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A pioneer in SSL VPN segment, Aventail is gearing up to target the SMB sector in India. Talking to AC Ganesh of CIOL, Aventail's Country Manager N Ajay Kumar says "the company plans to push more than one right button to take on the market.”
"The company is buoyant of the India as the country's operations are doubling our revenues in India," says Ajay Kumar. "Aventail India is extremely important globally to Aventail Corporation as a whole," he says. "With a growth of 300 percent in 2004-05 and 100 per cent in 2005-06, about 90 per cent of QA and 50% R&D are done in India. Every release from India is contributing substantially to the company."
- On Companies plan for the SMB sector in India
"We would like to target all SMB manufacturing companies that have an ERP investment. Most of them will want their Business associate like vendors, distributors, sales channel, contractors, dealers, etc to connect to the ERP. Our solution will provide them with a pure clientless - policy based access to these servers," says Ajay Kumar.
On plans to beat their competitors, Ajay Kumar says "the competition is healthy as there is space for everybody." But we have some Extra Value proposition to our SMB prospects which are our USP as well like patent pending technology, local development center and support center and all India distributor network, he adds.
Talking about the feature in SSL VPN, Ajay Kumar says "the technology we are using is clearly different from what is available in that space". Elaborating about the patent pending feature called smart tunnel, Ajay Kumar says that "Smart Tunnel is in line with the vision of the company to give “in-office” experience even in remote locations and minuses has been overcome. It offers all the positives and benefits of SSL and IP Sec and is bundled into one."
- On plans for the verticals
Ajay Kumar says "the company is targeting manufacturing, insurance companies, SMB IT / ITES companies and BFSI in a big way. IT and ITES is a very important segment for the company as there are a lot of people traveling engineers."
 - Marketing strategy/ vendor and pricing strategy
Ajay Kumar says "the company needs to push the right button to take on the market. We will work through our distributor; build the channel while we address the market."
"Choosing distributor was an important step and the tie-up with Select Technologies as distributor was in that direction. Select’s strong channel network will help us increase our penetration and customer base across India,” says Ajay Kumar. "Good product with a good network will provide confidence to the channel and customers," he adds.
For Marketing Strategy - Our distributor Select Technologies is present in many B & C class cities; we will leverage their local team to address these markets.
Talking on the company's positioning, Ajay Kumar says "apart from remote access that increases productivity, we will also actively position ourselves as technology that can be used for disaster recovery and inverted network. Offering a 'zero cost OBPM' (object based policy management) where a box which will make administration simple is another."
- Products and solutions for the SMB segment
We have 3 appliances for this segment which are aggressively priced EX 750, EX 1500 and EX 1600. We have tied up with RSA to offer a bundled solution: 25 users Aventail solution + 25 RSA tokens for only Rs.3.74 Lakhs, says Ajay Kumar.
- Education is crucial for customer awareness and reach
"One of the most interesting and challenging task in hand is to be able to communicate the technology to a larger audience and this can be done only by educating the partners and end-users," says Ajay Kumar.
Acknowledging the fact that education is crucial for creating brand awareness and reaching out to the SMBs, Ajay Kumar says the company plans to conduct quarterly seminar in all major markets," adding "The company is adopting a trickle down approach by educating the channel partners based on their comfort level and logistics."
The company conducts a two-day hands-on training to its customers by taking them through with the box and then conducts an online test. Those who undergo the training successfully is awarded Aventail Certified Professional certificate.
In future, the company plans to train channel partners, organize customer events and theme based discussion focused on the benefits of products and solutions. The company gives hands-on experience and training by visiting sites where there is a sizeable number of people to be trained, else they are asked to assemble at the company's premises.
Finally, taking about the future plans for India in terms of investments, people, products and solutions, Ajay Kumar says "We are a 60 member team currently with plans to become a 100 member organization which will purely focus on SSLVPN. We are currently in 8.6 version, we have plans to roll out two major and one minor release before Dec 31 this year."
© CIOL Bureau
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