“Alliance, core business and distribution will be the key focus areas”

How many
partners does Adobe India operate with and what is the distribution
model?

We have
around 70-75 partners, and out of them, 45-50 are managed directly
and the remaining are
operated by distributors. We operate with 2 distributors at
present-Ingram and Redington and these distributors have a network
of partners.

What it
takes to become a certified partner of Adobe India?

It can be
done in 2 ways. Firstly, a partner who wants to transact at Adobe,
goes to the distributor and buys whatever he needs, probably as a
customer. Secondly, any partner who has worked with Adobe for a
longer period of time, we try to classify them with
respect to what they have achieved with us till date, and what is the
confidence
they hold with us. On these basis, we classify them and give
privileges. And then they
use those privileges to get more and more customers.

What are
the new initiatives taken by you at Adobe?

To start
with, we are basically leading the situation in terms of how can we
improve the ecosystem
and how partners were served till now. How can we make them do better
business for us, so that partners can grow, and if partners grow, we
grow eventually.
Secondly, to make the Adobe voice a little louder, we have started to
become more relevant to the country, reach out to a larger population
of customers and have an overall growth of the entire community,
which works with Adobe.

What are
the fresh ideas you want to implement in the channels for growth?

I have a lot
of ideas which I am developing right now and sharing it with my
partners and internal team and getting more feedback on them. In due
course of the business, as usual I will be announcing the fresh ideas
to partners for implementation. We started conducting channel meets
in a grand way to have more impact. Going forward, we will have
bigger changes and that would be the game changer for us. We will
also go to different levels when we launch new programs in the
beginning of the next quarter.

The new
plan is envisioned at 50% growth y-o-y for Adobe. So what channel
strategy do you plan to follow?

It is
actually a key ground plan. One is the setup of core partners. These
partners have to grow faster, as they are the growth engines. Outside
this I need more gears. I am going to have
gears for alliances, who are the large system integrators in the
country, they will do solution selling for me. I will also look to
grow the distribution chart and for this I am
planning to increase the footprint across the country. So, basically
3 things-alliance, core business and distribution, will be the key
focus areas.