What is the specialty in your offerings?
This security markets looks at 24x7 support, which is our unique selling
proposition. We have got support system in form of telephonic, chat and e-mail.
We are empowering our resellers from last three years on a continuous basis
every month at all our offices. All our retailers are invited and trained about
products and security issues and its implementation. On any development we have
continuous communication with them, so they are able to provide real time
support to clients also.
Customization has always been a specialty of MicroWorld. The resellers have
to feel the need of depending on their clientele and the level of security that
they should provide to their customers, to gain their confidence, this will
benefit them also.
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Anil Gupta,
National Head-Sales, MicroWorld, wants to establish the company's
presence in India and has started with various marketing initiatives.
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What are the marketing initiatives you plan to take for the channels?
Currently, the company has eight regional distributors, 130 sub-distributors
and 75 system integrators. We are looking at doubling this number by the end of
the year. We will be holding a 20-city roadshow covering B and C-class cities
like Jaipur, Ahmadabad, etc. It will be an awareness program, for the resellers
that will bring us near to end customers. The roadshow program has already
started in September and will be completed within 45 days.
How will the initiatives help the company's growth?
Through roadshows we are planning to bring out specialists who can provide
security risk management for SME and SMB clients. We are looking at these
specialists who can assess security risks and provide services to their clients
with our expertise in a customized manner and not as a package. We want to
create security risk managers, or consultants.
It is very unusual for a homegrown anti-virus or security company to focus
outside India. Why did MicroWorld take that approach?
We have several overseas offices in Germany, South Africa, USA, Malaysia and
Saudi Arabia. When we started in the security industry in India in 1994, even
PCs were not rampant. A few large organizations had mainframe computers and the
common man was not using the PC in those days. There were a few corporate who
would buy operating system as licensed copy, but anything other than that has to
be a pirated one. So in 1999 we tied up with US-based Deerfield.com and went
international with our product 'Mail Scan'. In those days the Internet
connectivity used to be very slow. People were not interested in anti-virus
because freeware were available across the Internet.
What are opportunities that you look at in the industry?
According to the IDC report, which was published in March, eight million PCs
will be sold in India this year. We are targeting these new customers for the
PCs and are confident that there is a lot of potential for the channel to engage
with them without eating into each other's territories.
DQC News Bureau