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A web of tiers and levels

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DQW Bureau
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One of the leaders in the space of virtualization and cloud solutions, NetApp India had revised its original marketing strategy of direct customer dealings, to cater to the demands of the market as well as the system integration space. The advent of NetApp in India occurred in June 2000 with an initial focus on direct marketing strategy; however, understanding the momentum of the Indian market, the company soon revised its plans and entered the channel space. Since then, the company has been one of the few players, who focus on quality partners with area-based concentration rather than appointing channel partners at a random pace. NetApp India's revenue is 100 percent channel-oriented, although the units in the rest of APAC, including Australia, INEA and USA division has a mixed pattern of distribution and revenue generation.

The company opted to go for the channel strategy primarily on account of two reasons:

In the first place, NetApp wanted to have a pan-India presence, catering to both the metros as well as the upcountry markets. As a large area presence amounts to an equal potential to tap the consumers, appointing channel partners was the best strategy that the company could think of to achieve this goal.
In the second place, the company wanted to reach out to all the consumer verticals. It was not feasible for any company to keep separate divisions according to the verticals that too, when the vertical change in India was happening so fast. Customer behavior has changed overtime and continues to be in flux with separate verticals opting for their own demands.

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In the business unit space, we follow a four layer model of operation. The first layer consists of the system integrators (SI) and our value added resellers. The second layer consists of the global SIs like Wipro, Accenture, TCS, Cognizant; our three national distributors occupy the third layer, which is again sub-categorized to two tiers while Alliance Partners occupies the fourth lattice. Under Alliance Partners (AP) we have three sub-divisions, which are collaborations with Microsoft, Cisco and IBM. This unit is an entirely independent entity on its own. This unit comprises of service provider category and is service oriented in nature rather than product-driven.

In terms of partner rating and focus in the channel space, we have a five tier model in place and our two 'Star Partners' Wipro and Apara are on the top of it. In the second tier we have the 'Gold Partners' followed closely by the 'Silver' and 'Registered Partners', which roughly accounts for about 47 percent of our total partner-base amounting to about 40 channel players.

In the product line and the sales team space, NetApp has, however, not diversified its sales team to different vertical configurations and has kept it simple. On top is the Channel Head (headed by Surajit Sen) followed by three Regional Managers for three zones of operation. North and East India has been clubbed together on account of legacy reasons, while West and South are the other two divisions. We follow the team momentum and hence, at the base are the sales team with various designations who directly deal with our partner-base.

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Telecom, BFSI, government, manufacturing and IT/ITeS segments are our primary areas of focus although we cater to other verticals as well. Virtualisation, cloud computing and back-up and recovery solutions are our primary line of solutions each designed to cater to particular needs of the segments. However, it is in the field of service and training that NetApp has diversified its programs holistically. NetApp Partner Programme (NPP) is the umbrella program for our channel partners under which we run various others in accordance to partner needs and classifications. NPP covers topics from training the technical skills of the partners to business development exercises and related sessions. The company focuses heavily on the sales targets and this criterion besides certifications are the primary criteria for promoting the partners. Under NPP, we run the Goal Attainment Rebate (GAR) scheme, which is totally sales-oriented rewarding partners for sales performance. However, unique to NetApp, we also recognize and reward partners on acquisition of a new customer. Reseller Objective Attainment Rebate (ROAR) is the program we run for our partners based on new additions to our customer base. Besides, we also have the Show Me the Money (SMM) scheme, which runs every quarter across all cities. Also, for our distributors, we run the Distributor Objective Attainment Rebate (DOAR) based on similar lines to ROAR. This scheme is run every quarter.

In the field of certifications, the company has the NetApp Accredited Sales Professional (NASP) program in place, which certifies the company as well as the trainee. Also, we have the Accredited Storage Architect Professional (ASAP) program, which is lab-based training module.

'Get Successful Workshop' is another area of concentration for us as it is about specialization in terms of NetApp solutions. The partner can specialize from a wide range of solutions ranging from enterprise clouds and virtualization to Ethernet storage systems. As far as our focus on service is concerned, we have three levels of partners. The Professional Service Certified Partners (PSCP), (12 in number), are the one's who are into system integration and is able to execute the entire integration process. Registration and certification is compulsory from our end for any of the three levels. In the second place, we have the Support Partners, (six in number) in charge of support service. In the last scale, we have the Contractual Delivery Partners (CDP) where the partner gets the support delivery module (partially outsourced) positioned on similar lines to the Support Partners. Our DOA policy is also clear and is presented to the partner for consent in writing during the contract signing process. On account of any manufacturing defects in the product, we replace it; however, since we do not have stock buffers in place being into the service oriented industry, a maximum turnaround time (TAT) of two weeks is given for offshore shipping.

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In the months to come, NetApp will be primarily focusing on building up a partner leverage system and go for offering certifications. Also, we have plans to have close engagement with our APs, particularly VMware, Microsoft and Cisco. Also, we will shortly be coming up with our presence in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, which will be handled from India.

As told to Avishek Rakshit
(avishekr@cybermedia.co.in)

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