By Amit Singh, CRN, December 26, 2011, 1145 hrs
NetApp has increased its focus on mid-market businesses in India and has plans to increase its revenue from this segment from the current 21 percent of its turnover to 30 percent in 2012.
The company has also strengthened its entry-level FAS2000 series low-priced storage product and solutions portfolio for midsize businesses.
Through this, NetApp aims to add about 250 mid-market customers in the next 12 months. The company estimates the total storage market in India at $600 million, and held 13 percent market share in the first half of 2011.
“Looking at the 23 percent of the IT budget of midsize businesses going into storage, they are a huge opportunity for us. However, these businesses are facing unique challenges as a result of increasing business demands and the need to do more with less resources. They demand affordable yet enterprise-class IT solutions that also have the ability to scale rapidly,” said Surajit Sen, Director, Channel, Marketing & Alliances, NetApp India.
With solutions that are priced and packaged to address this growing market, NetApp aims to increase its mid-sized customer base from the present 600 to 850 in the next 12 months. “We are exploring opportunities in verticals such as manufacturing, media and healthcare,” opined Sen.
The company intends to expand its channel base in tier-1 and tier-2 cities, and is implementing its 3-pronged channel strategy—Protect, Acquire and Grow. Explained Sen, “Under the Protect strategy, we enable increased revenue of partners by not appointing too many partners in a particular space. Under the Acquire strategy we look for skilled partners capable of adding value to the offerings. Under the Grow strategy we enhance the skills of partners and enable them with demo equipment and programs such as Get Successful, Partner Academy and NetAppU.”
NetApp has also launched an online partner briefing center. “The center will offer a range of training programs to partners and a platform to chat with NetApp experts anytime. Messaging, blogs, social media, newsletters, etc. are always part of our channel communication strategy,” Sen said. “In addition, we are enabling our channel partners to offer, at their own discretion, special prices to customers for entry-level products without requiring approval from the company.”
He disclosed that “we are looking for value-added resellers and systems integrators in cities such as Chandigarh, Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Nagpur, Kochi, Vizag and Coimbatore, as well as in neighboring countries like Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan.”
The company has repositioned the FAS2040 for entry-level storage at under Rs 450,000, and has launched the FAS2240 (scalable to 432 TB) at Rs 950,000. The FAS2000 series runs the latest version of the Data ONTAP operating system. |