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Follow UsThakkar firmly believes that SMB customers in India are willing to opt for
a managed service model when it comes to security. This is why Syntesia recently
discontinued its direct sales model and decided to work only with the channel
Can you shed some light on your security-on-demand model?
When I co-founded Syntesia in 2005, we saw a great potential in the SMB
space with the way they were connected online. We also saw a big growth in Asia
as well as in the managed security services. The best analogy to offer is that
of people getting power supply or cable TV without buying the physical
infrastructure or managing it.
Similarly we decided to offer a unified threat management (UTM) box to SMB
customers where we will remotely manage everything. If customers wanted to
configure their box directly, they could simply avail our managed services
without buying our UTM device.
Why did you decide to go direct when you started your Indian operations?
When we started Syntesia we knew that the channel is in need of a matured
product, which is well-known and has a good installed base. That is why we
decided to first tap into market directly to create a good client base. This
model helped us get direct customer feedback. In fact, it was based on this
feedback that we even made a couple of changes to our products. For instance, we
had a smaller box earlier because we thought that Indian SMBs did not have a lot
of online traffic. But then we realized that this was not the case, we made the
box bigger.
Why should SMB customers invest in UTM instead of standalone devices?
It does not make sense for enterprises to opt for UTM devices because their
online traffic load and security needs are different, which could be better
handled by a standalone device. But the basic needs of an SMB customer is
firewall, anti-spam and anti-virus, which they can get from any UTM device. The
other technologies like content filtering or VPN are add-ons.
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We tell our SMB customers that they should not invest too much money in the
device and opt for a subscription model where you pay monthly for all these
above mentioned services. This frees their funds for other infrastructure
acquisition.
What is the profile of the SMB customers you are targeting? What benefits
does your solution provide them?
We are targeting SMBs with 25 plus users who normally do not have any
servers but have desktops and laptops. Our entry level solution has an
installation charge of about Rs 20,000 and with a monthly subscription fee of
approximately Rs 2,500.
In that the customers get 24x7 support, configuration and free replacement if
the box fails. This aside our partners can also earn from the services component
of the business.
What is the channel network that you are trying to build?
Right now we are in talks with about 50 partners in East, West and North
India, of which half have signed up with us and are maintaining inventory.
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Two years ago while we were selling direct, we started signing up channel
partners and we had around 15 active partners. We stopped selling directly in
the end of 2008. Now we will work with regional distributors like Sterling
Infoways, Vora Brothers, SafeNet, etc who will then support an extended network
of resellers. We are working with five regional distributors to see how we can
target the market differently where we can cannibalize the existing channel
which are selling our competition's brands
Since we were in the direct business we know the customer's need well. We now
have to train our partners, get them to stock, put them in touch with customers
and hand-hold them through the process initially so that everything goes
smoothly.
Vinita Bhatia
vinitavs@cybermedia.co.in