Dax eyeing Indian SMB market

BANGALORE, INDIA: SMBs are considered to be a key growth driver for many IT companies. Dax Networks, a leading networking brand in India, is all set to tap the booming Indian SMB market by launching its India-centric networking solutions.

Having established a growing footprint in the enterprise market, through its successful MCRP value proposition, Dax is now looking at an aggressive growth in the SMB market. In line with this move, the company is shifting its focus from products to end-to-end networking infrastructure solutions.

As Dax gears up to offer specialized networking solutions, it is entering into strategic partnerships with different technology vendors as well. The company is also increasing its product portfolio by over 20 products, to ensure that its solutions are comprehensive.

Subhashini Prabhakar, CTO, and Sudha Jagadish, COO of Dax Networks, share more details about the company and about Indian SMBs with CIOL. Excerpts:

CIOL: Tell us about your understanding of the technology needs and IT adoption of Indian SMBs?
Subhashini Prabhakar: The small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in India today have an unprecedented access to new markets, suppliers, and customers. It is truly a global marketplace today. Vendors are constantly looking at shaping the industry conditions and understanding the holistic solutions that their customers seek in order to help them pursue a quantum leap in value to dominate the market.

SMBs require advanced technologies, cost-effective, reliable and secure IT networks that would enable them to achieve business plans and goals. They also need products that are easy to adopt and maintain. Many SMBs are opting for integrated security appliances that combine a host of functions such as anti-virus, firewall, VPN, content filtering, IDS/IPS, etc., in addition to providing network monitoring tools. As these SMBs whet their appetite, the demand for video conferencing, IP telephony, Wi-fi and other technologies will surge.

For SMBs investing in one system that can handle many tasks, such as, managing voice and data communications, wireless mobility and integrated network security, it would allow for lowering of capital expenditures. Moreover, consolidation eases operational expenses as there are fewer network devices to install, configure, maintain, and update. Smaller companies are less likely to have a dedicated IT staff to stay up-to-date with complex products or to train others.

CIOL: Can you elaborate on Dax's launch of India-centric networking solutions for Indian SMBs?
SP: The company’s primary focus has been to bring world-class products to India and provide India-centric solutions that enable domestic firms to save on networking capital expenditure. By ‘India-centric,’ we mean that Indians believe in continuing to use solutions for a longer period of time and do not believe in adopting a ‘use-and-throw’ approach.

CIOL: Is there any reason why Dax has shifted its focus from products to end-to-end networking infrastructure solutions?
SP: SMBs are looking for customized solutions and products that would cater to their unique customer requirements and applications. SMB customers are more prone to deploy solution-based offering than a mere product. To empower our channels to deliver the value-add to their portfolio, we are offering our extensive ‘solution based’ approach, which can be tailor-made to suit a specific customer’s main business line. This gives an edge to our partners in providing solutions, which can turn out as a business enabler.

CIOL: In the current scenario, are SMBs liberal enough in their IT spending?
SP: The industry is willing to spend if the ROI can be justified. The key is to suggest a suitable solution, which will address the current requirement as well as result in significant cost savings. Despite the price factor playing a major role, SMBs are looking for customized solutions and products that would cater to their unique customer requirements and applications.

CIOL: What according to you are the top technology trends for SMBs in 2009?
SP: According to me, some of the leading technologies for SMBs during 2009 could be:

• Mobility
• Transparency
• Integrated security
• Unified communications
• Virtualization
• Storage
• Infrastructure management

CIOL: Can you give us more details on the ADSP model?
Sudha Jagadish: Dax currently has 10 plus regional distributors, 200 authorized Dax solution providers (ADSPs) and large SIs under its channel umbrella across the country. We desire to tap the huge SMB market through the ADSP network. The networking solutions will help ADSPs to pro-actively address potential SMB customers.

In the past one year, we have appointed 200 ADSPs (small and medium system integrators) across various geographies catering to different verticals. We will now consolidate their market position market through new offerings, intensive trainings and lead generations.

CIOL: What are the company's plans to address the SMB market this year? Are there any new products in the pipeline?
SJ: We have planed to tap the SMBs through our extensive network of ADSPs by offering a package of network infrastructure solutions, which includes core NI solutions, structured cabling NI solutions, voice NI solutions, convergence NI solutions, and data acquisition and device management solutions.

These scalable solutions will be marketed by our ADSPs across the addressable market. Dax has introduced a new-generation of networking access and connectivity products to meet the growing of the SMB market along with the traditional S, C and R solutions.