Sify gets aggressive in channel space

Sify Technologies has been in the channel space since the past four years,
albeit as a passive player. But the company is now all set to change that
perception. In March this year the company decided to ramp up its channel focus,
and since April till date they have managed to rope in 200 resellers. “We plan
to have 1,000 resellers by September this year,” shared Anil Pant, VP-Channels,
Sify.

Sharing details about why Sify decided to focus on the channel model, Pant
said, “There is a huge market out there.

The potential is immense. If you look at engineering colleges alone, it is a
billion dollar market, considering that every college would spend about Rs 60
lakh on just connectivity. No one sells direct, every one goes through resellers
because that's the only way to address this market.” The company will also be
focusing on B and C-class cities seeing as a lot of growth is happening in those
regions.

Speaking about how the channel can benefit from partnering with Sify, Pant
elucidated, “The beauty of this model is that resellers don't have to make any
investments as we are not dealing with products here, just services.” He added
that partners can look forward to over-riding commissions (ORCs) and of course
margins. “Once a resellers gets a customers in he can get an annual commission
on it for however long the customer remains with us. This creates a win-win
situation for the reseller, the customer and for us,” said Pant. The upfront
commission would be between eight to 10 percent while the recurring commission
would be around four percent.

The sales team of Sify would provide support to the resellers in closing an
order and would also pass on leads to them, thereby working in tandem.