“As a policy, we avoid clutter in the channels by defining operating space for the partners”

With renewed focus on the verticals of government, defence, BFSI and IT/ITeS,
Juniper Networks India is trying to get into the SMB segment. Diwakar Dayal
feels that building and leveraging the strength of their channel would help
Juniper maximize on the opportunities there

Elaborate on your current role?

As a manager for advanced technologies in India, I am responsible for
driving Juniper Networks' emerging technology sales activities in India. This
includes technical operations and business development, applica­tion
acceleration, network access control, and intrusion detection and prevention
technologies. The team also drives market education and solutions design.

My role at Juniper is created to serve the growing interests in the Indian
market for branch office solutions that combine protection from both external
and internal threats with strong networking capabilities. My role is to
primarily carry Juniper products to end customers, and in-turn drive Juniper
revenues. My portfolio also includes activities related to channels partners.

How different is your current role from your previous position?

I have formerly held business development roles with Datacraft India, where
I was instrumental in growing the security products, consulting and managed
services business groups. I was also with Sify and Wipro Net, where I looked
after sales, security consulting and pre-sales roles, and worked with corporate
clients such as Wipro, Infosys and Mphasis. These experiences have helped me
grow and develop my skills and bring to Juniper a plethora of best practices.

As I come from a technology background, it was a challenge to initially prove
my management skills, but over time this combination of technology and
management has proved to be in my favor.

Diwakar Dayal Manager-Emerging Technologies, India, Juniper Networks

What plans do you have on anvil as far as the channel is concerned?

Each channel partner has a business plan covering all aspects: numbers,
markets to go after, products, account list, skills, certifications, training
programs, resources and marketing plan, demonstration gear and incentive
schemes. We also have in place channel account managers (CAMs) who are
responsible for the business plans of their channel partners. Partner
profitability is our mandate. We lead, guide and plan for partner success. As a
policy, we avoid clutter in the channels by defining operating space for the
partners. Partner development is our responsi­bility and we believe in the need
to ensure that completely.

Elaborate on your new programs and initiatives for channel community.

We are highly focused on increasing our customer's RoI, through usage of our
advanced products. The challenge is to convey this message to marketing, sales
and channel partners to achieve the end objective.

What are your plans for propelling the company's growth in India?

We are playing in the largest spending market verticals of government,
defence, BFSI and IT/ITeS. We would be getting into the very important SMB
segment with our enterprise-class product portfolio, and also building and
leveraging the strength of tier-2 channel. Additionally, we would participate in
each major deal in our respective segments and get a fair share in the market
place.

As far as our business growth is concerned, we would focus on the verticals
of government-NeGP, SWANs, MMPs, CSCs etc. In the BFSI sector, we are looking at
banking, public sector banks, especially those ramping up infrastructure. Also
we are looking at private banks, which promise aggressive growth. Insurance is
also our focus sector and we have aggressive plans for market acquisition. We
believe technology plays a key role here. We are also looking at stock exchanges
and following the security policies mandated by RBI.

In the defence vertical we are looking at network-centric warfare and
spectrum release networks. Also on our focus is the IT/ITeS sector.

How do you plan to maximize your growth opportunities using the channel?

As far as our growth plans for the SMB sector goes, we plan for more than
100 percent growth over the next three years. This would entirely be enabled
through our distribution network and tier-2 resellers. We are looking at
appointing a value-added distributor covering this space and providing more than
logistics support to the tier-2 partners. We would also position our security,
low-end routing and emerging techno­logies (ET) portfolio to the relevant market
segment.

Last year, we grew from 25 to 150 partners, and we are now a default entry in
many RFPs. More tier-1 partners have expressed a desire to work with Juniper. We
would continue focus on BFSI, government, IT/ITeS, defence and industrial
segments. In fact today, Juniper has nine out of the top 10 Indian BFSI
companies as our customer, and we expect a growth in business about 140 percent
in the enterprise space.

Detail us on Juniper's overall India strategy for 2007.

We want to consolidate and grow our presence in the service provider (SP)
space. All tier-1 SPs are now our customers. And we have had big wins in the NGN
space. We would focus on broadband, IPTV and value-added services this year. We
also want to gain leadership in security and WAN optimization, and actually have
on hand a big win in state WAN, banking. All in all, we plan to perform well
over the industry average again this year.

What is the key differentiator for Juniper against its competitors?

Competition is a healthy thing. What keeps us ahead is good technology and
great products. The key differentiator, I believe, is the realization of the
importance of transferable long-term skills, which can be used in the future as
compared to technical know-how, which is ever-evolving. Technical skills can be
updated but what is more important is to develop managerial skills, such as
people management and customer satisfaction.

Subbalakshmi BM


subbalakshmibm@cybermedia.co.in