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The Power of Collaboration
Several solution providers are joining hands with like-minded peers to provide multi-domain solutions across multiple locations to grow their businesses.
By Akanksha Prasad
If we hadn’t collaborated with partners in other cities, we wouldn’t have been as big as we are today. We would have lost several customers and would also have been unable to bag several new customers,” says Chetan Shah, managing director, Xpress Computer.
Xpress, which has a single branch in Mumbai, has customers spread across 14 different locations. “We have a total of 80 customers today who are supported by 20 of our collaboration partners. While we have just one office in Mumbai, we have the capability to service them in multiple cities and this has become a key differentiator in bagging deals from multi-location clients,” adds Shah who has benefited immensely from the power of collaboration.
Xpress is not alone in exploiting the vast benefits of collaborating with like-minded solution providers. Delhi-based ACPL Systems, a security solution provider, attributes 40 percent of its annual turnover to its strategy of collaboration. “Collaboration has lent us a pan-India presence which is essential while dealing with large companies. Several large deals we have bagged over the past few years have been solely due to our collaborative network,” says Vishal Bindra, CEO, ACPL, Delhi, which has several large clients including Airtel, Apollo Tyres, BHEL and Sony.
Kolkata-based Chabria Infotech is one of ACPL’s collaborators. “We have earned new customers having a wide national footprint because of tie-ups with partners like ACPL and Kinfotech. Despite being based in Kolkata, we have recently bagged a project for desktop security deployment for Syndicate Bank and TCS,” says CEO Hemant Chabria.
M Prabhakar Kini, the CEO of Kinfotech says, “We provide managed desktop security to large nationalized banks which have vast geographical presence. Servicing clients across geographies would require us to set up offices or have resident engineers, which requires large investments. Through collaboration we have created a network of 60 partners who support us in different geographies.”
Rising collaboration
While collaboration between partners has been around for years, over the past few years it has shown signs of maturing. Several channel partners have effectively used peer collaboration as a tool to shadow their customers.
“Our brush with collaboration began when one of our key clients, Canara Bank, opened new branches and expected us to support them all over India. That’s when we took the plunge,” says Kini.
“Collaboration has offered us complementary skill-sets and wider geographical reach which would have required serious investment to build internally,” says Shah of Xpress Computer.
The phenomenal rise of small and medium businesses over the past few years has resulted in several small companies expanding geographically to grow. These companies have also grown more IT savvy, and demand sound support in multiple locations.
CDP India, a large system builder and corporate reseller, has adopted a unique franchise model for supporting and servicing large and multi-locational clients. “One of our largest clients is the ICICI Group. They have grown phenomenally over the last five years and have branches in all major cities of the country. When they started their retail expansion, we had the option to opt out as we didn’t have the means to deploy systems and provide support in so many locations. Instead, we decided to look for a strategy that would enable us to capitalize on the business opportunity arising from their massive investment plans. We decided to team up with channel partners with good technical skills in different cities—and it has worked well for us,” says Nikesh Sakaria, MD of CDP India.
The company has an installed base of over 20,000 CDP-branded PCs supported by a franchise network of 75 across 80 locations which contribute significantly to its white-box and services business. These partners do systems deployment and also provide AMC on behalf of CDP.
Choosing the right partner
This is one of the most important aspects of collaboration. Teaming up with the right partner who has sound technical skill-sets and customer orientation is crucial.
“The company with which you partner is going to represent you and hence it’s important to choose one with the right culture and sound technical expertise. If the customer isn’t happy you run the risk of losing the business,” says Chabria.
According to Kinfotech, finding the right partner isn’t very difficult. “We have chosen several partners based on our brief interaction at vendor forums. Most partners who attend such forums are top-performing companies with requisite technical skill-sets. It doesn’t take too long to figure out if a certain peer would do a good job of supporting your customers. Vendor referencing also helps. Symantec and Fortinet have helped us scout for the right partners and have also helped us negotiate the partnership framework,” says Kini.
Intel Premier Partners have gone to the extent of forming a collaborative association called IPPAI or Intel Premier Providers Association of India. “Intel support has been crucial for this initiative. They not only provided us the initial funding but also helped get partners onboard,” says Shah.
Smooth sailing
Often such partnerships and collaborative practices result in customer poaching. But surprisingly, the channel partners we spoke to haven’t faced much of this.
“Believe it or not, we have not had a single incident of customer poaching or major differences with our allies. Most partners are mature enough to understand the value of long term and repeat business,” says Shah.
Nikesh Sakaria hasn’t been as lucky. “I don’t deny that we have had some tussles with our partners. A couple of them have also tried to poach our customers. However, such instances have been far and few between. The long term benefits of collaboration far outweigh such minor issues,” says Sakaria.
What next?
According to most channel partners, collaboration is only bound to increase. Xpress’ Shah expects the framework of collaboration to expand to include multiple aspects like lead sharing, marrying skill-sets and joint project execution.
Apart from the need to expand and provide complicated solutions, the other factor that will fuel collaboration will be the increasing shortage of manpower. “Acquiring the right skill-sets in the market is getting tougher by the day and this could mean that partners will have to look at sharing skill-sets. I expect collaboration to get more organized,” says Chabria who believes that the industry requires a country-wide forum of partners willing to collaborate. |