Hitachi to strengthen partner program

As part of the business strategy, Hitachi Data Systems is now planning to
expand its channel partner program by including more partners in every region.

Talking about this initiative, Harikrishna Prabhu, Director-Channel, Hitachi
Data Systems India said, "We are planning to have three to five partners in
every region. We will help them in building their skillsets by training them on
all kinds of solutions and architecting. We train our partners on sales skill,
product, technology and how to design solutions. We also conduct hands-on
training program for partners which enable them to deliver their own services."

This channel partner program is called TrueNorth Channel Partners (TNCP)
Program. The goal of TrueNorth program is to provide the company and functional
teams with strategic access to the resources and experience of a global company,
with special emphasis in five key areas-product offering and technology;
business development guidance and programs; growth and profitability incentives
360-days a year; training and certification programs and solution sets to drive
the growth.

The channel partner program has three categories-Global Partners, Gold
Partners and Bronze Partners.

The Global Partners or OEM partners are Sun and HP. These partners will work
closely with Hitachi Data System to address the needs, whether they are looking
for a solution for a specific problem or management of their entire IT
infrastructure

Gold Partners or Enterprises Partners are Wipro and Apara. HDS has recently
appointed HCL Infosystem as its Gold Partner.

The company has nearly 39 Bronze Partners. They are region-specific partners
who are more into reselling and are expected to sell more and more solutions.