Acronis, a global leader in cyber protection and hybrid cloud solutions, recently made its entry into a cybersecurity market in India. Sea Infonet has been appointed its national distributor as part of its channel business. Speaking to the CRN, Maxim Mitrokhin, Acronis General Manager of Channel Sales in APAC talks about the way forward and business opportunities. Read more…
What kind of business opportunities do you see in the security market in India?
As ransomware is rising in India and more businesses are getting affected by it, Acronis has a solution to safeguard your data from ransomware attacks leveraging on Artificially Intelligent (AI) technology that proactively prevents ransomware by suspending it and reverting encrypted files into the original state. Apart from that, Acronis Notary is able to ensure the authenticity of files by leveraging Blockchain technology. Acronis Notary computes a cryptographic “fingerprint” hash of each file that is unique to that file. This hash algorithm produces the same output given the exact same input file every time, regardless of circumstance. Any change in the input file, however slight, results in a dramatically different fingerprint. The hash algorithm is designed to work in one direction – making it impossible to determine the original file inputs from the output alone.
What are your major plans for the Indian channel market?
Since Acronis is 100% channel driven vendor our distribution and channel partner network is the only vehicle that helps deliver our products and solutions to customers. While the Acronis team interacts widely with Industry, our revenue route lies solely through the network of Acronis authorized partners. Acronis places major emphasis on partner training and certification through our world-class training programs which ensure Acronis partners have the best possible sales and technical enablement. This serves to help our partner network stand ready to handle the most pressing needs of customers in India.
In addition to this, Acronis also has a strong Partner Program which provides marketing and sales tools to help increase reach and expansion into the market place for our partner network, coupled with campaigns and reward structures to provide revenue and profitability growth for performance.
Specific to your solutions, what are your targeted segments?
Any user or businesses that requires data protection. Consumers with personal data on their laptops or mobile devices – we have Acronis True Image cater to backup personal devices to local storage or to Acronis Cloud. For SMB and large enterprises, we have Acronis Backup, Acronis Files Advanced, Acronis Storage. For Service Providers, Acronis has the Acronis Data Cloud providing multi-tenant, white-labeling with multiple solutions within the platform to offer to their customer.
What are your sales and growth plans for the Indian market?
Acronis’ goal for the Indian market is to take a leadership position within our addressable space in the Indian market in the next 2 years. Our product lines are designed for simplicity, ease of use while providing the best possible price/performance ratio for Indian consumers. Acronis’ product range also incorporates standout features and USP’s designed to address critical customer requirements across a wide range of use cases. In 2019 our focus on a holistic Cyber protection stance will make Acronis an undeniable proposition for our customers.
Acronis addresses the 5 vectors of cyber protection — safety, accessibility, privacy, authenticity, and security (SAPAS) — and offers easy, efficient, and secure products to customers of any size. Our solutions protect all data, applications, and systems at a low and predictable cost. Our new hybrid cloud architecture is designed to deliver greater flexibility and data privacy, as well as a host of innovative features that make cyber protection easier and more complete for our Indian customers. Our AI based anti-ransomware protection and blockchain based data authentication features ensure our customers are enabled with the most secure backup available in the market today.
In terms of your operation scale, what are your plans?
Acronis today works across 145+ countries and through a partner base of 500,000 organizations. India is a powerhouse economy and has possibly the fastest economic growth rates in the region. Our plans for India are ambitious and we will work through a strong partner base covering every major state and city in India, providing the best sales and technical coverage for Indian customers. In a short time, we have penetrated multiple key target verticals – a push that will only increase and grow over the next few quarters.
Can you explain your partnership with Sea Infonet and further plans for channel expansion?
Acronis has a strategic alliance with Sea Infonet in India for distribution of Acronis products and services. SEA Infonet will be responsible for promoting and distributing the complete range of Acronis’ on-premises, cloud-based, and consumer cyber protection solutions through their strong partner network in India – and also providing them with the best possible training and support.
