'Sell Well, Earn Well!'

With the slogan of 'sell well, earn well', there was bonhomie all around and eagerness to learn about the latest products at the SGI's second India Channel Partner Meet held in Goa from August 31st to September 2nd. For 120 partners and their sales force gathered at the meet, the occasion gave an opportunity to update themselves about SGI's road map for hardware platforms.

In his opening address, Prasad Medury, MD, called upon partners to focus on the core strengths of SGI, namely, high-performance technical computing and visualization. He wanted partners to position all its products to the right market segments like manufacturing, telecommunications, media and government departments. He asked partners not to go to commercial markets.

Prasad said that the general and commercial markets do not look for the core strengths of SGI. For this particular market segment, price takes priority, while SGI does not like to sell its products solely on prices. 

To pep up the new partners of SGI, including Mumbai-based Allied Digital and CMS and Bangalore-based Cerebra Integrated, Prasad shared some of the stories of the success that the company had in recent times selling its products. He revealed that GE and the public-sector unit BHEL had bought solutions from SGI at a cost of quarter million dollars each.

Several of the media companies including TV Today, NDTV and Star Channel had bought equipment from SGI. In the research and education segment, GVK Biotech and IIT Kanpur have purchased hardware from

SGI. 

The US sanctions had put a dampener on buying by government departments. Yet, SGI did good business with ONGC and the meteorological department with the former buying a 20-processor Origin 2000 server and the latter, a 24-CPU Cray SV-1 Vector super computer. 

Partners see potential

Partners of SGI, both old and new, see a lot of potential for SGI hardware in the market. Tata Elxsi, for instance, has a win-win relationship with SGI for a long time now. The company was partnering with SGI even before the latter had established an office in the country. Tata Elxsi was present at the partner meet with its marketing and support professionals in full force.

All the three new partners of SGI were very optimistic about doing substantial business with its products. Allied Digital, which has a strong client base among pharmaceutical companies has so far been selling Intel servers. It would now pitch SGI servers for this particular market segment. Says Bimal Raj, GM, Marketing, Allied Digital, "We expect to close at least three deals very soon."

At a time when the market is suffering from the ailment of over-distribution, Bimal sees no such problems with SGI products which are used only by niche segments. He says that Allied Digital, whose strength lies in services, was reinventing itself with SGI products. 

Shridhar Hegde, Director-Marketing, Cerebra Integrated Technologies likes the support provided by SGI. He has his client base among government departments, corporates and BSNL. He foresees demand for SGI's high-end servers and workstations among several of his clients. He was at the meet to learn more about the latest products from

SGI. 

The company's pathbreaking technologies have helped Real Image Media Technologies to make inroads among media companies, ensuring profitable business in the process. Raja Enok, VP, liked the 'Don't pay for what you don't need' concept unveiled at the partner meet. Says he, "Cost conscious Indian customers will be happy to go with the new concept of

SGI."

Channel-centric approach

From the time it set up shop in India in 1993, SGI has adopted an indirect model of business, driven by channels. It began with just three partners and has gradually increased their number to 20. Says Prasad, "It is a winning proposition for both. If channels win, SGI wins. We want the channel to be partners in our growth." 

SGI's bigger partners have proved themselves to be more successful over a period of time because the company has been able to support them in every possible way. The training needs of these partners have been fulfilled on a priority basis. 

According to Prasad, IT hardware has become a commodity business and less profitable. So there was always a temptation to go direct. But SGI has resisted this and continued to follow the indirect mode. 

SGI expects the channel to deliver value-added services to its customers. "This is critical in our business since we don't believe in box-pushing," says Avinash Fotedar, Director, Marketing & Channels, "We provide the latest technology and our partners makes sure it reaches our clients." 

The foremost criteria that SGI looks for among its partners is an ability to understand technology and to have a domain expertise. When partners go out to sell, SGI expects them to understand the business and process flows of clients and provide them with the right solution.

The company has categorized its partners as national and regional. Right now the focus is on developing strong regional partners. "When we look at our current channel matrix by region and by product, we find ourselves weak in some places," says Prasad. 

SGI's vision is to get nearly 85 percent of its business from channels. The channel's contribution last year, at 75 percent, was an aberration to this figure. This was mainly because SGI had to directly fulfill a large order from the government because of license issues. 

The second India Channel Partner Meet gave an opportunity to SGI to recognize achievers among channels and motivate new partners to explore new business segments. With the plans of launching video on demand and live streaming in the country, it has "differentiated" technology for sure. It is up to the partners to market these technologies and solutions in their domains and ensure a profitable business for themselves.

SYLVESTER LOBO in Goa