The onset of Industry 4.0 and digitalisation gave a new paradigm to businesses across the globe. And, since the infamous Covid pandemic struck, technology was the only resort for businesses to stay afloat. Organisations worldwide rapidly moved to digital and adopted new-age IT solutions. Moreover, the onset of 5G only paced up the adoption of technology. IT was once just the backend support for businesses, however, today it would not be wrong to say that IT is the business. With this rapid digitalisation, the OEMs in tandem with their channel partners rushed to fulfill the rising demands and provided organisations with apt IT solutions to reinforce their existing IT infrastructure.
However, as every coin has two sides, the shift to digital raised concerns regarding data backup, recovery and protection. The more businesses adopted digital solutions and brought their operations on a network, the more they get vulnerable to cyber threats. To tackle the issues, the IT channel partners played a crucial role by propagating apt data protection and backup solutions to their customers and helping them secure their precious data.
In an effort to bring to light state-of-the-art data backup, recovery and security solutions and laud contributions from the channel partner ecosystem, Veeam a leader in Data Protection and Ransomware Recovery organised the Pro Partner Summit 2023, a three-day conference in Srinagar from 1st to 3rd of May, 2023.
‘Partners in Paradise’
Sandeep Bhambure, Managing Director, Sales SAARC, Veeam called the initiative ‘Partners in Paradise’ addressing the beautiful landscape of Srinagar city surrounding the venue. So, with the serene backdrop of the ‘paradise on Earth’ Kashmir, the Pro Partner Summit 2023 witnessed intriguing presentations from the Veeam team on their state-of-the-art product offerings and enriching deliberations by speakers from across the industry. The Summit laid much emphasis on the contributions of the channel partners and also had Veeam + CRN Partner Awards & Recognition. CRN India participated as a media partner for the summit.
‘It’s WE with Veeam’
To open the conference on a high note, Amarish Karnik, Director Channel & Alliances, SAARC, Veeam took over the dais. While sharing the growth story of Veeam, he mentioned how industry leaders have considered Veeam as their go-to solution provider. “Top industry leaders including India’s top airline, the industry-leading manufacturing company, the country’s largest bike manufacturer, India’s largest employer – the Indian Railways, India’s largest PSU bank, India’s largest data centre, and more such renowned names have started using Veeam,” he highlighted.
With recurring innovations and initiatives, Veeam has been able to disrupt the market and has become no.1 global provider for Data Replication and Protection Software as rated by IDC, in their latest rankings. It is completely an IT-centric organisation. Moreover, Veeam’s NPS is around 3.5 times the industry average.
Amarish said, “We have achieved all these laurels because of our repeated efforts to innovate. ‘To the cloud – From the cloud – Between the cloud’ is only possible with Veeam.” Speaking on further growth, he mentioned that hybrid cloud, multi-cloud, and kubernetes will help the company grow manyfold. “Our strategy is to Own your customer, Win the future, and leverage the ecosystem. We are flexible as and when required, can navigate through challenges, and win together with our channel ecosystem,” he added.
Following Amarish’s presentation was another knowledgeable session by Belinda Jurisic, Vice President, APJ Channel Strategy & Management, Veeam. She addressed the partners in the room saying, “We have a three-pronged pro partner strategy that includes – partner specialisation enablement, network collaboration, and ease of doing business. We have automated channel interactions. Besides, we offer competency training and badges. Our partners can select the program based on the type of their business and we’ll help you build your capacities. Moreover, we have a reseller ready competency, where we monitor the resellers. Hence, based on their performance we recommend them to our partners.”
Veeam Accredited Service Partners have a very high level of certification. The Veeam Accredited Service Partner program identifies a selected list of partners, system integrators, and IT consultants who possess the skills to deliver value-added and reliable professional service for Veeam product portfolio, she added.
Shifting the focus to numbers depicting the growth story of Veeam with its partners, Belinda showed that “in the APJ region we are the fastest growing data backup organisation achieving over 20 percent of year-on-year growth.” In Australia, around 45 percent of the revenue comes from reseller-ready partners, she said.
Taking forward the insights from Veeam, addressing the technology side, Amol Diwanji, Head of Systems Engineering SAARC, Veeam presented the tech solutions to the partners. He said, “Veeam data platform has proven recovery orchestration. It is proactive with monitoring and analytics while securing backup and faster recovery.”
Veeam’s philosophy has always been to develop ground-up. Through its cloud-native APIs, Veeam provides customers with a platform-like experience while allowing them to execute applications independently. As per the company’s philosophy, there are three pillars of its data platform which includes data security, data recovery, and data freedom. The Veeam Data Platform delivers a single solution for Cloud, Virtual, Physical, SaaS and Kubernetes environments that give businesses peace of mind their apps and data are protected and always available so that they can keep their businesses running.
“The major areas where security becomes a challenge are work from home, cloud, and opensource platforms. Our tool Kasten makes application secure and helps backup and restore data. It helps with disaster recovery and application mobility as well,” Amol highlighted.
Veeam helps instant recovery, secure backup, and multi-cloud mobility. It offers proven recovery orchestration that helps automated testing, automated documentation, and one-click recovery.
Sandeep Bhambure, Managing Director, Sales SAARC, Veeam shared some astonishing numbers portraying the achievements led by channel partners and Veeam. He then explored the scope of new opportunities based on market dynamics saying, “Around 37 percent believe that enabling disaster recovery to cloud infrastructure, automating recovery workflows, and orchestrations are some of the most important aspects of modern data protection in 2023. While 32 percent of the organisations state that improving reliability/ success of backups is their motivation for changing backup solutions. This is where Veeam gets the opportunity to grow further.”
Most organisations expect to increase their data protection budget for 2023 by 6.5 percent and around 57 percent of the organisations expect to change their backup solutions in 2023. Moreover, 82 percent of the organisations believe that their cyber and BC/DR strategies are either mostly or completely integrated, Sandeep added.
In a special session, Nisha Tijare, Head Inside Sales, Veeam, laid emphasis on the significance of diversity and inclusion in the area of cloud data management. In April this year, Women in Cloud (WIC) and Veeam announced their partnership through which they intend to work together to promote intellectual development among women, develop influence in cloud data management, and enhance workforce capacity through micro-credentialing. Highlighting the theme, Tijare said, “At Veeam India, we are dedicated to proactively promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
The channel partners attending the event showed enthralling responses not only by their presence but also by actively participating in discussions during the Q&A round. In a series of interactions with CRN India, partners spoke highly about Veeam highlighting the upsides of working with such a proactive and agile firm.
The gentry appreciated Kushagra Sharma, Head of Marketing, India and SAARC, Veeam for breaking the barriers and thinking out of the box for a successful execution of the Pro Partner Summit 2023. Partners attending the summit were spellbound looking at the picturesque and serene landscape of Kashmir. In the lap of the Himalayas at The Lalit Grand Palace, a venue overlooking the beautiful Dal Lake, Veeam Pro Partner Summit 2023 was held.
The second day of the summit began with an adventurous excursion on ATV bikes to the Drung Waterfall. Partners shared smiles and happy moments amidst the calmness of the Shepard’s valley and posed for a group picture to mark a memory with the ‘paradise on Earth’. The team then headed to the mesmerising Gulmarg where we witnessed breathtaking views of the valley. As the clouds covered the snow-capped peaks and the mercury fell with rains, partnerships brewed and cherished over hot-served lunch. Later, the conference resumed in the evening and addressed multiple facets of the entire data recovery and backup solution business. The evening also saw a power-packed panel discussion. The day ended with Veeam + CRN Partner Awards & Recognition.
Veeam + CRN Partner Awards & Recognition
Awards were conferred to partners for their exceptional performance and excellence across the year. Hitachi bagged the ‘Excellence Award of the year – West’. While Team Computers stood a winner in the same category for the Northern region and Compass topped in the Southern region.
For the award for the category of ‘Trailblazer – West’, Swan Solutions and Services grabbed the award while in the same category for the Northern region ITS topped and Dhanyaayai won the awards for the Southern region.
Further, in the award category of ‘Rising Star Partner of the Year’ for West, North, and South regions, Unique Solutions, Proxinet, and Softcell bagged the awards respectively.
Dotcad won the award for ‘Geo Emerging Partner of the Year – West’ while SISL topped the list in the ‘Government Impact Partner of the Year – North’ category.
Under the VCSP Award category, ESDS took away the ‘Excellence Service Partner Award of the Year.’ However, the award for ‘Trailblazer Service Partner of the Year’ was conferred to NxtGen. Veaam and CRN India named Link 3 as the winner for the ‘Innovative Service Partner of the Year’ award.
CtrlS bagged the award for ‘Rising Star Service Partner of the Year’ while Orient Technologies took away the ‘Hyperscaler Service Partner of the Year’ award.
For the Aggregator Award category, Veeam and CRN India named Redington as the winner for the ‘Excellence Award of the Year’ award. Whereas, Savex Technologies received the award for ‘Trailblazer Distributor of the Year’ and Ingram Micro bagged the prize for ‘Best Value Added Distributor of the Year.’
The award of ‘Excellence Award of the Year – Aggregator’ was handed over to Crayon while Kyndryl bagged the ‘Strategic Global System Integrator Award of the Year.’
On the final day, the Pro Partner Summit ended with an exciting excursion to Dal Lake where Team Veeam took its partners to a fun Shikara ride. From experiencing a floating market to buying souvenirs, from light-friendly conversations to feeling alive again floating over the calm waters, all of us had a bunch of beautiful moments to take back home and cherish.
The day well spent and smiles all over the place spoke volumes about the successful valediction of the three-day Pro Partner Summit that not only added value from the knowledge perspective but also experiences that will definitely strengthen the partner-OEM bond and reinforce the business. The Pro Partner Summit 2023 ended on a high note with stronger partnerships and clearer perspective to trail the path to growth together.
