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Sandhya S
With a Nasscom report stating that nearly 50-60 per cent of IT spend in the country is expected to come from the flourishing SMB segment by 2008, it is clear that there is a huge market waiting out there to be tapped and companies are focused on addressing it. Cisco, one of the leading global players in the networking segment, is leading the pack, by aggressively targeting the market with innovative strategies. CIOL Bureau catches up with Ranajoy Punja, vice president – marketing, Cisco Systems-India & SAARC to understand their business strategy and roadmap for SMBs segment in India.
Tell us about your strategies to tap the SMB market in India.
SMB is the fastest growing segment for Cisco in India. Our SMB market strategy involves helping customers create a sustainable and competitive advantage, improve their operational efficiencies, increase their employees' productivity, and ultimately boost their revenues and profitability.
The strategy combines all crucial elements of Cisco solutions and services, including intelligent services, growth technologies, strategic partner assistance, and world-class service and support. These solutions and services are developed specifically for the SMB market, making it easier for these organizations to deploy and manage their networks to achieve maximum business value. Some of the initiatives undertaken include, Network On Wheels, SMB Class road show and special class products for the SMB space.
In the SMB space, which verticals or segments are you focused on? Why? What will be the contribution of these sectors to your overall revenue?
Traditionally, the financial services, banking, insurance, and telecommunications industries had been the early adopters of networking technology, which could be attributed primarily to their unique regulatory requirements and quality of service (QoS) needs. Today, the emerging industry verticals are showing increasing rates of technology adoption—manufacturing, retail, automotive, and IT-enabled services are key focus verticals for Cisco.
This growth is driven by changes in the competitive landscape for each of these sectors; currently, these sectors are opening up to more and more competitors, and the existing players need to emerge on par with their global counterparts on all fronts. SMB is one of the fastest growing segment for Cisco India today.
Unlike the enterprise space, the SMB sector is far more heterogeneous. How do you intend to overcome this challenge?
Though the SMB sector is heterogeneous in nature, one comes across certain localities that specialize in a particular trade. Referred to as clusters, these businesses are a group of companies and organizations in related industries that have economic links, because they buy and sell from each other, or because they use the same skills and infrastructure in a local area.
Favourable business conditions and an open economy have aided the emergence of a significant number of clusters in India. Dotted across the country, the more popular ones are auto ancillary units in Pune and Chennai, textiles and garments in Tirupur and gems and jewelry in Surat.
What are your specific marketing plans?
Our go-to-Market strategy is through channel Partners, who have enabled us to have a nation wide footprint as for our networking products and solutions are concerned. Currently we have around 9 System Integrators (Cable & Wireless, CMC, HP, Network Solutions, IBM, Wipro Infotech, Tata Infotech, Datacraft, NCR) – 8 are Gold Certified with a presence in over 100 cities through 1500 resellers. In addition, we have Ingram Micro and Redington as our distributors
Also, since it is heterogeneous and spread across, what are the different means being deployed by you to reach this audience?
We recently announced aggressive plans to address the needs of the burgeoning Small and Medium Business (SMB) segment in India. The company unveiled ‘Network On Wheels’ (NOW), a mobile showcase of customized CISCO networking Solutions including advanced technologies such as Security, Wireless and Unified IP Communications aimed at helping Indian SMBs leverage the power of networking technology for business growth. There are various other ground level activities that we have initiated directly and also jointly with our channel partners to cater to the needs of SMBs
Have you downsized your product offering in order to get to the more price sensitive SMB space? How?
While larger enterprises rely on technology to improve efficiency and ensure future profitability, SMBs rely on IT as a matter of survival to stay competitive. Cisco Systems has understood and addressed the networking technology needs of SMBs and developed end-to-end networking solutions specific to SMB. Integrated Services Router (ISR), Catalysts Express 500, and ASA - Adaptive Security Appliance are typical examples of SMB class products- combining the benefits of voice, data and video and security, it does away with diverse sets of hardware and literally is a ‘small office’ out of a box.
Read on: Indian SMB IT spend on networking and security infrastructure
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