"Channel partners become virtual team members of HID", says Ranjit Nambiar of HID Global

DQ Channels spoke to Ranjit Nambiar who heads HID Global's India operations, to throw more light on their initiatives on their product lines and channel strategies to hike business

Providing security assistance in IT space

Today, HID's physical access control solutions are coming on in the IT platform. So this is making their solutions very friendly to the IT channel partners and integrators. They are moving away from the conventional security protocols and making it more viable for IT integrators to look at it. This is not specific to HID products only. By and large the security product lines like access control, video surveillance are engaging the IT companies into the security space. "To speak of us, we have a complete portfolio of domain authentication solution, remote authentication solution which predominantly is an IT security product line. So while the physical access solution is not primarily targeted towards the IT yet when you look at active identity solutions, our primary target are the partners in the IT space," says Ranjit Nambiar, Director, IAM, South Asia, HID Global.

Key innovations on the Road Ahead

Looking at IT authentication solutions, HID Global is moving towards cloud based authentication because that is how the market is moving. The firm is also in the process of introducing Near Field Communication (NFC) enablement on the physical access control readers so that users can use NFC enabled smart phones on to same readers.

The word spreaders-Partners and Distributors

HID Global has two different types of partners. One is Global and the other is National distributors whom HID services directly which accounts for the 15 to 20 large companies. Then there is HID Connect partner which is about 5 or 6 of them for different applications. Westcom and ADI are national distributors. Under the national and regional distributors, HID caters to about 15 channel partners. Honeywell, Bosch, Matrix, Spectra, Smarteye are few of the OEM partners.

HID Global's target vertical

HID Global's target market are the enterprise end customers. Within them, the early adopters are expected to be those who are technology savvy like IT, ITes, banks etc. As the adoption increases, the firm is expected to expand its market to other small and medium enterprises as well.

Opportunities to Explore in the Security Space

Unlike the IT service industry which is reaching saturation, the security industry is in a growing stage. "There is immense opportunity in terms of margins and revenue turnover. This industry is also moving towards IP. The biggest advantage of security partner is the synergy of existing solutions with the last solutions which is converging on the IP platform," adds Nambiar.

Importance of awareness to popularize technology amongst channel partners

HID Global undergoes specific end users focused activities. "We think that Seeing is Believing. We have showcased our solutions in forums and conclaves to large enterprises. However, we are focusing on educating our customers over the last one year," adds Nambiar.

Nambiar believes that the convenience of doing this business is simple. The mode of operation in the new products is almost the same as the earlier ones. So the adoption factor happens at ease. However, there might be partners who are not well versed with the older technology but are keen on adopting the new ones. "We are getting a lot of interest from telecom partners who are interested in adopting NFC. In such a case, we have to educate the old and new technology parallely. We have very strong in house training programs that we contribute to do with our partners and end customers in terms of certifications, events, campaigns, focused group discussions, product preview session with our large customers in order to bring up the awareness level quickly," adds Nambiar. The duration of these training programs vary. The certification programs last for two to three days since it involves hands on training, the product previews last for a day. We do not charge anything for conducting these programs as of now.

Training and education is a very important part of HID's business model since the industry in itself is in a growing stage. "Almost 20-30% of partners who do business in one year are coming up with new partners. So the churn continues. Since new partners are coming into the security industry, then you have to continuously train them. For the last five or six years, we have been running our annual training calendar. We cover almost eight to nine cities, about hundred partners per city on an average. On an annual basis, we train around 600 partners," adds Nambiar.

Initiatives in non metro cities

HID Global is fundamentally doing two things in non metro cities. One is it is appointing a lot of regional distributors into these markets. Nambiar commented that going by past experiences, they have seen that the regional distributors have the potential to perform better in the small cities as they are aware of the market, culture etc. whereas the national distributors often miss the demand of these small cities. As for the training program, we are planning to expand them in the Tier II and Tier III cities as well.

Is training a strategy for revenue build up?

Training is fundamentally essential because HID's portfolios and the market technologies are changing. "It is less of a revenue plan for us and more of an enablement plan. Obviously, we do see that when the training program happens, we see lot of new partners showing interest to do business with us which is an incremental addition to our revenue model. Therefore, we are not looking at training programs as a sheer revenue generating model, rather it is looked upon as a value added model," adds Nambiar.

Training is more of a requirement of the market rather than trying to be competitive in the market. "So if we do not do it, it will not help our business. Training is something which anybody can replicate. There is nothing exclusive with respect to HID but training is important from an enabler point of view. The underlining is that it helps us in terms of our business growth, differentiating ourselves, making partners feel more comfortable as they witness HID as a firm which is focusing and investing on training, they know whom to contact in case of a query or technical discussion. In short, it builds the confidence of our partners to invest in HID," opines Nambiar.

HID Global's channel strategy in Tier I, Tier II & Tier III cities

HID Global has a very broad based strategy in terms of channel expansion in Tier I cities. Business happens with 200-250 partners on an average. In Tier II and Tier II cities, the firm takes a more focused channel approach. It looks at partners who have the technical, the organizational, financial capability. "We pick up 5-10 partners , enable them end to end so that they become our virtual team members in those markets," adds Nambiar.

Biggest Market for HID Global

The largest market continues to be Mumbai and Bangalore followed by Delhi, Chennai , Pune, Kolkata and Hyderabad. Even Gujarat is a very potential market due to its infrastructure growth followed by Indore in terms of our investment perspective.

Anushri Mondal

(anushrim@cybermedia.co.in)