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The Future is...in Solutions

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Sandhya
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NEC India, established in India in August 2006, leverages on NEC's unique capa­bilities in integrating IT and networking technologies for a diverse customer base across gov­­­­er­­n­­ments, businesses, individuals and societies in India. It provides and develop solu­­­tions for carrier network, unified com­­muni­­­­cations, retail, security and sur­­vei­­llance systems, IT and multimedia pro­ducts, to cater to the rapidly expanding Indian market. Leve­raging on its unique capa­bilities in integrating IT and networking technologies for a diverse customer base across government, businesses, individuals and societies world­wide, NEC custo­mize solutions to construct large-scale, highly reliable, scalable and flexi­ble IT and network systems, such as IP tele­phony solutions, retail solu­tions (hardware and software), private net­work solutions (enterprise and exchange wide EPABX, IP telephony, KTS), high performance computing (super com­puters), IT products as well as multimedia and commercial display products and solutions for the Indian market.

Talking about the overall hierarchy at NEC, Rajiv Bhalla is the country head of sales and marketing, whereas the IT platform and multi­media product group is headed by Abhilesh Guleria. On the other hand, Ravinder Raina is the head for private network solutions; Rajan Verma is responsible for public safety solutions, and retail solutions is headed by Amit Bhatia. The newly appointed Bhatia is responsible for driving the retail solutions business in India and Middle-East and increase its footprint in the country. With a vision of designing flexible and cost-effective solutions for the retail industry, NEC will be soon launching its new range of integrated touch POS solution, Box POS range and customized retail and billing solutions aimed at segments like F&B, large format retail, cineplex and hospitality.

With more than a 100 years of innova­tion and experience in the IT industry and over 3 decades of experience in the retail domain, NEC continuously strives to develop new technological innovations to empower retailers to optimize their retail operations with proactive strategizing. It is this driven passion to provide high-quality, robust yet eco-friendly Japanese solutions and the constant innovation that resulted in NEC being the preferred techn­ology partner for leading retailers in the super­market, departmental store, food and beverages, and hospitality industries.

Till date, NEC supports approximately 15,000 locally- and globally-linked retail stores across various industries in Japan, US, China, and Southeast Asia, Middle East and remains as the leading retail solutions provider in Japan. NEC has a strong presence in the Indian retail market presently and is associated with well known retailing brands.

Today the company is one of the leading brands for projectors and enterprise telephony with significant inroads into education, hos­pitality, and SMB. Going forward, it will con­ti­nue to focus on high-growth verticals like edu­cation, hospitality, healthcare, and government with a special emphasis on civil ID, criminal ID, and public safety. These are the segments that are showing double digit growth and will be the key engines for growth. The company believes that convergence of telecom and IT is the way forward. Customer wants a one-stop shop solution for all his communication needs.

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DISTRIBUTION MODEL

For NEC, partner community is the lifeblood of any technology brand seeking to achieve and sustain growth domestically and internationally. Commanding the attention and loyalty of key partners is only getting harder because of the global forces and increased competition to compete for the channel mindshare. Also, as marketing tools become more complex and digitally-oriented, the gap between marketing capabilities of small to mid-sized channel partners and the desires of the IT brand is widening.

Overall, the company has 2 pronged appro­a­ches to distribution. Firstly-volume sales, which caters more to the distributors who cater to resellers/retailers and secondly-project sales, which includes project partners, system integrators, and ISVs.

NEC company drive breadth for its box sel­ling business like projectors and KTS through national distributors like Neoteric, Syntel, AGC Networks and Enkay Technologies. The company supports this extended outreach program through expansion of ‘services' net­work. Moreover, the company has expanded its service reach from service centers in 6 cities to centers in 61 cities. In addition to this, it provides extensive in-depth training modules to its partners to help them cross-sell and value add existing partners through sales enablement workshops. In some cases, it also drives direct relationships with selected large accounts and pass on the leads to partners for fulfillment.

NEC has re-aligned and strengthened its partner ecosystem whilst developing a clear segmentation and targeted approach towards its customers. Today, the company addresses the market place as a holistic solution provider for which it engages with 40 solution providers/ISVs. It has 9 national distributors and has increased its tier-2 channel partners base from 150 in FY08 to more than 800 in FY10. Even, the size of system integrators/ISVs has also gone up from 10 to 40 in 2010. And it will continue to grow even this year as well.

"In 2011, our mission is to position our­selves as a solution-centric company with a partner-centric approach. The strategy to re-invent, re-discover, re-think the approach to ‘go to market' seems to be bearing fruit. We continue to appoint new partners who will plug in the gap as far as the uncharted territory is concerned and we will back this initiative with strong after-sales support," mentioned Bhalla.

At NEC, each business unit is managed by a different distribution model, and drives different segments. Firstly, the multimedia pro­­duct group has Neoteric Infomatique as a nati­o­nal distributor. For projectors, the com­pany has multiple partners including Third Wave, Unicops, ABC InfoTech to cater to the government segment. To handle large projects, NEC has appointed Mumbai-based, Solution India, as a national partner. To provide a com­plete solution and to cater to projects for public or professional display/installation or multi­media series projectors, the company has direct engagement with SI/AVSI partners like Business Octane, Genesis, Ideas Ahead, Cosmos, HCL Infosystems, Godrej and Boyce.

Secondly, the private network solutions group which includes telephony solutions, works with Enkay Technologies for offering hospitality solutions; enterprise sales-EPABX, Syntel for key telephone systems and IP telephony, Intellicon for IP telephony and AGC Networks for key telephone systems, PBX and IP PBX systems.

Thirdly, the retail solutions group has POS Solutions India as national distributor. The company also works with ISVs like Shawman Soft­ware, IDS, Dynamic Vertical Solutions, XPROTEAN, Brain Power, CSAT and Axind Soft­ware to cater to POS requirements in the hospitality, retail and F&B industry. And for the IT platforms business, it works with VARs and SIs. Lastly, for public safety and security business the company is looking at strategic alliances with large SIs.

Channel Training

Successful channel partnership and channel sales strategy rely on more than recruiting the right partners or resellers. What perhaps is more important is what comes next and that is training and certification. In developing or strengthening a channel partner program, the most important aspect is the incentive package that could make or break a channel partnership. To drive greater momentum in sales, the company is conducting a series of sales enablement and technology workshops across India. The training program is a special endeavor to educate partners not just on product features but also on product segmentation and positioning.

"We have constantly invested in growing our partner ecosystem. Our partner strategy revolves around quality selection to bring about mutual growth. We believe that besides having critical mass, partners should also have domain knowledge. We constantly endeavor to engage with experts in verticals and not only leverage their expertise but also to learn from them and customize our solutions to meet the growing demands of our customers," said Bhalla.

INCENTIVE SCHEMES

"Motivating a channel partner such as a distributor or dealer is very different from motivating your own workforce. When you are trying to motivate your own staff, you are trying to get them focused on your company values or business goals such as customer service, sales performance, product quality so that they can relay these principles to your customers," said Bhalla.

He added, "We see our partners as an extension of NEC and have specially designed schemes to reward them for their loyalty, business consistency, and profitability. Such schemes are aimed at encouraging partners and boost their performance and growth."

Apart from the regular sales enablement and technology workshops, to encourage and motivate channel partners, the company has recently announced an incentive scheme for its business partners across India to boost business. As a part of this scheme, upon achieving set quantity and value targets, qualifying partners can win an incentive trip to Thailand, win attractive gifts and stand a chance to take home a brand new car. The scheme has been conceptualized keeping in view the market potential in metros as well as in upcountry regions and will last till September 2011.

FUTURE PLANS FOR CHANNEL

The company endeavors to build NEC India as a solution-centric company with a robust partner-centric approach. Keeping this in mind, the company has set 3 enablers of growth which will help NEC to meet this objective. These are as follows:

Driving breadth and depth by strengthening our partner ecosystem: The company will constantly look at strengthening its footprint in the country through an extended reach accrued partners. It will continue to drive greater synergies with its existing partners and go deep through mutual learning and growth and look at increasing its reach by adding new partners across the country especially in tier-2 markets and with specialists across verticals. With a vision of clear segmentation and targeted approach, 2011 will be the year of investing and building a robust partner ecosystem to reiterate commitment to the India market.

Driving a solution selling approach: The key lever for growth has been positioning the company as a holistic solution provider rather than a box pusher. Its offering to consumer is centered on meeting all communication needs of the customer-going to the market with a bundled offering and positioning as a one-stop-shop solution provider.

Enhancing services capability: With a view to drive better quality of service, the company has set up a specialized ‘NECare' division with 10 service centers and 5 touch points across India. There are robust plans of setting up more than 40 service centers across key locations in India.

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