Since its separation from Symantec, Veritas is bullish on reaffirming its performance and 360 Degree Data Management. With banking, finance and telecom being key sectors contributing to its businesss, Veritas is also stressing on ITeS and government sectors. Balaji S Rao, Managing Director, India and SAARC, Veritas; and Sharad Gupta, Director – Channels & Alliance, Veritas provide more insights
How has been the company positioned in terms of the India market; what are some of the recent developments?
Bajali S Rao: Veritas went private about three years ago, when it was separated from Symantec. This has augured well for both companies. The focus on information management is now clearly yielding results. In over last two years, our product roadmap has become extremely strong. In the decade, we probably witnessed the highest number of product releases. Other focus areas have been R&D, bringing value to customers, depth and richness of products, expansion of our portfolio. A few years ago, we were more of a backup company; but today we are a diversified information management company, which is more tuned to today’s multi-cloud era.
There are currently two broad trends in the industry. First of which is IT modernisation; cloud has an impact here as well. Complexity is only increasingly day-by-day, and IT modernisation is not bringing it down; but it is bringing in some Capex, Opex benefits, alongside elasticity and other things. However, IT modernisation is not helping in information management.
There is a risk involved in putting all of your data on cloud. Moreover, organisations are using multiple cloud, based on their specialities. Thus, managing the information assets, with different tools and environments, doesn’t provide efficiency. Machine Learning and Big Data, which are now significant part of digital transformation, require data to be in specified format across different places. Veritas has a crucial role to play in these scenarios.
So far, the focus of organisations was on maintaining the data, but in the future, it will be about extracting business value out of it. For large organisations such as telcos – which produce huge amount of data – it becomes complex and expensive to maintain data assets, from standpoints of budget, value and operations. Data segregation and policy based management of data can help significantly. Veritas offers a holistic solution called 360 Degree data management, taking care all the different requirements. We have also come up with ‘Information Map’, which provides customers a visibility of their data across global data centres.
With increasing regulatory compliances and GDPR, how critical does data management become?
Bajali S Rao: GDPR is a good example of why organisations need to have visibility of data. Some of the recent cases have shown that data can be compromised if it’s not managed properly. Our Information Map solution is a good example of getting visibility of data. Specifically for GDPR, we have built templates on top of the solution, customised to GDPR. The entire Information Map solution is run on cloud and can be accessed from anywhere. Furthermore, the solution can be customised to any other regulatory developments.
Which verticals have performed well for Veritas in India; and what’s the roadmap for the India market?
Bajali S Rao: From India perspective, traditionally banking and financial services, and telecom have been flagship sectors for us, due to regulatory compliances regarding backup. Over the last 20 years, banks and telcos have been using our softwares. Recently we have been observing expanded adoption of our offerings. Whereas, in terms of our ITeS customers, we see a lot of cloud adoption. We also have a lot of focus on the public sector; the revenue in public sector is also increasingly.
From a data analytics and business intelligence standpoint, the startup space also poses good potential for our business. From a government and public sector standpoint, data and information management is being looked at seriously. We have seen robust adoptions at the centre and state levels. We have presence in states, certain central ministries, and nodal bodies.
Veritas, as a brand, resonates with the market and we don’t need to position ourselves. We need to position our performance post the separation from Symantec, and the power of 360 Degree data management.
How is the company bringing in the channel ecosystem in its growth story?
Sharad Gupta: We are a 100 per cent channel focused company. Across our journey in India, we have been supported by partners. After separation from Symantec, we decided that we will not have too many of our resources addressing customers directly. Instead, we leverage our channel ecosystem to help increase our customer base, educate customers about our offerings, and extend support. The ecosystem that has developed over the last two-and-a-half years, is no longer about traditional SIs; we have also developed collaborations with alliance partners, who work on larger opportunities which encompass Veritas as a solution provider. Our distibutor partners are helping us in ensuring our reach across the country. Alongside, our SI partners – who have been with us for the last two decades – focus on our enterprise technology. Lastly, our retail partners drive our entry-level products.
Two-and-a-half years ago, we launched Veritas Partner Force program; and we are in the process of formulating better means to support partners. We have been tweaking our programs to be more tuned to partners’ profitability, understanding. Our commitment towards our channel partners has given significant boost to our business in India. Over 100 partners support us every year in selling our products. This requires a lot of training and enablement for the partners. In the last two quarters, we have also included emerging markets such as Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, completely driven by our channel.
Bajali S Rao: From a channel perspective, the one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work, especially for the commercial business. Alongside telecom, ITeS and BFSI, we also have a product for the commercial market. We have a set of partners catering to this line of business.
Sharad Gupta: We also have partners who manage all of our focus verticals. Over the last two years, we have marked a lot of Platinum and Gold partners, who fall into this category. Furthermore, the new set of partners (born-in-the-cloud) are supporting customers who are running their businesses completely on cloud. However, while cloud will be crucial in the future, I don’t see most of the customers moving completely on cloud. Additionally, there’s also a trend among traditional partners serving cloud customers. In the Veritas Partner Force program, partners need to undergo a range of certifications. We also impart training among our partners; this helps us to support our customers through partners. We also emphasise on procuring PoC products, as part of our partner program.
Where is the next big opportunity for the company and its partners?
Sharad Gupta: We are looking forward to the mid-market and commercial business, and we want to grow this year-on-year. In India, there’s a lot that needs to be addressed, resulting in numerous opportunities for us and our channel community. Our focus is also on onboarding new partners for emerging markets.
Bajali S Rao: Our R&D centre in Pune is another beneficial factor for us. The centre has a strength of about 3,000 people. It also includes a support centre.
