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Alok Ohrie
Managing Director
EMC India
Continued optimism and confidence will determine our way in the year ahead.
The information infrastructure market is undergoing an exciting phase as a result of the information explosion we are witnessing.
While the slowdown has had its effects on the IT market, I am confident that the information infrastructure market, which broadly covers storage, information security and content management, is better positioned to weather the slowdown.
Various technology trends have driven the IT industry in 2008, with green IT taking center-stage. Cost savings and a growing consensus among stakeholders for all-round energy efficiency have been the principal growth drivers for green IT. Virtualization technologies have been the biggest contributor to the industry-wide green IT initiative. Information Lifecycle Management and deduplication technologies are some of the other technology trends we have been seeing. While these technologies will continue to play a major role 2009, there are other trends that will gain ground. These include cloud computing and increased adoption of solid state drives.
Resellers and technology providers must address their customer’s requirement for solutions that will help them increase the efficiencies of their existing IT infrastructure. This is critical considering the predicted cut in IT expenditures. To increase the stickiness of their relationships with customers, vendors and partners must take the initiative to provide holistic solutions. We must innovate and re-align our business to meet customer expectations. With the need to manage information increasing, what is required is the right product portfolio to manage growth, reduce cost and improve efficiencies in the IT infrastructure. We believe there is considerable opportunity for partners with technologies like deduplication and virtualization.
As a company that is focused on growth, EMC has decided to look at the SMB and SOHO segments. We plan to strengthen channel footprint by doubling our partner count to 200 and increasing our presence to 60 cities in 2009. We have launched our Global Financial Services arm in India to help customers and partners with financing which is likely to be a key challenge in 2009.
The Indian IT industry has witnessed its share of economic slowdowns and global conflict. The Internet meltdown in the early years of this decade cast doubts on the industry’s ability to grow, but our collective efforts have shown that these doubts were unfounded. Similarly, the present crisis will also create stronger companies that innovate and use their understanding of the market as a lever for growth.
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