“We want to concentrate on the SME segment and large enterprise businesses”

He is emphatic that business will come from the enterprise segment this year, and is gearing up to educate partners to do good business in this vertical. He informs DQCI about 3Com’s upcoming partner promotions, which are aimed at gaining channel loyalty and research the company is doing for innovative products.

Vijay Yadav  Country Manager, 3Com India

We will focus on areas like VoIP, Gigabit core switching and enterprise services to  increase our growth

What are 3Com’s plans for the current fiscal?

3Com is a tier-one provider of innovative, practical and high-value voice and data networking products, services and solutions for enterprises of all sizes and public sector organizations. In the current fiscal, we will concentrate on enhancing our reach in the country to the SME segment and large enterprises. 

We will also focus on launching many new products in the market in the next one year. We have our logistic center in the country, where research for innovative enterprise products is being carried out. 

How important is the channel in 3Com’s business strategy? 

We know how important it is to have good and loyal partners and try to enhance the vendor-channel relationship. In the coming months, we want to strengthen our enterprise business focus and will therefore work closely with our SIs–Excel, HCL, CMS, Micro Village and IBM. We will also appoint new SIs to further business growth. 

The company is also planning to increase its promotional campaigning budget for the coming quarter, as we want to aggressively reach our target customers. There will be more events, end-user seminars, training sessions and business briefings in the coming year. We realize that it is very important for a company to execute correct strategies at the right time. 3Com feels that this is the appropriate time to grab the India market with both hands.

What channel hierarchy does the company follow?

Our channel consists primarily of two types of partners. First, we have SIs like Excel, HCL, CMS, Micro Village and IBM. Then we follow the one-distributor strategy. Tech Pac is our national distributor and under them we have more than 500 resellers all over the country. 

Earlier, we used to follow the multi-distributor concept. However, since the last 18 months, Tech Pac has been the only distributor we have been working with. This has allowed 3Com to be more focussed when it comes to selling our products.

At the same time, we also give certifications to our resellers and individual engineers. 

Are you planning any promotional programs for partners?

The company is planning to come up with some promotional plans this quarter, where the channel will be rewarded for volume sales of our products. We will also be launching many products in our enterprise and Gigabit core switching division. Partners will play a major role in the promoting these products.

What specific measures are you taking to increase profitability of partners?

We understand that profit is the major driver for anybody who is doing business and channel partners are no exception. If our company is achieving growth it´s only because of our channel. I would like to emphasis this that without our channel strength, we wouldn’t be in the position that we are today. 

We believe in rewarding our partners who have made us achieve this success. This is done on the basis of loyalty and volume sales by the partner. Also, we make sure that 100% of our sales is done through the channel. 

What is 3Com’s policy with respect to services business?

Services play a major role in retaining existing customers. Once the trust of the user is lost, so is his loyalty. We have a 24/7 call center, which is a toll-free number. At these centers, our engineers from Hong Kong, Sydney or Singapore attend to customer calls and help them. 

Our usual on-site implementation of switches or other parts takes two to four hours to get repaired. Customers who need access to software updates, bug fixes and engineering updates, can avail of it on our toll-free number. We also offer discounts to our existing customers, if they want to change to our new and updated products. 

What is your warranty policy?

We are one of the few companies that offers a lifetime warranty on some products. Otherwise we have warranties ranging from one, three, five and ten years, depending on the product.

How many new partners you are planning to add in the current year?

We plan to increase our branch offices in the coming months. This will be done to target the SME sector. The company is also planning to focus on our enterprise business. The growth potential in this segment is immense. 

We will leverage on our partner strength in the SME market and thus sell our enterprise products to large corporate houses.

Which technologies is 3Com banking on for growth?

This year, we will primarily concentrate on VoIP, Gigabit core switching and enterprise services. To increase our growth, we keep launching new products. Keeping this in mind, recently, we introduced 7,700 Gigabit core switches in the market. 

What kind of potential do you see in the Indian market? 

The whole of Asia is one of the major markets for 3Com and the Indian market is one of the fastest growing in this region. The company plans to increase its share in the India market through aggressive marketing strategy. The growth potential is immense, primarily in the enterprise sector and we are working towards making the most of it. 

By DQCI Senior Reporter in Delhi