“Partners are critical to take cloud solutions to the customers”

In a candid interaction with DQ Channels, Krishnan Jaishankar, Senior Vice President and Managing Director of Ingram Micro India talks about potentials of Cloud and company’s roadmap to explore the business potentials in the emerging technology.

Ingram Micro is at the forefront in transforming its business approaches with changing market dynamics? How do you explore business potentials coming with emerging technologies like Cloud and mobility?

Krishnan Jaishankar: We constantly look at new areas and new business. Cloud is new technology and I strongly believe that from India perspective we have a lead over any other company. From last 4 years we are building business on cloud with excellent products from Microsoft and other vendors. We are in cloud business through reseller model in India and we have built up a strong portfolio in the cloud space, particularly in the application space. Most of the applications which we have signed up, we have the capability to do first level of implementations. We have solutions and we are bringing it to different regions through our reseller model. Similarly, mobility is an area where we consider huge prospects for growth.

How are you bringing in reseller engagement to take cloud services and solutions to customers?

Krishnan Jaishankar: Partners become critical to take cloud solutions to the SMB market. Reseller partner helps and supports to implement solutions for the customer. We are developing a strong model of delivery through partners for this market. We are doing lot of education to channel partners on latest trends and opportunities in the cloud space, especially in SMB segment. We are encouraging partners to make investment in these areas. That will help us to create strong base in the cloud space.

Apart from Cloud, what are other areas on which the company will focus on in 2015?

Krishnan Jaishankar: After undergoing through a significant corporate restricting globally, we have acknowledged the potentials of emerging technologies and we are focusing on strategies to translate prospects into profitability. We have decided to focus on the traditional IT distribution business for high end technology solutions. We have services around secure data disruption and data recovery. We are focusing on solutions for core competencies of warehousing transportation logistics and also working on surveillance, cloud security and other areas. In short, we are trying to adapt new business trends and constantly upgrading value added business in the solutions space.

It has seen that some vendors prefer to adopt direct selling model. Do you think that it will disturb the traditional distribution business?

Krishnan Jaishankar: There are some vendors who traditionally had direct selling model. However, now they are moving to NDs because they see value of ND certain benefits that might not get from the regional distributors.

How do you analyze the transformation in the reseller business model?

Krishnan Jaishankar: We started with distribution of fax machines. Today our portfolio has grown in different areas. But fundamental thing remained constant is that partners are key part of this whole business model. We built a strong business to our partner base across the country. However, we are not seeing so many new partners and entrepreneurs and that is a matter of concern. The reason for poor involvement by new comers could be less return on investment. We have to focus on how to increase engagement with existing partners and invested in upgrading their technical skills.

Do you feel that the emergence of E Commerce is a disruptive force against the traditional channel business?

Krishnan Jaishankar: We have seen very aggressive emergence of online market place in the country in last few years. Partners need to define strategies to compete and stay relevant and make sure that their business is protected. However, we should understand that E tail predominately addresses consumer market and not the enterprise and SMB segment. Therefore, resellers need to focus on how to bring value in their respective business. E Commerce is the future and it is going to stay here. However, considering that the discount driven market has short term existence, I hope that after certain point of time, E tailing companies will start looking at profitability.