“We are seeking VARs in large cities with technically qualified personnel”

Constant interaction with partners, according to Agendra Kumar, is the secret behind Veritas’ successful channel policies. Not the kind who believe in pressure tactics, Agendra feels that if Veritas’ products are good, then partners will sell them. With innovative schemes and a broad range of solutions for customers, Agendra informs DQCI that he is seeking VARs with nationwide presence in large cities to push sales. He believes the company would be able to achieve a 50% growth this fiscal.

What is the channel structure that Veritas follows in India?

We follow a channel-centric business model with a two-tier structure. On tier-one, there are the distributors and VARs. We classify our offerings to them into two broad units–the enterprise business unit (EBU)and the commercial business unit
(CBU). 

The CBU is predominantly the backup products for the Windows platform. We have Sonata, Wipro and Ingram Micro as distributors for these products. 

For the EBU, we have Wipro, Apara, Tech Pacific and HCL as our distys and there are resellers who buy from them.

In our tier-two segment, we have few companies who act as our elite partners like Accel ICIM, Tata Elxsi who buy from us and provide solutions to end-users. They do not fulfill requirements of resellers.

What are the incentive programs that Veritas offers to its channel partners?

We have reward programs which are popular not just with our partners but with their team as well. One of our incentive programs is targeted at the partner’s sales representatives. He can get points for the dollar value of the product sold by him.

He can accumulate these points and can redeem it for gifts like ACs, refrigerators, even a car, on a web-based interface. If for some reason, the sales representative
decides to shift jobs, he can still redeem the points at a later date.

Beside these ongoing schemes, we periodically come out with other cash-reward promotions for our partners. Recently, we have introduced a performance-based incentive scheme for distributors. On crossing certain sales limits, they can avail of extra rebates, which will be on the margins they make. 

What are your criteria for selecting partners?

We seek VARs who have nationwide presence in large cities. They should also have a very strong technical skill base. This will enable them to position our solutions to customers for the initial hand-holding, presentations and demonstrations.

We will also look for resellers with technical expertise and a strong presence in one city. But these partners should sell products that complement our solutions. 

How do you ensure brand loyalty amongst your partners?

In three of our offices, we have channel managers who keep in touch with our partners. Moreover, we also station Veritas people with our distributors, like Ingram and Sonata, as they understand our technology and can support partners. 

We always train our newly recruited partners with a Veritas certified sales professional training program. This program gives them a certification that they have completed the course and have an understanding of our technology.

Also, today our partner network is interconnected through e-mails. We keep giving them continuous updates about new products and new things in the market. Whenever there is a marketing roadshow or event, we invite the channel partners to be present. This is a learning process for them. 

If our partners have any queries, they can contact our pre-sales technical resources team. This is a group dedicated to supporting resellers, who give technical training as well as demo of the products. In some of our offices, certain days of the week are alloted to a reseller to bring in customers who want a demo. 

Besides all these, we also make sure that we don’t force anything on our partners. If our product is good, they will sell it. 

In a high competitive and margin-driven industry, how do you ensure that channel will push your products effectively?

Our marketshare in most of the technologies is very high, such as our storage market, which is at 56%. We are leaders in the clustering, backup and restore applications segment. We also has a good client profile both, worldwide and in India. 

This gives very high credibility to Veritas. When partners try to sell our products to a customer, their chances of succeeding are high.

Further, we have a broad range of solutions. Our resellers can offer clients a wide gamut of solutions. Hence, our partners see a lot of potential partnering with us.

What growth rate are you targeting for this fiscal?

We grew more than 100% in the last year. This year we plan to achieve a 50% growth. This does not mean that we have reduced our growth prospects. As company and business grows, the growth percentage starts to
stabilize. And in a market that is growing at 30%, if you are able to grow by 50%, that is a good feat.

Which products are you concentrating on for the Indian market?

We have basic solutions like files system, a part of the OS and volume manager, which helps in virtualization of storage.

Besides that, we have data storage products like backup and restore, higher availability products in the form of Cluster Servers. There are the disaster recovery solutions like Volume Manager, Volume Replicator and Cluster Solutions. We also have application performance enhancement tools. 

VINITA BHATIA