'We expect our partners to offer solutions over the products'

Rajesh Gupta has been associated with the IT industry
for 18 years and has been working with Intel for the past 10 years. He was part
of Intel when it began operations in India and his first role was esta­blishing
the Genuine Intel Dealer (GID) program besi­des managing OEM sales. After
dabbling with business development, technical sales and support roles, he is now
involved in propelling channel sales at Intel India.

As Director Sales-Channels, what is your immediate
agenda?

My top priority is to fami­liarize the channel commu­nity with the
changing business environment and help them adopt a usage model-based solutions
sel­ling approach. I intend to increase our channel's reach across the
country and get partners to become suc­ces­sful in the mobile business.

What strategy would you adopt to enhance the cha­nnel
reach nationally? How do you plan to push sales through partners?

We will extend our activities to more partners across more cities in the
country. In cities that we have not ventured in, we will conduct a host of
activities. This would involve training, providing sales collaterals,
merchandising and demand generation to ensure that partners are successful in
providing the right solutions for their customers.

Elaborate on the usage model and solutions selling approach
that you want partners to adopt.

One to one

Rajesh Gupta, Director, Intel, South Asia

We want the channel to understand the needs of their
customers better and accordingly provide them with relevant solutions. One such
example could be a digital home solution for a household, with a variety of
computing and entertain­ment needs.

Similarly on the server front, we need partners to adopt
specific solutions for select segments and offer the relevant solutions. We need
to get more applications that have been tested and tuned with Intel platforms to
our partners, along with its complete documentation and support model.

You are also aiming at making the channel suc­cessful
in the mobile busi­ness. How do you endeavor to achieve this?

Currently, consistent availa­bility of mobile building blocks from OEMs is
one of the key challenges for most partners. We will identify some options in
this respect. Next, they need to recognize that price is not the key
consideration for customers, especially when it comes to mobile computers.

We need to identify select segments for our partners and
think about solutions, support and overall value. They need to invest in crea­ting
service and support capability that can be multi­plied. One of the options is
that the partners could work collectively as a unit to deliver support.

An Intel Premier Partner provides technical support to the
customer on the channel dealer's behalf in a particular location, and they
have a money exchange agreement between them. Intel can help facilitate the
same.

What are your expecta­tions from partners?

Our partners are our extensions to reach end users. We therefore expect them
to be ready to provide the required, relevant solutions to the users. We would
also expect them to offer value over price, solutions over the products and back
it up with good support to the customers.

Can you give a brief on the new programs and initia­tives
that Intel would want to initiate for its partners in the future?

We would like channels to be able to offer solutions to the huge SME segment
in the country. In order to help them do that, we have a new initiative called
'SMB In A Box'. This provides our dealers with a 'Do it yourself kit' to
offer the solution for a select SMB segment. This program is tied with SIDBI
finance options.

What are the biggest challenges in 2006 that you foresee
as far as channels are concerned? How do you plan to tackle them?

Our biggest learnings in 2005 have been that custo­mers today demand solu­tions
rather than mere boxes. So the channel will have to gear up to provide customers
with complete solutions rather than merely selling boxes. Another chal­lenge
that we see is the need for the channel to pep customers about mobility devices,
especially laptops. This is because there has been and will continue to be a
growing demand for laptops.

To counter both these challenges, Intel meets part­ners
and devises programs to train them. We intend to develop selling strategies so
that our chan­nel can meet the growing challenges in the changing market.

Among other things that we need to work on in 2006 is
increase our reach geogra­phically into many smaller cities where Intel is not
directly present. By doing that, we would not only increase our visibility in
smaller towns, but also give our distributors present there an opportunity to do
better business.

What is your take on your competitor AMD stealing a
march and increasing its market share in the country?

We are aware that AMD has increased its market share in the market, especi­ally
since its launch of new consumer products for the enterprise segment. We believe
that AMD is in a stage of growth and as we see it, the market is big enough for
both of us to survive. We still believe we have a greater share in the market
and we would ensure that we contribute substan­tially to ensure that the Indian
market continues to grow

by 30 percent like it has been so far.

BM Subbalakshmi

(subbalakshmibm@cybermedia.co.in)