Trend Micro gets aggressive over channel expansion

KOLKATA: Signaling an aggressive channel sales plan for this financial year, Trend Micro is looking at maximizing its channel base in India by expanding across verticals and doubling its channel base. The anti-virus major has been in India for the last 12 years. Now, with its renewed channel focus and improvised product suites, the company is planning to emerge stronger in the market and is targeting a growth of 15-25 percent YoY.

Speaking about the company's plans to expand their base in the consumer verticals Amit Nath, Country Manager, Trend Micro explained, “We conducted a study of the markets and have selected 25 cities in India where we can build a strong base. These cities have a strong purchasing power, a more IT literate population and major demographic changes are taking place. We are already strong in the BFSI, telecom, BPO, ITES and retail sector and besides maintaining our strong hold in these sectors; we are aggressive of adding more sectors in the portfolio this FY.”

Talking about the companies channel policies Nath added, “Trend Micro India has a comprehensive partner program and there are different kinds of partners in the program. This partner program is based on a 5C model of coverage, credibility, competence, credit rating, and commitment. We evaluate partners consistently every quarter on these pillars.“

In the channel structure, the company has three prominent layers; Affinity One, Affinity Plus and Affinity, where each type of its channel partner handles different profiles of customers and has different value propositions and benefits from Trend Micro on the same. “Right now as part of our current channel recruitment drive our focus in on volume channels and in particular on partners who can drive our consumer products in India,” Nath added.

Keeping in mind its need to target channel partners more aggressively, the company has announced that it will be conducting channel events across India and will be focusing on training channel partners to make them understand the products better.

Elaborating about the plans Nath said, “India is an important market for us. In our attempt to maximize our channel base, we will be holding training programs and channel events across India this FY and will be exploring new verticals. For the next 12 months, we will continue to reinforce our plans of adding new channel partners across India.”

The company has already started the event initiative in South and West India and is planning to take it to the eastern markets soon. The cities which are on its radar initially are Chandigarh, Jaipur and Ludhiana. Also on the anvil are Madurai, Nagpur, Pune, Ahmedabad, Surat, Baroda, Coimbatore, Vizag, Lucknow, Varanasi, Kolkata, Bhuvaneshwar, Guhawati, Bhopal, Indore, Gwalior, Cochin, Ranchi, Hyderabad, Kanpur and Mumbai.