Exclusive Interview: Suresh Kewelramani, Director-Sales, EverestIMS Technologies

EverestIMS Technologies Pvt. Ltd. (Everest) is a software product company. The company was founded by a group of technocrats who Indian have been working with each other for over 14 years and have a combined experience of close to 100+ years in the I&O scape.  In a candid interaction with DQ Channels, Suresh Kewelramani, Director - Sales, EverestIMS Technologies has given the spot light on new their new developments, Channel strategies, various programs and schemes for their partners.

What are the different product portfolios EverestIMS have?

EverestIMS believes in making innovative and technology rich solutions to address the emerging requirements of new generation customers. At the same time, mould the existing products with superior tech practices to provide top-class end user experience to all our clients.

Currently, we have 4 distinct products under our product portfolio.

• Everest IMS - A true unified monitoring and management systems for heterogeneous digital infrastructure system spread across multiple locations.
• Everest Service Manager – An ITILv3 based Service Management tool which automates and simplifies the business processes & service delivery
• Everest IoTMS - A unified and highly scalable platform for securely on-boarding, monitoring and managing IoT systems.
• Everest NCCM – A part of EverestIMS suite which automates the configuration and change management of any network infrastructure

What are the recent developments that have been done in the organization?

As the part of new financial year 2019, we have taken a decision to re-think our go-to-market strategy and implement a vertical based approach. Until last year we were following a geographic based approached with different teams which manages North and West, South and East regions respectively.  Whether it was government requirement, BFSI or enterprise customer requirement, respective regional team would address and manage the business accordingly.

But for this FY, we have verticalized our go-to-market strategy into three distinct verticals, i.e.,

• Government
• Enterprise & BFSI
• Commercial Business

Highly skilled teams are assigned respectively and they console the business internationally.

We have a National Resource who monitors and leads the entire business. Channel partners have a great role in our redefined go-to-market structure. Our partners have an advantage of working with any customer irrespective of the vertical and the commercial business vertical is totally run by channel partners itself.

How many channel partners does EverestIMS have?

Year 2018 was a productive year for EverestIMS in exploring the channel partners across various regions.  We have successfully done a lot of outreach programs to increase our channel partners. We have also introduced our ‘Everest Partner Program’ (EPP) and received a phenomenal response across the geography. At present, we have a good base of 200 partners onboard with EverestIMS which includes resellers, system integrators and channel sales partners.

Currently we are in the consolidation process and identifying the top partners across all the verticals to have a strategic partner base of 40 – 45 across India.

Any specific programs that are offered to your partners by EverestIMS?

We offer well- structured and robust training programs toour partners. We have both sales and pre-sales training with multiple levels that a partner can go through, starts from beginner and goes up till advanced stages. With our flagship ‘Everest Partner Program’ (EPP), partners are also certified as Everest sales or pre-sales specialist.

These programs are held frequently across various locations to keep our partners updated on the latest market changes and emerging customer requirements. We conduct 2-3 training sessions in a quarter on regular basis. Recently we successfully finished partner training programs in Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Hyderabad.

Which product of EverestIMS has maximum traction in the market?

EverestIMS is spread across all the major verticals such as telecom, BFSI, IT/ITeS healthcare, government etc. We believe maximum traction also depends on the nature of the business of respective verticals.

For EverestIMS, we see a lot of traction for Everest NCCM product in BFSI sector. Today, the customers are looking to automate their IT infrastructure and this is helping us to spike the opportunities for Everest IMS and Everest Service Manager. Enterprise and commercial space have a good balance between our IMS and Service Manager products.

Over all the traction of Everest products in the market is Everest IMS: Everest NCCM: Everest Service Manager is 50:30:20. IMS still happens to be our run rate business product and continuities to dominate our revenue share.

Any specific schemes and offers to your channel partners you have planned?

As a part of EPP, we run two different programs parallel for our partner ecosystem.

One – the ‘Backend rebate Program’. Any partner who has a quota at EverestIMS is eligible for backend rebate, provided they hit the targets. These rebates are typically announced once a year and depending upon the partner achievements, the rebates are paid out. Basically, these are between 3% to 7%. (Number keep changing every FY)

Second – is incentivizing the individual in the partner organization who is actually putting his efforts and bringing opportunities to Everest. These incentives are announced quarterly depending upon the regions and verticals they work in.

How do you backup your channel partners when they go and pitch your solutions to the customers?

We have strong training programs for our partners and the training provided by EverestIMS itself empowers our partners with confidence to pitch our products and find out if there is a requirement of EverestIMS products in the customer environment.

In terms of partner backing up, we have a channel manager who will be the sole point of contact for our partners and will be helping them right from the moment the opportunity is explored to the time the business is closed.

 Any plans of expansion of your geographical presence?

We are in the final stage of signing up a distributor in the Middle East. Coming to South East Asian markets, we are currently in talks with couple of local distributors. Thus, there are plans in place in terms of what we are doing internationally.

We have recently signed up a distributor in Qatar and also planning to sign up a new distributor in UAE. Singapore will be taking shape soon which will cover the rest of the South East Asian market.

What are your future plans?

Our future plans will be focusing on three major areas of our business. We will consolidate the channel partners in India and train them. We look forward to expand our brand visibility outside of India especially in Middle East and South East Asian markets. Also, we are planning to implement a plug and play sort of a software tool for our commercial channel partners by which partners doesn’t require any intervention post sales.