“AMI's policy is to promote all its products through channel”

How has
been the current fiscal year for American Megatrends India?

AMI India has
been growing, and we have almost doubled our employee strength. With
respect to storage, we have established a good channel ecosystem.
AMI's policy is to promote all its products through channels. We
are making some new entries into the channel, wherein we have
distributors promoting our products throughout India. Overall, last
year has been a good year for us.

AMI India
is a subsidiary of AMI, based out of the USA. Tell us about your
operations here in India.

We are a
registered organization in India and operates like a subsidiary of
AMI. We have agreements between both the organizations like any other
MNC in terms of pricing. AMI develops products that are generic to
the global market, wherein AMI India promotes those products as well
as develops products for the Asian market. That's why we came up
with products like SafeTrends that caters to the Indian market. As a
policy, we promote these products through our channel partners
including distributors and resellers. So, AMI India has a
geographical boundary for global products, which are jointly
developed in AMI group of companies. But at the same time, whatever
products and solutions that are developed here in India, we are free
to promote them across the globe.

Do you
have a manufacturing unit here in India?

We actually
don't have a manufacturing unit in India. But we get them
manufactured in China, and at the same time, certain products are
manufactured through our local manufacturers here in India also.
Therefore, we usually do the assembling of products. The reason being
that for manufacturing, you need to go for high volumes. For our
storage products, we do it in collaboration with our parent company style="font-weight: bold;">.

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Enterprise
storage is the key focus area for AMI India. How far have you been
able to penetrate into the Indian market with this approach. What's
your vertical focus here in India?

We choose our
positioning very carefully. We are in the space of developing
Ethernet-based storage solutions like IP SAN and NAS, and here we are
not competing with the lower end segment like Iomega's of the
world. Our focus areas are SMB segment and large enterprises, where
they need real storage system, which is IP SAN and NAS-based, and at
the same time they need performance as well as scalability. So, our
competition in the market is with the likes of Dell EqualLogic, EMC,
NetApp, etc. We don't compete much with Windows storage and
server-based products, because our products are much superior than
this segment. We carefully take this market segment and promote these
products through 60-65 partners across India. We have done
installations in companies like Aveo Electronics, Matrix Solutions,
Power Grid Corporation, and DRDO amongst others. One of the major
installations we did in the last financial year was at the Government
of Tamil Nadu for its insurance project, called Power Health
Insurance.

Does this
mean public or government sector is a major focus for AMI India?

Yes,
government sector is definitely a major focus due to the commencement
of several e-governance projects in the last few years. Here, we are
able to provide good solutions. But rather than taking a vertical
approach, we go horizontally. We look for those firms which require
IP SAN and NAS-based storage solutions.

How well
are you placed in the SMB segment?

We don't
call them small and medium businesses anymore, because their needs
are now similar to large enterprises. Earlier, they used to have NAS
boxes only, but today we see that server virtualization and storage
consolidation has become key preferences. Today, we are able to
address the requirements of these companies because our products have
in-built scalability features.

Where
would you place yourself amongst the competition in the Indian
market?

Our company
is growing at a rate of 120% y-o-y. And this year, we are projecting
around 300% growth rate. Till 2 years back, our products were not
much known in the market, but today our partners and customers call
in for inquiries. Apparently, my team has already achieved the target
which we set for the last year. We are seeing our presence growing
bigger. And more importantly, we are going to have a new version of
our existing products, released in this current financial year. With
this product, we are repositioning ourselves as a federated and
clustered storage player in the near future.

Could you
tell us something about your channel ecosystem?

As of now, we
have close to around 70 channel partners and 1 distributor. We have
been approached by a couple of other distributors as well, and the
talks are in progress. We have partners all across India, but our
major partners are located in Mumbai, NCR region, Bengaluru, Chennai,
Hyderabad, and Ahmedabad. The partners whom we work with are tier-2
partners, and they have presence in the B- and C-class cities as
well. So, when we choose partners, we look for those who not only
sell boxes, but also provide first level support to customers. It is
because storage is a very critical component in an enterprise, and
when someone is investing in storage, they look for long-term
benefits. We take extra care when we put our box at the customers'
site and make sure that their investment is well protected. This
requires some amount of care from partners' end as well. So, we
found ourselves much better aligned with tier-2 partners, who could
understand the solution.

Do you
provide any technical training to your partners to maintain this
level of reputation?

We conduct
regular training sessions and roadshows. We also have support teams
at various locations that deal with partners in case of any problem.
In addition, we support tracking ticketing system for immediate
response and offer 24x7 call support.

In your
journey towards growth, how do you ensure that your partners are well
taken care of in terms of profitability, margin, etc?

We first have
to make sure that our product quality is good and all its components
are of enterprise grade quality. We provide good margins to our
partners compared to what the
competition is providing. Financially, partners are happy with us
because margins are better. We are getting a lot of repeat orders
from the existing customers through the same partners. We didn't
have one single failure in the installation, we have done so far.
Over the years, our partners have gained competition and customers
are very happy with our solutions. The repeat orders also encourage
partners. And we provide enough training in terms of service and
support.

What are
your future plans?

We are going
to be a known brand in the storage segment, and since our growth is
accelerating on y-o-y basis, we will be known for high-tech
solutions, more than just BIOS.