ADC Krone: Getting The Channel On Its Side

ADC Krone is expanding its channel base in the country. The company, which is

on an aggressive growth path, is banking on channels for its success in the

market. It began reaching out to the enterprise channel only last year. While

earlier it was selling directly to the telecom carriers, it is now seeing the

benefit of taking the channel route. The company recently held a series of

channel engagement seminars during which it went all out to educate its partners

on its products and go-to-market strategies. And it promises that the channel

can expect a lot more from the company over time.

“This year, our channel base would be increased from the present 250 to 300

and both, metro and upcountry would be our focus in the current channel drive,”

said Sony Bhandwalkar, Marketing Manager, ADC Krone.

The company recently bagged a major campus networking order from TCS, for its

facility in Siruseri, Chennai. This campus would house over 30,000 people and is

the second largest facility of its kind, after the one owned by Microsoft in

Seattle. ADC Krone conducted a seven-city roadshow across the country to educate

its channel partners on its latest offering and trends in the industry.

Betting on IP convergence



With the emergence of IP convergence, ADC Krone is betting big on its

structured cabling solutions and sees a huge opportunity in the market. The

company is targeting IT, ITeS, BPO, education, BFSI, defense, government and

manufacturing sectors, among others. It is especially gung-ho about the latent

opportunities in datacenters.

At the channel event in Chennai, Bhandalkar pointed out, “The datacenter

market is growing exponentially and companies need more robust solutions. Though

cabling constitutes only two percent of the total IT spend/budget in the

company.”

Dilip Kumar, Product Manager, ADC Krone, giving a presentation to channel partners during the event held in Kolkata

Participating partners had varied queries regarding the products from ADC

Krone and also ways by which they can better implement and manage their customer

datacenter and LAN networks. However, most partners shared a consensus on the

fact that to a large extent ADC Krone products were cost-effective and had an

edge over competitions.

Better understanding



Speaking to DQChannels, Debashis Mallik of Netwings, one of the participants

during the Kolkata roadshow said, “The presentation helped us to brush up our

knowledge base. It helped us to learn more about latest products and solutions

available with the ADC portfolio.”

Navin Jacob Mathew, Sales Director, Enterprise Networks India, Krone

Communication said that the main objective of the roadshow was to understand the

channels expectations from ADC and then to fulfill. He stated, “What partners do

is that they convince customers to go for certain solutions depending on their

budget. Whereas networking infrastructure is a one-time investment where quality

and not price should be given priority. Through this workshop, we are trying to

educate our partners about the importance of providing best solution that gives

contentment to customers in real sense.”

Kumar giving a demo of the products to channel partners in Bangalore

One of the attending partners appreciating this gesture from ADC said, “This

is the first time that ADC Krone is interacting with partners on an extensive

scale. It gives us a sense of importance when a vendor comes to partners

directly and exchanges projects and plans. Moreover, it also gives us an

opportunity to know about the company with which we are dealing. We are

expecting such workshops to be organized regularly.”

Getting technical



Focused training on technical areas, segmented technical sessions, more

knowledge on technology aspects and participant-tailored language were some of

the suggestions that trickled down from channel participants at the ADC Krone

meet in Pune.

Balaji Iyer, a system integrator , felt that the language and presentation

mode at the event was very high-end which did not suit a majority of

participants who were from lower tiers. “That explains why there were no

questions from the audience. They were stifled at the perceived gap and thought

it would be dumb to ask questions from people who stand on a much higher

pedestal. And even if they asked, they could have been given some jargon-packed

answers,” he complained.

Another participant, Vijaykumar Kothalikar from Avi Electronics and Networks

found the topic of intelligent networking very interesting besides the other

sessions that he felt were informative as well.

On the business side however, Kothalikar remarked that the company has to

shorten its delivery period. “At times, opportunities are built but



lost and shifted to another brand when a panic situation sets up. While
technologically, ADC could be better, but given the pressing project times, one

has to go to D-Link where availability is not an issue. ADC Krone misses out on

the link between active delivery and order placements,” he noted.

In a presentation given by Neeraj Lijhara, National Channel Manager, ADC

Krone, the channel in Mumbai were informed about the three training programs

that the vendor is currently pursuing, viz, master installation training,

physical layer management training, and datacenter training. partners would be

awarded a certificate on successful completion of ADC Krone training program.

Bhandwalkar from ADC Krone was upbeat about further channel expansions in

India. “The year 2007 has a expansion focus for us. We would dig deeper in the

channel breadth and depth with more A and B-class cities,” she claimed.

Inputs from Amrita Tejasvi,



S Gopikrishna, Piyali Guha, Pratima Harigunani, Subbalakshmi BM