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McAfee’s consumer business has embarked on an aggressive expansion strategy to increase its distribution coverage and retail presence.
“Our main objective for 2009 is to strengthen our presence in tier-2 and tier-3 cities, and to increase our partner base across these cities,” said Karthik Shahani, Regional Director, McAfee. “We plan to appoint eight sub-distributors and double our registered reseller base by the end of the JAS quarter. We hope to have 1,000 registered resellers by the end of 2009. In a bid to meet this objective, we aim to appoint at least one sub-distributor in all the major cities across the country. We recently appointed two new sub-distributors in UP and Pune.”
McAfee’s consumer products are distributed by Ingram Micro and Neoteric Informatique.
The security vendor has planned a series of road shows with Neoteric across 43 cities including places like Madurai, Agartala, Guwahati, Jammu, Kottayam and Sikkim. Through these road shows it aims to educate resellers about its products and schemes, and get them to register on the company’s partner portal.
McAfee is also looking at expanding its retail presence across India. “We currently have a tie-up with Croma, and have done various promotions with them to understand what works best in the LFR segment,” added Shahani.
“We are targeting sales of 2,000 boxes per quarter. To attain this objective we aim to tie up with at least five major organized retailers within the next six months, and then to expand our presence with regional organized retailers. Initially we are looking at options for in-shop branding and offering special deals for PC buyers.”
The company also intends to increase the number of OEM partnership for bundling its antivirus offerings. McAfee already bundles with Acer, HCL and Dell, and is close to signing up with two more OEMs.
In addition, it is looking at partnering ISPs to offer online Internet security and antivirus services for the growing number of broadband users. “We are working closely with leading ISPs on a strategy to develop a business model to sell our services online,” informed Shahani.
The company also plans to create an online store for customers and partners to download software. “Over the past one year we have been tracking Indian traffic to our online stores for upgrades and renewals; this traffic is growing at a fast pace. While at present resellers and retailers do not get a commission for renewals or upgrades on online downloads, we are working on a model whereby they would get commissions for online renewals,” Shahani disclosed.
In order to incentivize performing partners, McAfee plans to revamp its rebate program to include sub-distributors and create layered rebates. “We will launch the new rebate program very soon,” informed Shahani. “For the reseller rewards program we have changed things to manage a larger number of partners. Also, instead of giving cash as a reward, we will be awarding partners with gift cards.” |