Exclusive interview: Anshuman Rai, Area Vice President, Commvault

The evolvement of the role of partner models has been drastic over recent years. From focusing on resale, margins and collecting upfront revenue, the technological advancements in the service-based industry have forced them to up their game to exhibit flexibility, responsiveness and provide modern technological solutions. Businesses in turn must ensure to realign their partner strategy by thinking beyond linear sales distribution and looking at adding value to the company. In an exclusive interview with DQ Channels, Anshuman Rai, Area Vice President, India & South Asia, Commvault deep-dived on  Commvault’s focus areas, GTM strategy for the India, technology trends and Key partnership in 2021. 

Please give an overview of Commvault’s focus areas, achievements, and key partnerships in 2021.

With a legacy of over 25 years in the industry, Commvault has addressed the burgeoning data management issues through its unified platform - delivering data readiness and enabling customers to intelligently manage their data with solutions that store, protect, optimize, and use it effectively. We are a channel-led- organization, partnering and co-selling our industry-leading solutions with over 7,000 channel partners globally.

Commvault is committed to improving our customers’ data management journey and unlocking the potential of data by offering them simplicity and flexibility through software subscription, integrated appliance, partner-managed and SaaS. We are witnessing record-breaking business growth both locally and globally, which has contributed to attracting and retaining more customers. We cater to a broad spectrum of industry segments including healthcare, BFSI, government and PSUs, retail, and education to name a few.

We have a long-standing OEM partnership with HPE, Hitachi and Netapp, among others. Cloud service providers like TCL, NTT, Sify Technologies, Yotta Infrastructure Solutions, provide a strong go-to-market motion to us. One example of our strong partnership is Yotta Safe, from Yotta, a service that provides endpoint backup as a service to its customers with unlimited storage.

How has the relationship between vendor, customer and channel been redefined in the new era? How has Commvault supported its partners during the pandemic?

The pandemic has architectured a new era for businesses that have bolstered the massive shift towards digitisation to ensure business continuity. It has redefined the pre-set norms of business operations and unlocked unconventional ways of staying connected.

As a partner focused organization, Commvault is determined to provide our channel ecosystem with unparalleled programs and solutions that will help them transform their businesses and enhance their core offerings. Nurturing and evolving our strong partner ecosystem is critical to everything we do at Commvault, and a key priority for us. The key objective for us is to make it easier and more beneficial for them to do business with Commvault and we will continue to innovate our program as per their evolving needs.

This year we are using a three-pronged approach (3Ts) to ensure our plan of business continuity and partner growth – Tailored, Transparent, and Trustworthy.

• We provide our channel partners with a Tailored program that includes a series of incentives, awards, profits and other prizes to support and appreciate our partners’ success through increased relevance and profitability
• We also maintain Transparency in all our partner activities to ensure consistent delivery of innovative data management software solutions that change how customers see, exploit and share their data
• We continue to invest in building a Trustworthy pipeline of partners. We review their performance and growth and are constantly innovating and evolving this program to exceed the needs of our channel partners

Additionally, we have launched a series of partner-focused programs under our new training modules like Commvault Professional certification, MSP Solutions Training, MSP Operations Staff Training, and Core Enablement for MSP among others. The Partner Advantage Program ensures a healthy and profitable channel to aid them in sourcing and closing news transactions. We have also extended adequate financial support via credit line and credit payment extension for partners in need.

What is Commvault’s channel GTM strategy for the India and APAC market in the next 12-18 months?

 From the economic perspective, despite contraction last year, global organizations such as Consequently, the spectrum of industries that rely on Commvault is large. Today, more than 1 00,000 organizations ranging from small to large enterprises, trust Commvault to overcome their data hurdles and grow their business with industry-leading intelligent data services. We continue to remain optimistic about the channel market growth as they form the core of our go-to-market strategy and the health of our partner ecosystem is an integral part of our success as we build on our partnership momentum to extend top quality services to our customers. Our key strategy is to optimize our go-to-market motion to land new deals and expand our footprint with existing customers across government, banking and financial services, healthcare and manufacturing sectors.

The choice of ‘pay-as-you-go’ options for software licensing or more long-term purchases with higher discounts has been extended to our channel ecosystem. Commvault’s Partner Advantage Program will be amplified further by our latest go-to-market strategy and technical enablement initiatives designed to further energize our partners, specifically MSPs and aggregators.

Which are the 2021 technology trends that will redefine the channel strategy?

The pandemic has cemented technology at the core of every organization shifting the extension of their core data center security, governance, and other analytics services to the cloud.  As remote working continues to remain dominant in this new era of work culture, Intelligent Endpoint Data Management is of critical importance for the IT industry. Therefore, we will see more companies deploying solutions that allow them to intelligently protect, govern, and manage the data on their employee’s laptops and other endpoints.

Dark data is that unexplored goldmine with the insights that will pave the way for innovations and help chart new paths to the future.