APC outlines plans for channel expansion

APC, the global provider of power management systems, has ambitious plans to
expand on its existing channel base in the country for the year 2004. According
to the company, it hopes to double its SI strength from the present 100 to 200
by the year end.

"This year will also see APC involving itself aggressively in training
its partners. This train-ing will be four-fold–product training, customer
identifica-tion, sizing of requirements and the standard sales train-ing. We
want our channels to be equipped not only on the product front but to
under-stand the type and needs of customers in order to open their eyes to more
oppor-tunities," said Subodh Tagare, Marketing Manager, APC India.

According to him, apart from upscaling the current channel base of over 2,000
partners, the company will be adding part-ners in smaller cities. Replying to a
question on the Indian market, Tagare said, "In terms of absolute revenue
considera-tions, the lower end of the market consisting of the SOHO and SMB
sectors will continue to fetch in the rewards. In per-centage growth terms, the
enterprise segment will notch a larger growth. This is because the enterprise
base is small and any growth will make a big difference. He added that the APC’s
enterprise data center product Infrastructure, which was introduced in the last
mon-ths of 2003, already has three customers on the Indian front.

The company also revealed that two of its soon to be laun-ched products will
hit the mar-ket within the next two weeks and one more on the UPS front will be
brought out within the month.



Sathya Mithra Ashok

Bangalore (CyberMedia News Service)