Back to the Future

Whenever there is a discussion on
emerging technologies, most of the solution providers opine that
there is an ample scope for them to make inroads and grow
exponentially. But, at the same time, they feel that their businesses
are
somehow at stake. For instance, most of the solution providers are
worried today that cloud services would take away their businesses;
all the large partners would go and talk to vendors directly; and
these partners would start offering cloud services directly and they
would be completely redundant. However, the scenario is not going to
be such, as it is being perceived by these midsized solution
providers today. These emerging technologies would bring plethora of
SI opportunities. They just need to start
embracing these emerging technologies with open minds and discuss how
these technologies could give incremental opportunities to them. Now,
let's discuss some of emerging
technologies in terms of how these can be new business areas for the
solution providers. To begin with, one technology that is being
widely followed by the solution providers is cloud services-be it
public or private. The advent of cloud makes it imperative that the
solution providers reassess their
capabilities to ensure sustainable growth in the future. A faction of
solution providers are of the opinion that since they deal mostly
with the SMB customers, providing cloud services could be the best
initiative that they can start offering to them. For this, they need
to take some hosting space, start working on certain applications
like ERP, put it as a solution to the customers, and finally give it
as a cloud. This will not only help the SMB customers to move from
the capex to the opex model but will also help the solution providers
build long and strong relationship with them.

Here, Pawan Khurana,
CEO, Quantm Net Technologies, is quick to point out, “There will be
more and more technologies coming in every other day. But the main
problem would arise when we don't know how to handle it. I believe
every solution provider will have to carve out own niche in order to
get more and more business opportunities from these
emerging technologies. As a solution provider, you need to pick up
your area of strength and look at how any of these technologies like
cloud can be used for your advantage. The moment we realized that
cloud services are bring looked upon as opex model, we jumped into
the bandwagon and launched our own cloud offering, called Qloud.”
Suresh Ramani, CEO, Techgyan said, “Cloud is a
delivery mechanism and in order to deliver it, we need to look at our
core strength rather
than developing some new strength. We just need to map our strength
with the cloud and deliver it to the customers.” “Another
promising area that is being closely looked upon by us is the DR
(disaster recovery). We started looking at how we can offer DR to our
customers. So, we built our own datacenter using which we created our
own DR solutions. In this way, we created an opportunity for
ourselves and opened a new area of business for me. Now onwards, we
are going to focus on DR-as-a-Service (DraaS),” added Khurana.
DRaaS solutions offers enterprise-class managed solutions for
business of all sizes. Utilizing a best-in-class architecture, DraaS
solutions allow its customers to focus on their core business while
letting us provide them with an enterprise-level infrastructure for a
fixed, predictable monthly fee. (Source:
http://ww.disasterrecoveryasaservice.net/).

Solution providers do also need to look
at or rather think of what is going to happen with the existing
technologies. Instead of playing the 'catch up' game, they need
to focus more on the 'stay ahead' game. They should not only
focus on what's happening today but also on what's going to
happen in future as well. For example, instead of just
talking about cloud services, solutions providers should started
talking about IT-as-a-Service. IT-as-a-Service is the transformation
of IT to a more business-centric approach, focusing on outcomes such
as operational efficiency, competitiveness and rapid response. This
means IT shifts from producing IT services to optimizing production
and consumption of those services in ways consistent with business
requirements. This changes the role of IT from a cost center to a
center of strategic value.
(Source: VMware). Khurana further iterated, “As a SP, you will
never have a situation where your customers will only ask for one
service; they will look at you for the whole gamut of things. You
need to go and catch the nerve of our customers in our respective
catchment areas. Fortunately, by the invention of cloud or such
pervasive technologies, we can look at expanding our catchment areas.
Today, we are looking at the domestic market but as and when our
catchment areas grow, we can look at playing in overseas market as
well. So, identify your catchment areas and focus on your core
strength. You also need to look at what kind of differentiators you
create for yourself.”

Green IT is another area that is being
closely looked upon by the solutions providers. “Technology is
being seen as a key enabler of green initiatives and concepts such as
alternate and renewable sources of energy, re-cycling, e-waste
management, green architecture, eco-friendly computing, green
datacenters, power management, natural light harvesting, solar
energy, intelligent lighting systems, and efficient air-conditioning
amongst others are bound to bring a good amount of business
opportunities to solution providers,” said A Krishna Kumar,
Chief Marketing Officer, Gemini Communication. SPs can also leverage
on the existing infrastructure of customers. Additionally, as
organizations are looking to cut down costs, there are
opportunities for solution providers in Unified Communications space
as well. They can look at deploying one device that can be engaged
into multiple jobs. “Even Power over Ethernet (PoE) is another big
opportunity for us, as PoE result is lower cost, less downtime,
easier maintenance, and greater installation flexibility than with
traditional wiring,” said Anantharam Varayur, MD, Webcom. PoE is a
technology that integrates power into a standard LAN infrastructure.
It enables power to be provided to the network
device, such as an IP phone or a network camera, using the same cable
as that used for network connection. It eliminates the need for power
outlets at the camera locations and enables easier application of
uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) to ensure 24 hours a day, seven
days a week operation. In his advice to all the solution providers,
Chetan Hingu, National Sales Manager-Partner Led Business, ESSN,
Enterprise Business, HP India, said, “SPs need to look at how they
can connect themselves with the emerging technologies and look at the
business opportunities associated with these technologies. I firmly
believe that whenever a new technology comes, it brings along with it
huge infrastructure opportunities for solution providers.”