IT Companies Provide Support to the Channels Networks

With  the Corona Virus outbreak and the related lockdowns across the world, especially India taking strict measures which broke the supply chain, the IT channels community has suffered a setback in their business. Many IT vendors have come forward to provide a support system for the channel networks.

The efforts include providing easy to use platforms, conferencing access, training and security measures for the channels. Different IT vendors have followed different routes to realise these goals.

Being a software and cloud solution organisation, we at Crayon are extending all help possible to our business networks. We are making representations to the largest software publishers to review the terms of our contracts with them and help businesses by financial concessions during prolonged lockdown. We are making entire gamut of our services around software and cloud available to our customers at attractive techno commercial value propositions. As the workforces are being disrupted, we are helping organisations quickly adopt new working models, by connecting employees and providing special access to solutions that maintain productivity and ensure business continuity. We have created an environment in the cloud where customers can host their desktops and continue working as usual. We have stepped up our capacity to address customers' need to reduce costs by optimising their infrastructure on premise or on the cloud and come up with better investment planning. On the account of this service our customers are seeing a dramatic shift in their cost.   I strongly believe, people, businesses and government need to work together to overcome this tough medical and economic emergency. Let's pledge to maintain social distancing and stay safe," said   Vikas Bhonsle,CEO at CrayonSoftware Experts India.

IT Companies have rapidly pivoted and focused efforts towards digital solutions that promote business continuity through online/virtual touch-points and experiences.  These span web-sessions, VPN, video conferencing, etc., as the basic lattice. Many have quickly packaged their software into downloadable, trial or subscription versions. This makes it easy for Channels to fulfill a customer request online rather wait for a person or demo to be sent (after the curfew) is over. Many have also nimbly switched to Cloud based subscriptions making it easier for customers to get on-board without having to wait. On the hardware front many companies have quickly offered certain business essentials on rental. Items like laptops, routers, printers and other essential are easily available on rent, thus ensuring that the workforce is fully equipped to work from distant locations. Essentially IT companies have slowly been creating the Digital Normal.

"For us at Everest IMS this is a two-pronged system where our product suite allows businesses to maintain a high level of continuity through 1 - ensuring that their own backend infrastructure is up and running, and 2 - that they are able to engage with customers and stakeholders on a continuous basis. These two crucial factors are paramount to keeping the show running and we are confident of supporting the channel community strongly on these fronts," said   Satish Kumar V, CEO, Everest IMS Technologies.

The key to success at work from home now lies in prioritising communication. Therefore, many IT companies believe in handpicking the channel partners and giving them personalised training.  This developes the channels  to be the facilitators for this digital transformation. The focal point is to engage with highly skilled selected partners who can communicate and influence the customers.

"Business Intelligence has helped us optimise our work and focus on productive trends. Array's channel program is devised to select partners and continuously trains them on leading-edge solutions. Recently we offered our full-fledged support towards enabling corporate workforce to work from home (WFH) amid the Corona Virus threats by offering complimentary Virtual Secure Access Gateway (vxAG) and Direct Desktop Business Continuity Planning license for 30 days to all enterprises who securely wished to plan work from home for their employees.  Our mantra is to work with handpicked channel partners, train them and help them create build sustainable and profitable business models. Our strategy is to empower our partners by offering industry-relevant solutions that partners can successfully leverage in the Indian market," said   Shibu Paul, VP, International Sales at Array Networks.

"R&M supports the channel ecosystem with quality products for the creation of high-performance infrastructures in these trying times. Conducting Partner programs help us to enrich our channel partners with the knowledge of new products and updates done for the existing products. This helps us to collect feedback from the customers and have a clear understanding of market demands. Considering the current and future scenarios of the Indian market, we design effective partner programs that not only help us to increase our business figures but also accelerate the growth of our channel partners," said   Murugesan R, Senior Director, Sales,    Private Networks,    R&M.

Connectivity is the top priority and that there is no digitisation without cables, connectors, distributors and racks. The demand for bandwidth shall continue to increase in local data networks. To be prepared for the upcoming traffic, data centre professionals must now plan to support increased bandwidth by implementing optical fibre that enables simplified network transformation.