Embarcadero Technologies is not very well known in India, nor are its
local channel partners. But this does not bother Lohmann. He believes that the
five partner organizations that his company has tied-up with are adept in the
database-management business and can act as database consultants to emerging
organizations
What resources will Embarcadero deploy for the Indian market?
Keeping in mind the growth potential in India, Nigel Brown was appointed as
the Director for APAC. Worldwide, we follow a mix of direct and indirect
business models.
For instance, in Australia, we go direct to the customers. But in India, we
have decided to go for the indirect sales model, because of its geographical
vastness. It also helps us get better penetration in the marketplace. We have
five local partners right now, and our focus is to strengthen our existing
partnerÂships rather than building new ones.
What is your partner selection criterion?
Softcell Technologies was the latest partner we signed up late last year.
Besides these, we are also working with Biztech Technologies, E-Quest
TechnoÂlogies, Infomatics Set Marketing and Systech Consultancy.
We seek companies that are heavily into database modeling so that they can
understand our product lines and also know how to market them best.
Your partners are not very well known in the Indian market. Don't you
think that will limit your potential of getting more business?
Softcell is known in the industry as a pure play software distributor. From a
supplier's perspective, I think they can reach out to the entire country with
their seven offices.
I agree that the others are not as well known. But they all have the
specialized knowledge in database modeling and also have the manpower that
understands this business well. They know how to manage better database
architecture and can explain to the customers why they ought to opt for
Embarcadero.
Michael Lohmann
Director-APAC, Embarcadero Technologies |
This will give them the confidence while dealing with database administrators
of any genre of companies. Reason being the emerging customers might not have
adequate knowledge about database management. We want our partners to act as
their advisors in such a scenario and would rather work with people who are
adept in this field than add on folks who have just a passing knowledge of our
core business domain.
Also these companies worked with us when we were new to the country. What
matters to us is to stand by those companies that have stood by us when we were
not established.
Does this mean that you are content with your existing channel network?
No, we are on the lookout for new distributors and resellers who meet our
basic criteria. We don't want to flood the marketplace and create unhealthy
competÂition between our partners. We know that if we sign on more partners, we
will also water down our product offerings, which we want to avoid at all costs.
So we are looking at experienced players in the database-management business
or similar fields so they can have a faster crossover to our domain area. They
should have the technical capability to offer end-to-end service so that the
end-users are confident to ask them any question about database and get the
highest level of satisfaction. These incumbent partners should also have
adequate manpower with the right technical aptitude.
We will also sign them up on different levels of our channel program, which
is negotiable. We will look at our mutual profitability and they will get
brownie points if they have managed to take another developer tool and made in
successful in the market.
What kind of resources will be made available to them to replicate a
similar success with Embarcadero?
We will make a good market development fund reserve available to them and
will run online campaigns to carry out lead generation activities. We also
participate in specific events where they can interface with the IT
administrators of our target customers.
Are your products aimed entirely at the large enterprises? Or do you have
any low-cost software for the SMBs as well?
We do have low-cost offerings. We believe India is a price-sensitive market
and cost can be a key differentiator while trying to bag customers. This is why
our proÂducts are priced appropriately.
Our tools can work across multiple platforms, and customers can use the same
product on an Oracle or SQL architecture. Besides this, we have products that
work on open source as well. This translates into a big cost saving for our
customers.
We also offer flexibility in our licensing policies. So customers can go for
a single-user license or that for multiple users. Besides this, we are also
looking at offering customized versions of our software where customers can
decide which particular features they want and the proÂduct will be priced
accordingly.
We come across as an enterprise company. But we would like to sit with
customers, irrespective of the size of their organizations and see how we can
construct our products for their individual needs. We think that any one who has
a team of database administrator is our customer.
In short, we have different tools for different industries. All these
measures have been taken so that we can reach to the smaller and medium-sized
companies as well.
Do you propose to have an office in India sometime soon?
Yes, we would definitely want to have our local presence. Right now, we are
working on opening an office in Singapore, which will handle India, Malaysia,
Thailand and China. Once that is in place, we will set-up a similar base in
India as well. All these decisions will depend on the profitability of the
country and the amount of business that is generated there.
Brief us the backgrounder of Embarcadero.
The company was started 15 years ago in San Francisco with a single
database-development tool. We develop professional-grade database tools from
development of database archiÂÂtecÂÂture to its application and security.
Over time, we have grown to a vendor catering to over 12,000 customers
including 97 of the Fortune 100 companies. Gartner has stated that we are the
fastest growing database designer vendor in the world.
Earlier, we were concenÂtrated on the US and European markets. We have
identified China, India, France and Germany as our key growth markets.
VINITA BHATIA
vinitavs@cybermedia.co.in