Polycom to appoint national distributor

Polycom Inc, provider of video, voice, data and web conferencing and

collaborative solutions, is looking at appointing an all India distributor.

After setting up its Indian operations in July 2003, the vendor has been

marketing its communication solutions through convergence partners including

Huawei, Siemens, Godrej, Total Solutions and Spyco Telesystems. Polycom Inc's

Country Manager-India, Yugal Sharma said, "While our convergence partners

were quite helpful in taking our product to various large enterprise and

corporate segments, we intend to spread our base along the SME and SOHO customer

base. And thus we have decided to go to resellers, SIs and channels across

various geographies."

Elaborating

on the marketing strategy marking Polycom's entry into the channel space,

Yugal detailed that the company's focus would not be limited to the eight

major cities, but would equally focus on the B-class cities as well. "To

reach the SME, SOHO and professional customers segment that includes, doctors,

travelers and others, the company has charted out a structured plan to market

through five top resellers in the metros along with two to three SIs and

resellers. In B-class cities we intend to establish the network with two to

three resellers initially and scale this up later," he added.

The company wants to grow consistently, and proportionately. Rather than

concentrating on gaining a market share, its primary focus is on expanding its

presence and penetrating into deeper pockets.

SUNITHA NATTI