Imation upscales partners from trading to tapping vertical segments

NANCY SUDHEER

MUMBAI

Imation Singapore will upscale at least 30 channel partners across the country, which includes wholesalers and dealers, from trading to solution providing in vertical markets. These partners will now cater to the needs of almost 400 data users, which includes LIC, Coke, Pepsi, Maruti, Mckinsey and Infosys. 

Imation has even gone to the extent of changing the organizational structure of these partners, including going through their balance sheets. “We wanted to help our partners to move up the value chain and tap vertical markets, which is huge in India. Storage growth is expected to grow by 47% in the country and its size will be approximately 3,700 terrabytes. Therefore, it was essential that partners tap this growing market,” says Imation Data Storage (India) and Product Manager (Tape), India, SAARC and Indo-China Countries Manager, Ajit
Karunakaran.

The storage vendor also plans to refocus on the personal storage segment, as it will be launching its first flash memory device called Swivel USB 2.0, which will be available in 128MB, 256MB and 512MB. According to the company, pricing will be competitive, with the 512 MB device costing approximately Rs 3,500.

“Imation has a slew of personal storage products, but the Indian market was not ready for it. Now is the time to launch a product, which is mobile and price competitive,” adds Ajit. A year back, there were products like RipGo, FlashGo, which Imation had planned to launch but it didn’t take off.

Imation will also increase its channel network from 190 to 250, to push these personal storage products. This expansion was due in India as even internationally Imation has been investing heavily in other countries.

Ajit adds, “We have been encouraging partners to push entry-level storage like the SLR and DDS (VXA-8mm) where margins are increasing. In DLT, margins are coming down gradually, therefore partners are moving away from it.” 

- CyberMedia News