Can you detail about market adjacencies specifically in the Indian
context?
John Chambers identified around 30 market adjacencies or markets close to
where Cisco currently operates. From an Indian perspective, smart connected
communities are a type of market adjacency where we look to be active. With
infrastructure development going on and given the rate of urbanization, Cisco
can play a role in providing IP or the network. We have products which can take
feeds from various management systems which can in-turn monitor and control
them. The other area is that of physical security where we are seeing a strong
push from government and corporates.
Give us some details on your role in the datacenter virtualization
segment.
According to IDC estimates, the datacenter virtualization market in India is
around $2.2 billion. At Cisco, we use the network as a platform to drive
virtualization of datacenters. We have collaborated with VMware, NetApp and EMC
to provide the unified collaborative systems' platform, which encompasses
everything from server to storage virtualization. We launched the B- and
C-Series servers as a part of our virtualization basket. The B-series is being
sold by the ATP UCS partners. While the C-series is distributed to the mass
market through our tier-2 partners. The B-series consists of the blade chassis
servers which is an entire system on its own, while the C series is a standalone
rackmount server.
What are the challenges you face in the market?
From the stand point of infrastructure, availability of network bandwidth is
still a challenge though we know that government has been investing to upgrade
the same. With the advent of 3G, 4G, WiMAX and Wi-Fi the reality of overcoming
this hurdle will happen in the near term. On the other hand, it is more about
whether they want to go ahead with buying the technology.
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B Raghavendran, VP-Channels & Commercial Strategy, Cisco |
What are the channel programs you have in place?
Some of the programs we have in place for our partners include our umbrella
program-Navigate to Accelerate., Most importantly we have invested significantly
in data modeling and other agency services to increase market intelligence and
understanding. We have a financing arm called Cisco Capital. We also offer
lifetime warranty of five years on our case two and case three products in the
switches product line.
For our distribution partners, we have two focused programs. One is called
the Distribution Partner Enablement program. The second is the program for
Distribution Accelerated Partners.One interesting knowÂledge sharing initiative
is our SMB university. This is a fully-funded sales training on a Web 2.0
platform which happens on a continuous basis through a training initiative
focuses on SMB select partner sales people.
We also have a Network On Wheels (NOW) bus going around tier-2, tier-3 cities
where it can be difficult to setup demo centers.
Can you throw a bit of light on Cisco's channel landscape?
Our channel landscape consists of strategic alliance partners, which are
typically the large SIs, distributors and disti led partners under the following
three levels: registered, select and premier andfour distributors in Ingram,
Redington, Compuage and Westcon Comstor with whom we have recently tied up.
Share a little more on the tie-up with Westcon Comstor.
We have signed up with Comstor as a value added distributor and they will
sell our advanced technology portfolio, which focuses on solutions around
virtualization, collaboration and the security suite. There are two major
reasons why we signed them. One is that we share a global relationship with them
and so this is an extension of the same for the Indian market. Secondly when we
looked at the Indian market, we realized that we needed a value added
distributor for the market we operate in. Comstor has a strong base of around
900 to 1000 partners and their key strength comes from their understanding of
technology and the ability to drive distribution of technology products. They
have the requisite experience in technology distribution.
John jacob
johnj@cybermedia.co.in