Advertisment

Dax turns its focus on SMEs

author-image
CIOL Bureau
Updated On
New Update

Usha Prasad

Advertisment

BANGALORE: Chennai-based Dax Networks Limited is aggressively focusing on the small and medium enterprises (SME) market with a new growth strategy by identifying some of its power products suitable for emerging enterprises.

An Apcom group company, Dax has been a major player in supplying networking products to large enterprises, including government agencies. The new focus is aimed at strengthening its distribution channels by adding more numbers to the existing 145 authorised solution providers across the country this year.

Power products identified for SMBs

Advertisment

Speaking to CIOL, Surendar K., Country Manager, Dax, says, "This year looks very promising for us and we have identified some of the power products, which are more appealing to the small and medium business (SMB) segment."

In order to expand its SMB customer base, Dax has identified seven to eight vertical segments. "We have a model, which is quite successful in the large enterprises and we are trying to replicate the same with SMBs. Once you have a brand acceptance, you have the same reference in the industry. Our success rate has been very high in the last six months since we started addressing the SMB market," says Surendar.

"We approach the SMB customer through system integrators that helps both the customer and the partner. We also offer free network design to all our customers. Considering the point that we have a wide range of products, we have been able to meet 90 percent of the customers' requirement under one single window," he explains.

Advertisment

Dax also offers free training to all its partners and end customers, predominantly SMBs. The four-day training program, which covers technical sessions and sales training, is done in caravans.

The other major offering from Dax, focused at SMBs, is DAX Drona - the DAX reward program. Here, every SMB-oriented product is given a separate point. "These are identified as SMB focus products, where you ensure that the pricing is right and delivery needs to be on time. SMBs demand fast delivery. From the logistics and price aspects, we ensure that everything is in place. The response time among SMBs is very fast," he adds.

Product philosophy the differentiator

Advertisment

So what is Dax's main strength in the SMB market? Surendar says: "We spend a lot of time with our end customer, and this is where we score over. Being an Indian brand, Dax has been able to achieve this status. We have a different product philosophy, which the Indian customer respects. The Indian philosophy is 'save and share', whereas, the foreign philosophy is 'use and throw'. We try to inculcate this in our products as well. Secondly, we try to extend or find new applications and also extend a new application to the existing product."

Dax's main focus products are routing, switching, cabling and for SMBs specifically, and it is also into wireless. These form 90 percent of Dax's product portfolio.

Established in 1986, Dax initially pioneered the use of cartridge tape drives in India. In 1988, the company saw a major growth opportunity to 'connect India' and diversified into networking. By end-1990, Dax was clearly a leading LAN-products supplier. Thereafter, Dax consistently added new networking product lines; and currently is India-engineering its products.

Advertisment

Today, Dax is offering the widest networking product range including the latest enterprise routers and switches, structured cabling, wireless, VPN and many new networking technologies.

"As regards the R&D, we India-engineer our products. We have a separate design team that extends these India centric solutions. We don't take a box-based approach to the market. We take a solution-based approach to the customer," Surendar adds.

All of Dax's products are mission critical routing parameter (MCRP) enabled. "We did an extensive market study and spoke to around 1,000 respondents, mainly the MSA managers and high-end customers. We sought to know their requirement with regard to high-end networking requirements. This helped us get active across all vertical segments where we noticed that large enterprises used applications that were MCRP-enabled. Dax routers and switches were running on these mission-critical sites. This helped us foray into the SMB market as well," he says.

Advertisment

Setting up helpdesk

Dax has also set up a toll-free helpdesk service to provide high-level support to its customers and prospects. "Our other recent investment is this 24-hr hotline where any ADSP or a SMB customer can call our engineers directly in Chennai and report a problem. We search for specific problems using related keywords and provide solutions," Surendar says.

The Helpdesk attends to all technology, logistics and service queries. While the CRM software deployed would ensure accuracy in problem identification, the toll-free line would ensure real-time response, he adds.

CIOL Bureau