Ganesan Arumugam, Director – Partner Sales, Symantec India, shares the company’s channel strategies for 2019
Key highlights 2018 and opportunities for 2019
For Symantec, 2018 was a great year, especially in terms of consolidation. We acquired Blue Coat Systems and consolidated channels – both distributor and consultant sides. We also put in efforts for enablement of partners in the area of technology. With this acquisition, we have merged Symantec’s and Blue Coat’s channel ecosystems. In terms of our India-specific channel efforts, we focused on our Global System Integrators (GSI) partners such as IBM and Wipro; alongside our engagements with traditional and local partners. A large part of our business share comes form GSI partners and local Tier 1 partners – we work with them very closely. We are also working in close co-ordination with top consultants.
Another major focus of ours is on the government side, because security is gaining prominence in government’s digital initiatives. We have also got multiple deals in other segments as well, such as BFSI.
The opportunities in 2019 will be based on the momentum of 2018, from the customer perspective, across all segments. We expect the momentum to continue in 2019 as well. Be it the BFSI or telecom sector, the government’s mandates is resulting in huge investments in security. This brings in many opportunities for partners. From the overall channel partner ecosystem standpoint, we are witnessing many new partners aligining with Symantec, due to our complete suite of security offerings – from Internet of Things (IoT), mobile devices, servers, security analytics, etc. For any oragnisation looking to build a holistic security platform, Symantec is well-positioned to cater to their needs. Partners are also building their sales on Symantec’s offerings, and are selling more of our products to their customers.
Top tech trends for channel community
Security, being a matured market, nothing significant may happen in terms of technology. Basic things such as new products and features may hit the market, and partners will focus on these areas, depending on their focus segments. For 2019, partners need to focus on how they can offer solutions on top of customer’s existing security infrastructure. In our observation, we have seen BFSI companies consolidating their muliple security solutions. Hence, partners need to focus on how they can integrate multiple solutions used by their customers.
Channel directions for partners
In 2019, we will continue to enable our partners in terms of new technologies. We will also focus on building the services portfolio among our partners, in order for them to build services around our technologies. Alongside, our focus will also be on working with GSI, SI and top tier national partners. Under our enterprise business, we are looking at introducing a bundle offering for the SMB customer base. We will aggressively onboard new partners, and build our distribution channel. Partners should also strengthen their efforts to build stickiness with customers. This will ensure repetitive business for them. Moreover, partners should also align their focus on building the services business.
