By Tabrez Khan
Security vendor McAfee is in the process of consolidating its channel to have a more focused relationship with partners. The company, which currently has 800 partners across the country, will identify around 80 partners which it will directly manage.
“While our network of 800 partners across the country gives us great reach, from a partner perspective it creates a lot of competition and price-wars. This is detrimental to the interests of our key partners because their margins get squeezed and profitability is negatively impacted,” said Ambarish Deshpande, Head, Channels, McAfee India and South Asia. “We would like to have a more focused approach wherein we will directly support some of our key partners to ensure their satisfaction in doing McAfee business.”
McAfee has already selected 30 tier-1 and tier-2 partners with which it will directly engage. These include tier-2 partners such as Kinfotech, MIEL, MicroClinic and Veeras Infotech. McAfee is also keen on including new partners into this focused direct relationship with itself, especially those operating in tier-2 cities.
“We will be recruiting 40-50 new partners across 20 tier-2 and tier-3 cities where we do not currently have a strong presence. These include Chandigarh, Lucknow, Kochi, Indore and Ranchi. We will look for partners with good credit standing and back-end relationships,” added Deshpande.
Partners directly managed by McAfee will be able to enjoy exclusive training programs, dedicated market development funds, better margins and technical support. The other 700 partners who do not fall under this category will be managed by McAfee’s distributors that currently include Ingram Micro, Redington, iValue and Inflow Technologies.
Deshpande admitted that over the last few years McAfee’s channel policies had not been very transparent, and that despite taking channel-friendly initiatives the company was unable to communicate them well to the partner community.
“Going forward, our strategy will be to focus on fewer channel relationships. But we will ensure deeper and more meaningful engagement with these partners,” Deshpande explained.
According to him, McAfee is well-positioned to take on competitors with enhanced offerings and products such as its e-Policy Orchestrator. “Our credentials as an end-to-end security solutions provider are well-established, and popular products such as the e-Policy Orchestrator have helped us to clinch big IT, ITES and banking and finance customers over the last few months.”
He added that McAfee was also focusing on getting innovative technologies through acquisition. For instance, the company’s recent acquisition of Trust Digital, a strong player in the security of handheld devices, has helped it to integrate network IPS in its endpoint security products. |