Who are the new age SPs

face="Times New Roman, serif">Today,
as the IT industry is going through a transformation, one can
definitely see a kind of evolution amongst the solution providers.
From being mere channel partners, they have moved on to become system
integrators or rather 'new age solution providers.' But what
differentiates new age SPs from their earlier ' color="#000000">avatar color="#000000">'-let's
try
to find out the criterion that defines new age solution
providers. If
taken a look at their different operational matrices and the sort of
changes these have brought in their businesses, it will be found that
their whole business model has undergone a sea change in the manner
in which they handle operations-be it their marketing activities,
finance management, or even managing their manpower resources. One
could really see some kind of operational transformation taking place
at one level or the other.

face="Times New Roman, serif">In
fact, the whole business outlook of these SPs has changed. Rather
than just building up their business and making profits, they are now
much more keen on making their internal operational processes like
finance, HR, logistics, and marketing amongst others strong. All
these new age SPs have realized the fact that if they have to run
their businesses successfully, then they have to make all these
internal operational modules extremely strong. Nitin
Shah, CEO, href="http://www.dqweek.com/Allied-Digital-enters-Cloud-computing-space">Allied
Digital and also an industry veteran who has moved
on from being just a solution provider to a system integrator said,
“Since, we operate in a highly competitive marketplace, we must
ensure that each of the internal operational processes is kept
abreast with the ongoing changes as per today's industry standard.
We should not leave any single module weak otherwise it might prove
disastrous for the company in long run. Business is all about making
profits and if you fail to align yourself with ongoing changes in the
market dynamics, your profitability will certainly go down in long
run. Furthermore,
in order to be termed as a new age SP, one has to first look at his
own organization and the products that he offers to the marketplace.
Then he should analyze the market dynamics in terms of how it is
changing. And as the industry is moving towards more and more
consolidation, he has to be also prepared to re-invent and re-focus
himself so that he does not lag behind in this competitive race.

face="Times New Roman, serif">Rajeev
Mehta, CEO, Zest Systems, is of the opinion that as a new age SP, he
believes in face="Times New Roman, serif">keeping
long-term relationships with customers and adopting a proactive
approach in providing services to the customers. Besides, color="#000000">the
manpower is any company's biggest asset and one has to put in best
of the efforts to retain them. One shouldn't blindly follow the
transformational changes; instead he should first analyze whether his
DNA supports that change or not and how best he can prepare himself
for that change. Unlike their earlier color="#000000">avatar color="#000000">,
these new age SPs have also realized that the middle management is
reluctant to any kind of change as compared to the top management.
And that's why they ensure that any message should percolate
through a proper channel to the middle management so that they start
accepting any change more proactively, and thus, embrace it whole
heartedly. Sharing
his experience, RS Shanbhag, CEO, Value Point Systems highlighted,
“This was a personal challenge for me wherein I convinced my
partners about the transformational changes, carry the same message
down the line, and get best of the results out of them. However, it
was a very slow process, as it took us almost two years to bring
changes at all the levels of our management. Nonetheless, today we
are reaping the benefits of bringing in transformational changes in
our business operations.”

face="Times New Roman, serif">Emphasizing
on the importance of operational skill sets and excellence which is
very much necessary for dealing with any transformational change,
Benly Noronha, CEO, Nortech Infonet, said, “For me, accepting any
change does not mean transforming only the business processes or
organization at large. It means bringing transformation within me as
well. Today, I can proudly say that ours is the most transformed
organization because each and every employee understands his role and
responsibilities, know what his/her KRAs are and that has brought a
full discipline and a thorough professionalism within the whole
organization.” Moreover,
these new age SPs have also learnt the art to deal with any kind of
challenges that they encounter in their day-to-day operations. For
example, post the economic turmoil, they began identifying whether
they were ready to adapt to the new challenges and then come out with
solutions to tackle them. Besides, they have also realized that they
need to use and bank upon your expertise and experience in order to
understand not only their clients but their businesses as well. The
areas where we are seeing maximum changes happening are automation of
service delivery mechanism in terms of changes in SLAs and changes in
service delivery mode, geographical expansion in terms of looking at
global opportunities and dealing with challenges at global
marketplace, and looking at newer opportunities in the domestic
market like government sector, education segment and others.

face="Times New Roman, serif">Pawan
Khurana, CEO, Quantm Net Technologies, highlighted,” If you have to
remain one step ahead of competition then you have to envisage those
changes and be totally geared for it. Like for example, we envisaged
the impact of cloud computing long way back and today, we can proudly
say that we are first ones to have our own cloud computing offering
and a datacenter. Here,
we can say that with its own datacenter, a SI leverages the liberty
of designing the offerings, create various flavors in collaboration
with different applications and software, build the cloud in offering
mode, deploy the applications, build the fulfillment models, prepare
the menu card, and nurture the infrastructure. Besides, the SI can
package the offering, build the reseller, and target the industry
vertical rather than depending on any other partner's competency. So,
change is imperative and if you deny it, the result can be
disastrous.

face="Times New Roman, serif">These
SPs are following both reactive and proactive approach to enter into
new geographies. They a face="Times New Roman, serif">re
continuously exploring various opportunities in different parts of
the globe and would enter into a particular geography if they see
justified business sense. However, e color="#000000">stablishing
a
brand and building reference-ability in a new market poses a big
challenge for these new age SPs. Anil
Kumar TV, CEO, Dhanush Infosol, further reiterated that today, as
solution providers we all are going to the overseas market and doing
great business with global companies but we should not forget that
there is a plethora of opportunities in the domestic market as well.
We need to exploit all these opportunities at the earliest. So,
dealing with transformational changes also requires dealing with
newer opportunities. Meanwhile,
in his advice to the new age SPs, Girish Krishnamurthy, CEO, Kaseya,
said, “You need to have net cash flow in your hand in order to make
those changes really happen at your organization level. And most of
the cash flow comes from the operational activity. So, the
operational cash flow will directly lead to your profitability. This
is the biggest problem area that each of the individual companies
need to identify before they embark on any opportunity coming their
way.”