HDS cloud will emerge as a market place for compelling cloud offerings

Sriram S, CEO at iValue InfoSolutions talks about the company's assosiation with Hitachi Data Systems and the solutions being offered

Please share an overview of iValue's association with Hitachi Data Systems India and how Hitachi Data Systems has helped your company grow its business?

iValue signed up as first VAD of Hitachi Data Systems during 2008-09. Hitachi Data Systems strong enterprise storage portfolio complemented iValue's offerings on Digital Asset Protection and Data, Network & Application (DNA of every business) areas, helping us effectively address private cloud and datacenter needs across BFSI, ITeS, Telecom and Government verticals. Hitachi Data Systems strong value proposition in the enterprise space has helped iValue grow at 5 times market growth rates consistently over the last 5 years.

Could you please elaborate upon the solution offerings.

Uncertain economic climate has altered priorities for CIO or CTO which now are cost control, optimization of IT infrastructure, driving efficiency, consolidation and enhancing utilization levels, leveraging analytics to drive growth, etc. Hitachi Data Systems business centric approach of helping customers reduce the TCO by 30% approximately on IT infrastructure investments through storage virtualization. Storage Virtualization enables them to reclaim unused storage, enhance utilization levels along with significant upsides on performance levels, has been well received by the market. Converged infrastructure solutions of Hitachi Data Systems, along with its strong alliance partner like VMware, Citrix, Microsoft, SAP offerings, which are tested, certified and optimized, offer enterprise customers ready-made plug and play platform. This approach is helping customers go live quickly for specific business needs with lower TCO and higher performance at dramatically faster time lines to address emerging needs in big data, cloud and mobility space. Customers see negligible risks with this model thus expediting decision timelines.

Introduction of Hitachi Unified Compute Platform by Hitachi Data Systems has transformed them from a storage solution provider to an Information Infrastructure solution provider. This has helped us engage both global and National system integrators with wider offerings for data center needs.

Hitachi Data Systems has gone live with its Hitachi Cloud Services Connection Program making it affordable for Corporate and SMB customers to avail enterprise class solutions through a system integrator of their choice in opex model. Partners now can address hybrid cloud opportunities in addition to capex/on-premise business.

What is the role of a channel partner in the business ecosystem?

Channel partner plays a key role for providing scalability to the business. Both Hitachi Data Systems and iValue are 100% indirect transaction model companies and hence partner plays a central role in all our business.

In the past Global and National SI contributed a large pie of Hitachi Data Systems business. With a lot of corporate data volumes touching enterprise levels, regional and local SI's have started contributing a sizable share of business.

Moving forward Hitachi Data Systems cloud services will make it possible for any partners to become part of Hitachi Data Systems family by extending enterprise class solutions to Start-up, SME, SMB and Corporate segments.

Please explain about the channel model in place for your solutions to grow your business.

iValue engages more than 400 channel partners which include global SI, national SI , regional SI and local SI's. For each of our partner, we align few specific solutions from our portfolio which is relevant to their customer base and compliments their current offerings.

As such, we are able to align our OEMs to the right partners and grow the business in a structured and focused way. Partners are also able to grow their business quickly and profitably through this market aligned approach.

What are the key focus verticals?

iValue focus has been on Digital Asset Protection and Data, Network and Application management offerings which is driven by Governance, Risk and Compliance needs.

Hence, BFSI is the largest vertical followed by ITeS, Telecom, Central and Stage eGovernance projects, Government, Manufacturing and Media for Hitachi Data Systems. In addition, our other key verticals are Pharma, Education and Research along with Hospitality.

Please share examples of successful customer implementations scenarios using Hitachi Data Systems solutions?

iValue has had the privilege of partnering with Hitachi Data Systems to address:

 Marquee names in MNC, Private, Government and Co-operative Banks,

 MNC and Private Insurance companies,

 Most of the leading Global System Integrators for their internal use and for their customers

 Top Telecom companies are repeat customers

 Manufacturing and Media are emerging verticals during the year for iValue.

With ASP certification, iValue also extends implementation and support services for select Hitachi Data Systems offerings.

What is the outlook of iValue's association with Hitachi Data Systems in future? Please do highlight your roll outs in the pipeline along with Hitachi Data Systems.

iValue is excited about the Hitachi Data Systems cloud initiative as the relevance has exploded on both customer and partner front driven by affordability.

We also plan to add few more offerings to the platform. We will also encourage partners to onboard any relevant offerings which then can be sold across the country.

iValue objective is to make Hitachi Data Systems cloud a "market place" for compelling cloud offerings in opex model covering IT infrastructure, security, storage, key applications, etc. under a single umbrella to maximize business opportunities for our partners. Customers across different sizes and verticals will see tremendous value to avail most of their cloud based services needs from a single place with consistent SLA.

Almost 50% of Hitachi Data Systems revenue is from Software & Services. iValue has started focusing on the Service pie over the last year and made decent progress. We intend to expand our ASP and Services scope for Hitachi Data Systems with partners and customers moving forward.

Unified Storage, Converged infrastructure, Compute solutions have created huge interest for Hitachi Data Systems brand with more customers asking by name. We are adding new partners who can effectively address these demands for both Hitachi Data Systems and iValue.

iValue has been focusing on Government and BFSI verticals with focused teams during the last 3 years. Over the last few quarters, we have started positioning new Hitachi Data Systems offerings along with iValue's DNA management offerings for datacenter projects. Global SI and national SI are welcoming this since we are able to address a large pie of their customer needs through this approach.

We plan to onboard partners focusing on application for Hitachi Data Systems converged infrastructure solutions as they can address IT infrastructure needs in addition to application through tested, certified and optimized converged solutions along with its alliance partner stack, thus helping them substantially enhance their wallet share.

What is the roadmap ahead for the company in the coming fiscal?

iValue is a customer business centric organization. Our approach is consultative to understand and address customers business and IT needs, in the Digital Asset Protection and Data, Network and Application (DNA of every business) management space.

We keep a track of "best of breed" solutions in developed markets and bring the right ones to Indian Customers at the right time. This way we are ready to address our customers tomorrow needs today along with maximizing profitable growth for our focused partners.

In addition to deep understanding of technology in the DNA space, we also invest to understand verticals domains such as BFSI, ITeS, Manufacturing, Telecom, Education and Research, Hospitality & Media, along with the compliance needs.

During the current year, we have added more than 7 new OEM's with niche and relevant offerings in the DNA management space to enable our partners enhance their share of business at their current base and add new customers through these compelling offerings.

Our expertise of having served 5000 or more customers of different sizes in these verticals helps us to relate and effectively meet Customer stated and unstated needs more effectively. Being the fastest growing VAD, growing at 5 times market growth rates since inception in 2008, we plan to replicate this success of onsite/license model to cloud/opex model, through our aggregation of cloud services initiative with Hitachi Data Systems. Currently, we are conducting test marketing in 2 -3 countries to decide on the geographic expansion plan for next year.