Emerson beats slowdown with upcountry focus

NEW DELHI, INDIA: You have recently been appointed the Country Manager—Channel Business for Emerson Networks.

What are some your plans on the anvil?

This is my eighth year in Emerson and I have been a part of the channel team and headed various verticals and am pretty well-versed with the way the channel works here. We are planning to penetrate upcountry locations. We have also revamped our channel model and will be adding another set of partners to the existing two-tier distribution model in place. We have already appointed as many as 20 Network Solution Partners (NSP) for the same and will also be doubling our enterprise partner and the direct partner base to cater to customers in different ways.



What is the idea behind the inception of NSP base?

Most of our products portfolio gels with IT solutions. For example we have the precision cooling and the data center cooling solutions, racks and servers and UPS systems that can be marketed to customers through the partners. The NSP partners are the best people for the job. Besides, these products also add value to the partner’s own product portfolio. In the six months when we were experimenting with the solutions we have seen some positive results and we have every thing in place.

The NSP program is only for the IT people and they can use our strength to go to the customers and cater to their different needs. We have 20 NSP partners in the top eight cities and we are looking to add another eight to 10 partners. But then this is a niche segment and we do not wish to overcrowd this space.

Emerson is also aiming at geographical expansion? Tell us about it.

We already have branches in 29 locations and by 2009 we are planning to expand the branches further, and bring the number to 35. We have identified cities like Ludhiana, Trichy, Nagpur, Durgapur, Kota, Shimla, Surat and Rajkot for the same as these markets have immense potential to grow and can generate business for us. Although the slowdown is looming, there is a huge demand from the upcountry locations. We hope to penetrate the cities where we do not exist and our presence is minimal.



Will Emerson also be expanding its product portfolio?

We will be pitching our complete range of UPS systems in 2009. We will be launching more energy efficient products in the years to come. We also want to take these server racks to the market which is why we are looking at tying up with partners who can concentrate on solution offering. The NSP initiative will help push this business further.

Which segments will Emerson focus on?

The Indian market has immense potential as its own domestic market lies untapped. Hence, we have to be at the customer's service with the right set of partners and at the right time, as well as spending fund intelligently.

In addition, the SMBs are coming up with large data centers and also looking at aligning with system integrator partners and hence there is a huge potential for our NSP partners. While a company may look at reducing the size of the data center from 3,000 sq ft to say 1,500 sq ft, it may compromise on its IT spending but will never compromise on the power and back up solutions because that is a one time expenditure for these companies.