Nikhil Korgaonkar, Regional Director, India & SAARC at Arcserve, talks about the company’s channel strategies for 2020.
What have been the key highlights of 2019 and how do you see 2020 shaping up as an important year for the IT channel industry?
2019 was a great year for us. Our offerings have been a consistent and reliable choice for large enterprises, government, SMBs and any organisation looking for end-to-end data protection and availability.
Recent developments include:
- New solutions to ensure data availability, archiving, backup and business continuity
We have launched a slew of solutions last year to safeguard multi-generational IT infrastructures with applications and systems in any location, on premises and in the cloud. The highlight was Arcserve’s 9000 Series Appliances was integrated with Sophos Intercept X. This is market’s first threat prevention and protection solution to entirely neutralise cyber attacks.
Besides, we also launched two flagship products, namely, Arcserve Continuous Availability and Arcserve Live Migration.
- Strategic alliance with Sophos
The global alliance with Sophos in 2019 enabled us to deliver the only multi-layered data security and protection solution that integrates anti-ransom ware and other threat prevention technologies to prevent data loss. Now, IT professionals can have a single platform to prevent, protect, and immunise backup data from cyber-attacks.
- Recognition from esteemed third parties
Arcserve’s efforts in ensuring business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) with zero downtime for organisations have been duly recognised by leading global analysts, associations and industry bodies. Recently, Arcserve Appliances Secured by Sophos took home the silver for Best Ransomware Protection in the 2020 Cyber security Excellence Awards.
Can you point out the top three technology trends which the channel community should be betting on and why?
Along with data security, data backup to take the front seat
With bigger global visibility of a cyber attack opportunity, bad actors deploy every trick and tactic in their arsenal to make the most out of every attack opportunity — be it government elections, religious holidays, big sale days or pandemics such as we find ourselves in today.
Going forward, businesses will make significant investments in more advanced threat detection and remediation software. But detection and remediation aren’t the only priority; data backup protocols also need to in place.
As the ransomware threat continues to change paths to hold organisations’ data, the channel partners and MSPs who can offer combined solutions of cyber security and disaster recovery will perform well. There will be more alliances between cyber security and data protection vendors to meet the demand of the current market.
Software-as-a-service to take over the cloud computing market
Migrations to the cloud will continue to increase in the years ahead. IT professionals will look for new ways to overcome the obstacles and complexities associated with hybrid and multi-cloud strategies, especially as SaaS-based solutions become more pervasive.
The role of channel partners in cloud services will grow in importance as a direct result of these trends. In particular, understanding customer requirements, recommending services, deployment and integration, as well as simplifying the billing and management of multiple cloud services.
Unified backup is must to protect data and operations
Many enterprises are deep in the throes of digital transformation, which means applications are moving onto hybrid cloud environments and are leveraging technologies such as virtualisation, containerisation and replication. All of this has a significant impact on how data is accessed and how applications are provisioned and delivered to users. Traditional backup solutions lack both the intelligence and sophistication to deal with those distributed environments.
Channel will play a pivotal role in better understanding how applications work within an enterprise and how those applications interact with users, servers, data and delivery fabrics. They can create awareness on the importance of unified backup to protect data and operations from catastrophic failures, resulting in preventing any operational downtime.
Please list out the top channel directions which your company has set for its partners and where should partners invest to be aligned with these directions?
We are a 100 per cent channel-driven company with a strong partner ecosystem. Currently, we are working in association with large enterprises, system integrators, cloud service providers, distributors, and resellers.
Channel excellence is our legacy and our strategy is based on three key pillars:
- Ease of doing business: We truly believe our partners are an extension of our team and offer direct access to sales, technical, and marketing experts, enablement tools, marketing funds, and lead sharing programs to help build their businesses quickly. Backed by 24/7/365 technical support, we are always by their side.
- Customer experience: We ensure every interaction from start to finish is ‘frustration-free.’ Our global support centre in Hyderabad is one example that illustrates our commitment to India. We have been adding skills and languages to support global operations, and our CSAT scores have been top notch. This helps our partners meet growing customer expectations.
- Profitability: We believe in growing together, and have one of the best channel programs in the industry that ensures exceptional profitability. Additionally, we offer turnkey sales and technical training to give them the expertise needed to expand their market share.
