EMC emerging as a cloud integrator company

In its journey towards cloud, the company has not only consolidated its channels organization but is also going to work very closely with 65 focused partners.
Riding high on its 11th year success globally, EMC is looking to work and grow on a scalable model in the Indian market. Till last financial year, the company used to have 140 accounts that were addressed by its team directly in terms of engaging and evangelizing. But starting this fiscal, it has brought down the list to 51 accounts and put its technical resources behind partners to enable them.

Speaking to The DQ Week, Rajesh Janey, president, EMC India and Saarc, said, "We have now marketing engine aligned behind channel and demand generation. We have also segregated our internal team, who is going to work with a focused set of partners allotted to them, in order to make those partners successful. Their job would be to make the partners meet their goals."

"In order to achieve this, we have created the role of volume team leader to deal with the volume segment. The leader's job will be to work with the marketing and inside sales team, identify the partners, and orchestrate the entire ecosystem so that the business through partners keeps coming. He will work to ensure that the partners are successful. This will allow us to work on a scalable model in the future," added Janey.

Today EMC has close to 200 plus partners in the country. And out of these partners, it has identified those who are ready to come with the company and invest in terms of people (pre-sales and sales) and willing to engage with it on a long-term basis. Now, the company has a larger list of focused partners who are being helped by the company's sales team in order to help them sale better.

"To summarize, we have partner-friendly products, created a role of partner technical consultant (PTC) and volume-specific team, and a marketing engine behind it," asserted Janey.

"Additionally, customers are increasingly looking at cloud as well as Big Data. It is a transformational journey and not just a switch undertaken by the customer. In this journey, customers take multiple steps, wherein each step is supported by storage technologies, backup services, DR, security solutions, analytical solutions, etc. From a pure play storage company, we have evolved as a cloud integrator company. This has been possible because we have built a portfolio of products. Here, our objective is to take this portfolio to partners because they can be relevant to the customers," pointed Janey.

In its journey towards cloud, the company is going to work very closely with 65 out of 200 partners who have agreed to partner with EMC on its cloud journey. Here, the company wants its focused partners to become one-point contact for customers.

"Based on this, we have also consolidated our channels organization. We have a channel manager in the country, who has a team working with tier-1 as well as distribution partners. Then there is a specialized team which will work with the partners of both Icelon and data domain. We also have a 'Volume Team' who is going across all these partners and identifying ways to help them sell in a better way," highlighted Janey.

Meanwhile, in terms of vertical industries, EMC is focusing on the government as well as Indian banking and financial service sectors. Apparently, it has recently won the first public sector core banking deal. From the solutions side, the thrust will be on Cloud, Hadoop, and video surveillance. Apparently, EMC sees video surveillance as a big and emerging market in the country.

Additionally, EMC has entered into a strategic relationship with Redington India's wholly-owned subsidiary, Cadensworth. Under this strategic move, Cadensworth will sell EMC information infrastructure technology and may sell complementary and non-competing product lines, solutions, and services.