider of application performance management and network performance management solutions, NETSCOUT stresses on innovation as a core business strategy. Assuring digital business services against security, availability, and performance disruptions, the company combines smart data technology with smart analytics. Providing real-time, pervasive visibility and insights to accelerate and secure digital transformation, NETSCOUT serves a wide clientele worldwide. In an exclusive interaction with SME Channels, Vinay Sharma, Regional Director, India and SAARC, NETSCOUT shares his company’s Channel Predictions for the year 2022. Edited excerpts... Give a brief introduction of your company. NETSCOUT helps assure digital business services against security, availability, and performance disruptions. Our market and technology leadership stems from combining our patented smart data technology with smart analytics. We provide real-time, pervasive visibility and insights customers need to accelerate and secure their digital transformation. Omnis Cyber Intelligence delivers the fastest and most scalable network security solution available on the market. NETSCOUT nGenius service assurance solutions provide real-time, contextual analysis of service, network, and application performance. And Arbor Smart DDoS Protection by NETSCOUT products help protect against attacks that threaten availability and advanced threats that infiltrate networks to
56 SME CHANNELS JANUARY 2022
CHANNEL TECH PREDICTION
VINAY SHARMA REGIONAL DIRECTOR, INDIA AND SAARC, NETSCOUT
“APART FROM DEEPENING ENGAGEMENT WITH CHANNEL PARTNERS ACROSS INDUSTRY VERTICALS, WE ALSO LOOK FORWARD TO APPOINT PARTNERS FOR SPECIFIC INDUSTRIAL VERTICALS AND LARGE ACCOUNTS.” steal critical business assets. To learn more about improving service, network, and application performance in physical or virtual data centres or in the cloud, and how NETSCOUT’s security and performance solutions can help you move forward with confidence. As the pandemic is still there and a new variant has surfaced, what major market trends would you forecast for 2022? The WFH, Remote working and BYOD trends that accelerated with the onset of the pandemic will continue in today’s workplace as well, to ensure business continuity. To facilitate this new business model, organisations are increasingly depending on VPN, Cloud and SaaS services. This has led to the explosion of edges - the data centre, remote working environment, cloud and the networks, creating a big challenge for the IT teams, especially with the loss of visibility and control. Usage of appropriate technology by the clients, irrespective of where the services are hosted or accessed from, will become crucial. Availability, Performance and Cybersecurity aspects are key for organisations in 2022. There will be more collaborative efforts from businesses, government, security vendors and industry bodies to address the rise in cyber-
DEEPER PARTNER COLLABORATION AND PARTNER EXPERIENCE WILL BE IN KEY FOCUS attacks that are growing both in terms of volume and complexity. Due to the prevalence of remote working culture, organisations are today heavily dependent on communication and collaborative platforms, such as Cisco WebEx, Microsoft Teams, Zoom and many others. The user experience on these platforms is becoming very crucial for organisations as their performance is impacting productivity and business outcomes. This trend will continue in 2022. What major trends are you forecasting in the channel market? NETSCOUT, globally works only with Channel Partners to tap and cater to the market. We respect our Channel Partners and strongly believe they are crucial for the organisation’s success. We also acknowledge that India is a Channelfriendly market and continue to invest in this area. The major trends in the Channel market in 2021, include, more collaboration with Partners and Partner Experience will become the key focus. IT Vendors and Channel Partners will deepen their association further to deliver seamless customer experience. Focusing on selecting the right Partners with relevant skill sets in the respective industry vertical will take centre-stage. Which areas you want to focus in the channel – skillsets – sales and marketing, vertical and technology practice development, service capability, etc.? Each area mentioned in the question is important to remain competitive in the market. However, Service Capability is one aspect we want to lay more emphasis on. Services through Partners is key, as we want them to gain substantially from the engagement and we will continue to support them and add further value that help to strengthen their capabilities.
What percentage of budget growth are you expecting for channel development? As I have already mentioned that our Sales and Marketing are through Channels Partners only, we would want them to develop their capabilities on all fronts. So, whether it is overall Channel Enablement, Development or Skillset development of Partners, we would continue to invest in them substantially. What is your expectation from channel this year? I would like to emphasise again that with respect to the product and technology we are dealing with, we are global leaders and have a huge customer base, including Fortune 100 companies and large Enterprise Accounts in the US and European markets. So, we want our Channel Partners here, to understand the value proposition of NETSCOUT and leverage our technology to provide solutions to Customers by addressing the latter’s pain points and performance issues. Be it appropriate visibility and control in hybrid cloud environments and across all edges or the cybersecurity aspect, which is going beyond the traditional flow and log-based analysis into packet-based wire data technology, we have the right solutions. Yes, NETSCOUT delivers unmatched service visibility and protects the digital infrastructure that supports our connected world. We expect our Partners to have a thorough understanding of our technology and capabilities as we together serve customers with appropriate solutions. In 2022, we expect to increase our engagement with the Channel engine, so that it grows further, leading to better business outcomes.
SME CHANNELS 57 JANUARY 2022
GUEST ARTICLE
SHIVA MATHUR, VICE PRESIDENT, HCL AMERICA
BIO OF SHIVA:
With 26+ years of experience managing profit and loss, customer advocacy, client relationships, nurturing and growing businesses, Shiva Mathur is heavily involved in Digital Transformation and driving innovation in Retail and CPG Industry. As a customer champion, Shiva has been leading and implementing aggressive strategic plans around Customer Experiences (CX), thereby creating business values which accelerate the transformational outputs in a highly complex IT environment. He works with companies to define digital transformation with enterprises across industries to maximize business potential. Guide clients on their digital journeys to enable them to do business in real-time and help organizations rethink their business models to place humans at the center. The CPG (consumer packaged goods) and Retail sector have been at the forefront of innovation in the last few decades. As a result, we see a plethora of new products every day, and that tells us quite a bit about how fast these sectors are moving and remodeling themselves. So while a few years back, everyone was focusing on bringing about automation in the front end of these sectors, enterprises have quickly realized that they require much more than optimizing their customer satisfaction quotient. In comes Hyper-automation and AI engineering. This article discusses the role of how Hyper-automation and AI engineering helps improve customer satisfaction for retail and CPG enterprises. What are Hyper-automation and AI engineering?
58 SME CHANNELS JANUARY 2022
As per Gartner, Hyper-automation is the top supply chain innovation of 2021. The term was coined by the brand in 2019 and is a mix of AI, NLP, ML, RPA, and more. Essentially, it is the mix of intelligent automation and RPA. It allows businesses to automate processes that were considered impossible to automate merely a year ago. Hyper-automation supports end-to-end automation by understanding and leveraging the available technologies’ strengths. It also utilizes RPA to gauge and mimic human behavior in addition to AI, which is already deployed to gather the requisite business intelligence chops for improving processes throughout the value chain. AI engineering is the culmination of tools, processes, and best practices that enable businesses to design, test, deploy, operate, and update reliable AI systems throughout the value chain. With AI and NLP at the forefront, enterprises were already developing a host of models for optimizing customer satisfaction. But with AI engineering in the mix, it has allowed organizations to draw a more precise path by leveraging AI’s prowess. The CPG and retail are striving hard to automate a host of their processes to ensure people come back and lend their trust to them. For this, the combined use of Hyper-automation and AI engineering would allow them to get over the challenges that bogged down their traditional outlook. How do Hyper-automation and AI engineering augment customer satisfaction? While it is easy to drive yourself and the world crazy by using a plethora of complex terms that we have no idea of, it is the prerogative of problem-solving through uncluttered approaches that should be the way forward for brands, looking to excel at customer satisfaction in the CPG and retail arena. So for that, it is imperative to understand that customer satisfaction will automatically increase when you optimize your processes. Therefore, Hyper-automation and AI engineering seek to bring a holistic improvement throughout the value chain instead of focusing on specific functions. Workflow management: CPG and the retail sector often come across as cluttered owing to a plethora of tasks being handled. Also, traditionally, many of these tasks are
human-dependent, owing to unwanted laggards at times. However, by using Hyper-automation and AI engineering, these sectors can automate several cross-functional tasks that were manually operated previously. The application of deep learning, ML, and predictive analytics to RPA has enabled robots to take
GUEST ARTICLE
BRINGING CUSTOMER SATISFACTION TO THE CORE OF RETAIL AND CPG ENTERPRISES WITH HYPER-AUTOMATION AND AI ENGINEERING
over the myriad of tasks previously handled by humans. As a result, it would help cut downtime and reduce human error, thereby increasing agility and efficiency and contributing to improved customer satisfaction. It also gives employees more time to cater to customer needs and queries, enabling them to understand customer issues by
decoding their preferences. In-depth sales analysis and return processing: RPA allows organizations to delve deeper into the organizational sales numbers. In addition, hyperautomation also helps generate real-time, actionable insights that can then be used by practical AI engineering to improve the overall return processing and sales analysis. If brands are manually handling returns, it takes up a lot of in-store employee time because they have to enter reverse entries and manage stocks to inculcate the necessary changes. Automating it all would enable retailers and CPG players to focus on sales rather than worry about returns and their accounting. Undertake deeper collaboration: Using AI to design, deploy, and evolve a process enables you to link multiple functions along the value chain. By using Hyper-automation and AI engineering, brands can connect every employee directly to the automation process and influence business operations. In addition, it would help eliminate departmental silos, enabling seamless flow of data and information, thereby contributing to improved customer satisfaction. Improved data management:
Any brand operating in the retail or CPG space has to deal with a plethora of products ranging across sectors. As a result, these companies face immense pressure while tracking the multitude of front and back-end elements related to the products and services and simultaneously managing employees, debtors, and creditors. Hyper-automation and AI engineering integrate a plethora of advanced technologies and processes that allow a seamless and automated flow of information across premises, enabling brands to keep better track of their operations. With continuous communication between data storage and core systems, brands can now holistically improve their data management capabilities and better serve their customers. Wrap up Since the world learned about Hyper-automation and started deploying it for their business needs, organizations have grown in leaps and bounds. With AI engineering allowing seamless connectivity and deployment, cross-process automation of critical tasks has become a reality. It has contributed heavily to improving the customer satisfaction quotient in the CPG and retail sphere.
SME CHANNELS 59 JANUARY 2022
CHANNEL TECH PREDICTION
ASHISH SIKKA ONE LENOVO CHANNEL HEAD & DIRECTOR - SMB, LENOVO INDIA
“LENOVO 360 WILL EQUIP CHANNEL PARTNERS WITH RESOURCES AND TOOLS TO GROW THEIR BUSINESS AND INCREASE THEIR EARNING POTENTIAL.”
INTEGRATED SOLUTIONS AND SERVICES, AS-ASERVICE MARKET TO BE THE KEY FOCUS
A
mid the increasing blare of the pandemic and the spectre of omicron casting its long shadows over the tech landscape, we have ushered into 2022. Channel success which has always been the holy-grail for any business is all set to get a makeover in the new year. As part of our effort to get the channel community better informed and get an earful of what the who’s who of Indian IT are thinking, expecting, and planning for the channel community in 2022, we have started this new section to record the channel predictions of the most prominent players of the IT industry. Here, as part of this special series of Tech Forecasts, Lenovo India registers its predictions for 2022.
60 SME CHANNELS JANUARY 2022
Already the world’s leading PC company, Lenovo is also a leader in smartphones and tablets as it works to become one of the top brands in the in the PC+ Era. Lenovo has grown faster than the market for more than four years, thanks to its well-engineered products that targeted customers and those who do. One of the largest PC vendors and a leading smartphone company, the company has traversed a wide variety of products - whether PCs, smartphones, tablets, smart TVs, servers, workstations or storage. Whether smart connected or infrastructure devices, Lenovo has created differentiation from competition, thanks to its vertically integrated end-to-end business model. At the heart of this growing brand confidence is Ashish Sikka, One Lenovo Channel Head & Director - SMB, Lenovo India. With an unwaver-
ing focus on customer-centric solutions, Sikka manages an extensive product portfolio spanning from laptops, desktops, to workstations and tablets. Sikka has played a critical role in leading the tablet segment to double its market share and in helping claim the number one position in the industry. Sikka has performed various roles across the company, especially, in setting up Lenovo’s tablet business in India market and in helping to establish a digital ecosystem that enables future growth. In an exclusive interaction with SME Channels, Ashish Sikka, One Lenovo Channel Head & Director - SMB, Lenovo India, shares his company’s Channel Predictions for the year 2022. Edited excerpts. Give a brief introduction to your company. Lenovo is a US$60 billion revenue Fortune Global 500 company serving customers in 180 markets around the world. Focused on a bold vision to deliver smarter technology for all, we are developing world-changing technologies that power (through devices and infrastructure) and empower (through solutions, services and software) millions of customers every day and together create a more inclusive, trustworthy and sustainable digital society for everyone, everywhere.
REVIEW
PRODUCT
MATRIX PRESENTS COSEC ATOM RD300
INBASE LAUNCHES FOUR NEW SMARTWATCHES UNDER URBAN SMART WEARABLE RANGE BY MANAS RANJAN info@smechannels.com
EXPANDING ITS RANGE OF SMARTWATCHES, Inbase has added four new devices- Urban Fit X, Urban Lite M, Urban Lyf Z and Urban Go. All four smartwatches are IP68 resistant that protects it from water, dust, etc. It comes with many health and fitness-related features like step count, SPO2 level tracking, heart rate monitoring, sleep monitoring, calories burnt count and so on. FEATURES AND SPECIFICATIONS Inbase Urban Fit X: Fit X is available in four amazing colours - Black, Grey, Rose Gold and Navy Blue. As the name suggests, it is designed for fitness. With an outstanding look, it helps in Monitoring Blood Oxygen levels (SPO2), Heart rate and tracking the oxygen level in your body every day. Fit X comes with a lightweight and compact structure as it is made with Zinc alloy. This watch is built with Bluetooth 5.0 version; 1.69 inches full touch bigger display with resolution of 240*280 pixels. Outstanding battery life
of Urban Fit X provides up to 8 days of run time and 35 days of standby time. Inbase Urban Lite M: Lite M is available in three attractive colours - Black, Grey, and Forest Green and is the most affordable smart watch among all Urban Smartwatches. It is a lightweight, compact size with an outstanding appearance and comes with a high-performance chipset. The battery life of Urban Lite M Comes with the industry best standard of up to 8 days run time and standby time up to 35 days. Lite M is built with Bluetooth 5.0 version; 1.4 inches full touch bigger display with resolution of 240*280 pixels.
PRICING AND AVAILABILITY: Backed by a 1-Year warranty, Inbase Urban Fit X, Urban Lite M, Urban Lyf Z and Urban Go are available at an introductory price of INR 1,999/-, 1,899/-, 3,199/-, and 3,499/respectively. The watches can be purchased from the company’s official website and offline stores.
MATRIX PRESENTS COSEC ATOM RD300 COMPACT READER THAT TAKES CARE OF ALL THE SECURITY CONCERNS FOR VARIOUS INDUSTRIAL VERTICALS. CREATED WITH A UNIQUE BALANCE BETWEEN USAGE AND AESTHETICS, THIS DEVICE COVERS ALL THE NEEDS OF CORPORATE WORKSPACES. COSEC ATOM RD300 FOCUSES ON GIVING USERS A SMOOTH EXPERIENCE. WITH MINIMALISTIC LAYING REQUIREMENTS, INFUSED WITH MODERN TECHNOLOGY AND FAST RESPONSES, THIS TECH MARVEL PROVIDES ACCESS WITHIN A FLASH. MORE THAN JUST APPEARANCE, IT IS AVAILABLE IN BOTH, FLUSH MOUNTING AND WALL MOUNTING, MAKING INSTALLATION AN EASY JOB.
KEY FEATURES: • Multi-Credential Support - PIN, Card, Fingerprint & Mobile authentication • Third-party Integration • Certified protection against Ingress and Vandal • Multiple Interfaces - Wiegand, RS-232, Exit Switch Interface, Door Lock Relay
SME CHANNELS 61 JANUARY 2022
PRODUCT PRODUCT
RAPOO NETGEAR
NETGEAR ORBI RBK352
RAPOO RGB GAMING KEYBOARD V700 IN INDIA
NETGEAR’s Orbi RBK352 is a simple two-piece WiFi router that works as a pair in a mesh system. One functions as a router that connects to your WAN, while the other is a satellite that wirelessly relays the internet or network further to another area of your home. Together, they combine into a very powerful intelligent mesh system that needs no wires. Armed with the power of Dual-Band WiFi 6 (AX1800) technology, the Orbi performs with a strong, fast and reliable wireless network in every corner of your home. Once deployed, you can experience 4 streams of pure WiFi 6 that can deliver throughputs of up to 1.8Gbps, benefitting anything that it’s used for – be it lag-free gaming or smooth streaming. Now you can be assured of the best entertainment experiences even with up to 8K UHD streaming options.
The RAPOO V700 is no ordinary gaming keyboard – It’s built with perfection using mechanical Kailh switches that are designed for game controller applications. Each key is crafted with high precision offering extreme tactility with instant smoother operation for accuracy and high ergonomics. Together with Kailh switches and RAPOO’s intelligent design, the V700 comes to you as an extreme tool for your gaming needs. Each key has a good 4mm travel distance for accuracy and superior typing while offering up to 60 million keystrokes lifespan. V700 as a wired keyboard, the last of your worries would be its cable management, while most keyboard brands usually never give options of modular cables, RAPOO has offered a detachable (user-replaceable) cable to ensure your product lasts even longer. It features a standard USB Type-A to Mini USB cable so you can replace it for length or damage, at will.
n Pricing and Availability: The NETGEAR ORBI RBK352 Wi-Fi 6 Mesh System (AX1800) is available in India through various e-commerce platforms, through authorized NETGEAR store at a discounted price of INR 18,199/-.
n Pricing and Availability: The RAPOO V700 RGB Gaming Mechanical Keyboard is available on most of the online as well as Offline stores across the country including on Amazon.in for a price of Rs 4,999/- with a limited replacement warranty for the long 2-years period.
NETGEAR
NETGEAR NIGHTHAWK RAXE300 TRI-BAND ROUTER The pandemic has irreversibly accelerated the world’s dependence on WiFi as working, learning and video streaming from home has continued to place unprecedented demands on home WiFi networks. Devices in these ultra-connected households have been in a constant contest for bandwidth on crowded WiFi networks, stressing the need for the new, clean 6Ghz band. NETGEAR’s WiFi 6E offering helps to resolve these congestion issues by adding the previously unavailable 6GHz WiFi spectrum that can be used as an express lane to connect more devices with faster speeds and reliability. n Key Features: • WiFi 6E from the WiFi Leader — Future-proof, cutting-edge WiFi 6E expands WiFi speed, capacity, and bandwidth by up to 200% over WiFi 5. • ● Exclusive NETGEAR Engineering & 6 Pre-optimized Antennas — Get unmatched signal strength, coverage, and performance from NETGEAR’s proprietary WiFi optimization and six antennas hidden within the RAXE300’s wings.
62 SME CHANNELS JANUARY 2022
n Pricing and Availability NETGEAR Nighthawk RAXE300 Tri-band WiFi 6E router will be available within the first quarter of 2022 from companies official website and other resellers at an MSRP of $399.99. NETGEAR Orbi 5G WiFi 6 Mesh System (NBK752) – 2 pack, $1,099.99 MSRP and will be available through the company’s official website.
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