SMB: Tandberg enhances India focus

Tandberg enhances India focus

The company is aiming for a strong presence in the SME segment by expanding its channel base with the addition of 20 more partners in the next one year

Amrita Tejasvi

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Tandberg Data is gearing up to strengthen its position in India. Realizing the potential that lay within the Indian market, the company is planning to enhance its existing channel structure and looking forward to expand its channel base.

Bharat Kumar, VP—Sales and Marketing, Asia Pacific, Japan and Middle East, Tandberg Data mentioned, “While various markets across the world are feeling the effects of recession, India has weathered the storm very well. The market here is showing positive signs. There is a strong demand for technology and buyers are confident of their purchases. Therefore, we are planning to increase our focus on the Indian market by investing in our channel.”

Talking about the lack of visibility of Tandberg in the Indian market till now, Kumar said, “It is true that Tandberg has not been prominent in India for the last few years. We are not a household company. HP and IBM have huge brand positioning and commercial exposure but they have huge marketing budget and we cannot compete with them.”

He further mentioned that in the current scenario, Tandberg simply wants to support its channel so that the company can position itself strongly in the market. On a global level, Tandberg has 20,000 channel partners. In India, it has three national distributors that include Ingram, Inflow and Store IT. Tandberg is planning to increase the number of channel partners and the company is planning to recruit another 20 channel partners across the country.

Elaborating on company's challenges, he said, “Educating and training channel partners is one of the issues of concern. Selling the product is not the right way to promote a brand. We have to educate our partners to help them in positioning our brand. There are multiple new products in the storage space and in the near future, Tandberg would come out with combinations of software and hardware appliances that would be a complete disk solution.”

Tandberg is targeting verticals like finance, oil and gas, government. In the next 12 months, Tandberg plans to launch several new products in the market.

©CIOL Bureau