Symantec banking on specializations

These days companies focus
not only on developing products that offer substantial value
propositions to customers but also on their selling strategies by
infusing a new life into their partner network. In the IT industry,
most companies operate through a set of loyal partners who behave as
a face of the company to their end-users or customers. But companies
often have a range of technologies, that it tries to pitch through
the same partners to their customers. This often results into loss of
business, since a partner cannot have equal knowledge and expertise
in all the technologies it offers from a brand. In most cases, this
results into not meeting customer expectations adequately, thereby
tarnishes the image of a brand. But the realization seems to have
taken place at Symantec, a security firm, which went on to enabling
its partners by offering them specializations in core technologies.
The company recently organized the South Asia Partner Engage
Conference in Hong Kong, which hosted approximately 150 channel
partners from different Asian countries including India, Singapore,
Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam.

SPECIALIZATION ON RADAR

For Symantec, extending
awareness about its specializations among the partner fraternity was
the main agenda during the event. The company has worked out nearly 9
core specializations for its partners. According to the company,
owning a Symantec specialization gives partners the ability to set
their business apart, drive new opportunities and showcase their
expertise. The specializations include SMBs, enterprise security,
endpoint management, data loss prevention, archiving and e-discovery,
storage management and encryption, among others. The specialization
program is in line to create a niche in the market, where it wants to
enable its partners with expertise in few lines rather than all.

“Symantec is eager to
enhance its reach amongst its customers through the specialization
program. We want our partners to become experts and want to enable
them with the right kind of support to do that. It is because the
market dynamics have changed fast. And we can not continue to target
the customers in the traditional manner. Though our channel will
remain the same, we wish to reach out to our customers with solutions
through right partners. Our intent is not to offer all solutions
through 1 partner but to offer solutions through right partner who
owns the expertise in the line of business,” disclosed David
Dzienciol, VP, channels and SMB, Asia Pacific and Japan, Symantec.

In addition the company
claims to have identified partners in different geographies for its
various offerings. During the event, it also awarded channel partners
for their performance in their specialized areas. Based on the
specialization program, the company also bets big in the Asian region
mainly India and China, where it sees great opportunities coming its
way. In support of the company's strategy in this region, Philip
Carter, AVP, IT services, IDC Asia Pacific said, “The countries
like India and China are big markets for solution providers like
Symantec in light of IT spending being done in the enterprise as well
as the government sector.” Carter also outlined that India is a
burgeoning market focused on building infrastructure and thus set to
offer innumerable business opportunities.

MEGATRENDS IN THE SIGHT

Symantec is closely eying
megatrends that are changing the entire landscape in the Asia Pacific
region. The megatrends
that are influencing its strategies are:

• Data volumes that
  are increasing day-by-day and set to rise with as much as 50%

• Changing threat
  landscape where hackers are taking on companies and enterprises
  worldwide

• Mobility which is
  becoming an integral part of business environments in this part of the
  world

• Virtualization,
  which is the buzzword for curtailing the IT infrastructure costs

• Cloud, which is
  driving IT adoption amongst all types of business.

The company is aggressive
to reap on these megatrends. Bernard C Kwok, senior VP and president,
Asia Pacific and Japan, Symantec said, “The megatrends like
mobility, cloud, data storage are our focus and part of our strategy.
Since Symantec has different business lines beyond security, the
company has built up its solutions and been leveraging them to
increase customer base. Plus, we have fostered partnerships with key
players who can help us to augment our reach in the Asia Pacific
region. The company is also keen to take on the mobile and cloud
challenge quite seriously and believes that the
trends will be crucial to its ongoing growth.”

In the changing business
scenario, the company has perhaps realized that it is important to
change the ways it does business. The specialization drive seems to
be a realistic move since the customers are now longing for better
solution providers who have the reasonable expertise and skill than
those who can offer everything but lack knowledge and skills. It
would be interesting to see how the strategy works for the
company.

ONKAR SHARMA

onkars@cybermedia.co.in

The author was hosted in
Hong Kong by Symantec.