Becky Ho, GM - APAC, Brand Business Unit of Accton Technology, talks about India plans
What opportunities lie for you in the Indian market?
Ho: SMC Networks, a subsidiary of Accton Technology, has been recognized as a strong player in the Indian networking landscape for over a decade bringing to market a host of affordable, high-performance products. The revenue ratio of enterprise and SMB and SOHO hovers around 60:40 in India, which we intend to touch 70:30 by the end of the year. We are confident to increase our footprint slowly but surely with good solution providers and a sound channel strategy.
What’s your strategy for the Indian market?
Ho: The SMC brand will focus on the SMB market through its distributor, Sapphire Microsystems. Our hundred plus partner army including VARs, resellers, and systems integrators (SIs) are engaged in dealing with verticals like government, BFSI, media, etc. The SMB-savvy partners are always on our priority list. We are now aggressively positioning Edge-Core for the enterprise customers.
How would you position Edge-Core brand in the competitive Indian market?
Ho: Edge-Core offers high value-added enterprise networking products including managed switch solutions, wireless products, metro access, and VoIP solutions. Establishing a strong brand is essential to build a robust customer base. Edge-Core is positioned to provide tier-1 certificated products that leverage the differentiation from other competitors in the market, resonate with potential clients in order to build brand awareness, and further increase their brand loyalty.
How do you plan to sell Edge-Core products?
Ho: Enterprise networking products need specialized partners who can add value to offer a differentiating factor. We intend to have separate channels for both SMC and Edge-Core, to ensure exclusive market opportunities and renewed focus for partners.
We are aggressively looking for potential Enterprise partners with detailed networking expertise, excellent customer base, and long-term commitment for Edge-Core products. Targeting enterprises and ISPs, Edge-Core provides integrated service platform linked up with new technologies, thereby offering more flexible and user-friendly products for channel partners.
With an extended portfolio under SMC and Edge-Core brands, how are you ramping up India operations?
Ho: We will add another national distributor with extensive branch office networks across India. This will enable both the brands to penetrate the markets. We will appoint regional distributors to extend our product range to all market segments and geographic regions.
Do you intend to sell directly to emerging segment of ISPs and Telcos?
Ho: Being a 100 percent channel company, our team indulges in customer engagement due to massive size and requirements by ISPs. However, the order execution happens through our partners. ISPs and Telcos are our key focus areas primarily because of our extensive range of products including 3G routers, chassis switches, and others. With Internet being on every PC enthusiast’s list, partners should foster their relationships with ISPs. With telcos extending their bouquet of services around 3G, wireless ADSL routers will continue climbing in popularity. The 1-Port ADSL2/2+ wireless router is a highly integrated residential broadband access device that combines the function of ADSL modem and wireless G access point ensuring interoperability with ISP’s network infrastructure. We are in talks with many ISPs to bundle this product with their broadband offering.
With resellers transitioning out of the box-pushing model, how can the systems integrator community deliver market differentiation?
Ho: With over 50 percent of our channel base consisting of SIs and network integrators, we expect to add more solution partners in the future. Partners need to explain and convince multiple benefits, faster ROI, and extended scalability of a product rather than just a competitive price point. Promoting the multi-functionalities of a product act as an ideal solution for the cost-conscious SMB segment.
What are your focus products in India? Why?
Ho: 10G networking gear will witness increased demand across enterprises, campuses, and data centers. WiMax is expected to gain more maturity over the next 12-18 months. Our Edge-Core WiMax provides operators an ideal solution for offering high bandwidth services to evolve their networks to industry standard solutions with improved CPE environment.
http://www.channelworld.in/interview/index.jsp/artId=7208985 |
