In a bid to tap the Indian enterprise, Blue Coat, a provider of wide area network (WAN) optimization products, has decided to enhance its relationship with domestic managed service providers (MSPs).
The vendor already has partnerships with international players such as AT&T, Orange, BT, etc. Now, it wants to work with global players who are headquartered in APAC like Tata, SingTel, Integra, Reliance, PCCW, and several other domestic players.
"We focus on global system integration (GSI) business through global and domestic SI players, like Dimension Data, IBM and Dell. MSPs are the fastest growing channel to the enterprise, and are becoming a part of the value chain to the Indian enterprise. They are serving more like one-stop-shop, and an increasing number of SIs, who were traditionally selling to the enterprises, are now coming under the umbrella of the MSPs," said Christopher Casey, Director, Service Provider Business-Asia Pacific.
On how does the company differentiate between MSPs and SIs, he said, "MSPs sell the entire solution portfolio to the enterprise, while SIs support the back-end requirements. Hence, SIs are becoming a part of the MSP alliance, and are more equipped to sell products in Capex structure. Since we are switching from a Capex to an Opex model, MSPs are becoming more important for us."
At present, Blue Coat has two distributors in India: Virtual Netcomm and Inflow Technologies. "We want to grow, expand and strengthen our channel business. We need to train and develop our partners to ramp up business. We have large account managers who look after a preset number of accounts, while channel sales managers directly work with the resellers and partners on other accounts," said Casey.
Blue Coat has a fairly extensive channel programme where it offers deal registration, provides preferential pricings, and has rebate programmes. "We conduct channel marketing for the solution as well industry verticals. We work hand-in-hand with the partners and help them develop business plans," said Kumar Mitra, Country Manager-India.
As per the vendor, most of the users are unaware of the fact that 50 percent of the network is recreational traffic. Hence, it educates enterprises on the needs of optimizing their network infrastructure through two consolidating methodologies - the network assessment and the web security assessment.
Partners can also earn additional revenues from certification and support. For example, under the BlueTouch Support Programme (BTSP) certified partners can resell support service to users. It also enables them to package network and security assessment as service. The BlueBox programme enables partners to get Blue Coat units at a discounted price to be used for demos and POCs.
