Shibu Paul, Vice President- International Sales at Array Networks shares about the company’s channel strategies for 2020.
What have been the key highlights of 2019 and how do you see 2020 to be shaping up as an important year for the IT channel industry?
2019 was a very rewarding year for Array Networks as we achieved a 40 per cent YoY growth demonstrating our consistent growth and commitment towards the India region. Array’s operation in India is one of the top contributors to the company’s overall global growth. We secured first position in the Application Delivery Controller (ADC) market in India for Q4 2019 announced by IDC. This significant growth predominantly came from Array’s latest wins and businesses secured in the government, banking and large enterprise sector.
Recently we offered our full-fledged support towards enabling corporate workforce to work from home (WFH) amid the coronavirus threats by offering complimentary Virtual Secure Access Gateway (vxAG) and Direct Desktop Business Continuity Planning license for 30 days to all enterprises who securely wished to plan work from home for their employees.
Our mantra is to work with handpicked channel partners, train them and help them create build sustainable and profitable business models. Our strategy is to empower our partners by offering industry-relevant solutions that partners can successfully leverage in the Indian market.
Can you point out the top three technology trends which the channel community should be betting on and why?
Enterprises across the world are struggling to follow remote work practices to limit the spread of Covid-19 and to ensure that operations are disrupted to a minimum. VPN security has become paramount with everyone working remotely. The key to success at work from home now lies in prioritising communication.
Security has become imperative amidst of all the data breaches happening nowadays and zero trust has come in as a prominent solution in the wake of the current situation. Enterprises are rapidly rolling out secure remote access platform and zero trust will be one of the key technologies to see an explosive demand. This is the future of the workspace and already many of the large enterprises have a draft plan in place for successful execution to gain momentum.
Rising investment in digitalisation is defining the next wave of ADC. The end-users of ADC such as BFSI, healthcare, and IT are increasing rapidly in India. High adoption of AI, IoT, and software-defined technologies along with growth in internet traffic are compelling ADC providers to continuously innovate and make strategic mergers and acquisitions to gain competitive advantages over other players. It is high time that the lack of understanding and awareness is replaced by the added value of having a robust integrated security solution in place for the overall protection of the organisation as well as the channel ecosystem.
Enterprises are looking to embrace hyper-converged infrastructures as a go-to technology platform to address security and productivity concerns. We believe that hyper-converged systems will help enterprises achieve digital transformation all the while addressing the concerns of operational costs and enhanced customer experience to stay ahead of the competition. Therefore we look forward to training and developing our channel eco-system to be the facilitators for this digital transformation. The focal point will be to engage with highly skilled selected partners who can evangelise customers.
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?
Companies worldwide are going through the biggest transformation scenario and are gearing up to face Covid-19 head-on by asking their employees to work from home as a precautionary step to prevent a mass outbreak. With the help of our dedicated channel ecosystem, we are focused on developing a skilled pool of resources. Apart from offering a robust online training and certification program, our partners also take part in regular channel engagement programs specially designed to familiarise them with the emerging technologies and how to sell them. Our focus lies on customisation rather than just offering standard products which will inadvertently help our partners get a better deal in the current scenario.
Business Intelligence has helped us optimise our work and focus on productive trends. Array’s channel program is devised to select partners and continuously trains them on leading-edge solutions. In addition to the training programs, we have also set up the Array Centre for Technology and Innovation (ACTI) which caters to the local as well as global customers. Channel partners have been major beneficiaries of ACTI as it allows them to test networking and security solutions on Array’s HCI platform AVX. ACTI features state-of-the-art technology and has a fully equipped customer as well as partner training centre capable of providing enhanced support to local and global stakeholders.
