“Our aim is to reach the number two slot”
 HP Procurve, recently ranked number three in the enterprise switching space, is now eyeing the number two position. Subhodeep Bhattacharya, Procurve’s Country Manager for India and South Asia, spoke to CRN’s Sharmee Roy about the company’s plans for 2009.
Procurve has been declared the number three player in the enterprise switching market. How have you achieved this?
We attribute this success to three growth drivers. First, there has been channel acceptance because Procurve is HP’s brand, and we are one of the strongest players in the channel community in the country. Our go-to-market has been the channels, and since we have offered a bouquet of products the road to the market has been easy for us. The second reason has been acceptance in the enterprise segment. We have recently closed some large deals in this space. The third reason has been the acceptance in the SMB market. We have launched a range of switches for the SMB segment, and it has been well accepted by them.
What does your distribution structure look like?
We have four national distributors: Ingram Micro, Rashi Peripherals, SES and Cyberstar, whom we have recently appointed as our fourth distributor. We don’t have a specific or formal segmentation with any distributor, but we feel that Cyberstar will help us reach the SMB market. These four distributors, in turn, reach out to more than 400 partners in the country. Through them, we are currently represented in more than 50 cities, including all the major A- and B-class cities.
Could you elaborate on the channel accreditation program you have been running? How different is it from the earlier one?
The segmentation of our partners is based on the capability model. Depending on the focus of the business and the skill-sets that a partner brings to the organization, we have created four different categories.
At the top-end, we have Master and Expert partners. They are capable of providing complex solutions to customers; their business is networking-focused with ample trained manpower.
At the bottom-end we have Professional and Select partners, who are basically focused on the sale of boxes and are also capable of giving rudimentary networking-focused solutions.
This accreditation program is not new. We have re-categorized the program and re-slotted our 400 partners because many of them have undergone training. We will now focus on training and align them with our new wireless range of products.
How has the Colubris acquisition made an impact on your business?
The Colubris acquisition will make a lot of difference. If you see the wireless space, the current technologies are 802.11 a, b and g. These are the three standards, which though reliable are not very fast. This means the ability to deliver a high amount of data through the network is very limited. With the acquisition of Colubris, we have been able to get into the 802.11n space, which is high-speed wireless, and this will drive a huge amount of growth in future. Colubris is the leader in a number of wireless applications, and will help give us leadership status in the segment. Partners will get more products in their portfolio to offer to customers, and this will in turn give more profitability. The acquisition also means taking Colubris partners into our fold.
Which specific verticals are you focused on? What is the ratio of business coming from SMBs and enterprises?
Today, 30 percent of our revenues come from the government, 20 percent from manufacturing, 20 percent from BFSI, 10 percent from ITeS, and the rest from other verticals. We expect business will continue to grow in these segments. Also, with Colubris, we are now entering the transportation segment actively, and are looking at a bigger presence in education and hospitality.
Examining things from the enterprise and SMB point of view, approximately 60 percent of our business comes from the enterprise and 40 percent from the SMB.
How do you ensure partner profitability?
We ensure that our products are available through an exclusive set of partners. We don’t over-distribute our products. Their positioning is unique because we provide free lifetime warranty and free lifetime software support. Also, upcoming technologies like 10G, which we are focused on, will give our partners the margins.
What are the various training programs you run for your partners?
We basically have three different training programs: Adaptive Edge Fundamentals (AEF), Accredited Systems Engineer (ASE), and Master Accredited Systems Engineer (MASE). These courses are offered by HP Education, and vary in complexity and content. AEF is very basic, a course to familiarize partners with Procurve products. ASE has papers specific to various disciplines such as routing, mobility and security. In MASE we have similar subjects, but at a lot more complex level.
What kind of challenges do you face in the market?
One of the major challenges is that there are a lot of customers who have large legacy networks which have been supplied by other vendors—and many of these vendors have proprietary technologies. In such a scenario, customers are stuck because they cannot throw out these products but are instead forced to buy the next set of products from the same vendors.
Another challenge is that many customers look at the immediate cost of procuring a product, and do not look at it from the cost-plus-maintenance point of view. Since we provide lifetime warranty on all our products, we think that what really matters is the cost of owning a particular network over a period of five years, or as long as they use it. We want customers to consider the cost of owning a network for the entire lifetime of the network, but it usually does not happen. This is where customers get it wrong.
Over the next 12 months, what’s in store for your partners?
Our aim is to reach the number two slot as soon as possible, as well as expand our geographical presence in C-class cities. Besides this, we are looking at working with partners to set up one or two Proof of Concepts (PoCs) in every major city. We already have PoCs in Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai. Next in line are Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi and Pune. We will be launching new products in both the switching and wireless categories. |