The company has been taking a slew of initiatives to expand its partner network in the country
These are excitng times for the Information Management division of Kodak Alaris, wherein the company is very upbeat about addressing the burgeoning market requirements emerging out of the digital disruption era. This is evident with the fact that the company has incorporated new features in its new line of scanners like scan-to-mobile and mobile-to-scan to harness the true potential of digital transformation.
As rightly put by Leonel Da Costa, Asia Pacific, MD of Kodak Alaris Information Management, “We have incorporated 80 percent of the features in the new product portfolio basis customer needs and after a thorough market research. We have a strong legacy in technology coupled with a dynamic patent portfolio and the talent pool. These assets are working as an advantage in our favour. The challenge now is to transform these assets to meet customer needs.”
He adds, “KAIM is leading the domain of Information Management. IDC has recognised IM as the way forward for small, medium and big enterprises and we are leading the global charge in this area. Our solutions compliment the ERP investments of a company with their IM needs.”
India is a very significant market KAIM, wherein the focus verticals have been government, BFSI, healthcare, retail, and manufacturing. Out of these, government has been a key sector. The company’s involvement in the Digital India initiative has further strengthened this association. KAIM has a 90 percent market share in the mission mode programs of the Digital India initiative.
Among the landmark projects executed include the CENSUS project in 2000 and 2010 and the AADHAR project in 2007-09 and KYC for citizens across country through decentralized model of service providers using the company scanners. Besides, the company has been a strong participant in the registration and stamps mission mode, land records digitisation mission mode, and digitisation projects in e-municipality and criminal tracking system.
Vivek Naidu, Vice President, Kodak Alaris Information Management, India, further states, “We are a key enabler in achieving the goal of digital governance by working closely with the government in crucial sectors such as eCourts, registration and stamps and e-districts. The company is also helping the government meet the goal of digitization by accelerating the filing of tax returns and passport application processing. Furthermore, it has been instrumental in offering solutions to digitize old case files for which it is working in tandem with 12 high courts.”
While writing the growth story and further cementing its foothold in the country, KAIM has been working very closely with the channel partners who have been the extended arm of the company helping it address the customer requirements effectively.
As far as the channel network is concerned, it has 400 plus partners across India, out of which about 50 percent are active partners. The company has a tiered channel structure, wherein there are 2 national distributors (Redington in Chennai and Centillion in Bangalore) having warehouses in close to 60 cities in India. Both the distributors have been associated with KAIM for more than 12 years.
Naidu points out, “We have segmented the partners as traditional IT resellers, value added resellers, ISVs to drive application software development for customers, large system integrators to undertake multi-product turnkey projects in large enterprises, BPO partners, and the managed service providers who undertake end-to-end contracts to meet customer deliverables.”
In its endeavor to forge a strong partnership with the channel ecosystem, KAIM has been conducting Information Management Partnership Yatra in the Indian market. It is a tactical initiative by the company to grow and expand its partner network in the country. The idea is to communicate and enlighten the product and strategy roadmap to its partners and educate them about the consistent upgrades to their hardware and software portfolio.
“The Partnership Yatra is KAIM’s annual roadshow and the purpose is to connect with the channel community face-to-face. The idea is to apprise the partners of the product roadmap for the future and newer developments at the company and showcase solutions implemented through the IN2 ecosystem that have actually resolved bottlenecks for customers. The other key objective is to recruit more partners and this year, the focus is more towards recruiting ISVs. Besides, our focus is also on building solution led partnerships. For example, we are looking at ISVs who focus on solving customer pain points and, in turn, provide customised solutions,” explains Da Costa.
Going forward, KAIM is looking towards the consolidation of existing partnerships. The company also wants to refresh and re-train the partners and navigate them towards a solution oriented approach.
“As a way forward, we are looking at optimal availability of products, wherein we will ensure maximum geographical coverage by getting more partners across the country in our mission towards digitization,” concludes Naidu.
