Partners’ growth is the Objective of Xplore

SMB segment is the fast growing business opportunity in the communications and collaboration technologies market, and the Xplore roadshow was focused on gaining the maximum leverage from there, says Varun Mata, Business Head, Neoteric

Could you share with us the vision that drove the Xplore partner meet?

The Xplore event was conceptualized with Alcatel and the push was for driving the SMB segment towards Alcatel Lucent. We compete with brands like NEC, Panasonic and Avaya and we felt that if Alcatel Lucent wants to grow over the next three years, this is where we need to start. SMBs have maximum number of partners they take support from, so once we get an edge among those partners, it would help in getting the edge in enterprise segment.

We decided to do the seven cities roadshow that has just concluded in Delhi. Through these roadshows we understand the partner mindset and tell them what Alcatel is, what Neoteric does and how we can help them.

How was the response of the partners?

We have received a tremendous response because the support that we provide (along with distribution) gives them lot of value added services like pre sales, post sales implementation, warranty services, demand generation and sales support. These are given along with the distribution of the product. That helps the partner.

What is the focus of Neoteric? How has the roadshow add value to Neoteric business?

The focus of Neoteric is more about driving towards value added distribution, giving more services to partners, and anything that will help the partner grow. It is the support structure for the partner that we are looking to build.

This roadshow has helped us to identify new partners, push our company’s product lines with the help of these new partners. Whether it is the new audio line, security surveillance, media entertainment, unified communication, the complete product line is what has gone as an offering to the partner. It gives us opportunities where, in one place, we have 40 odd partners who can get an idea of what all are the product that we deal in.

What are the solutions on offer?

We offer solution in Unified communications range like telephony, switching, routing and wireless. We also have audiovisual solutions with display, while we also integrate and video conferencing solutions. We do security and surveillance solutions as well, where we have CCTV cameras, as also complete media and entertainment solutions. Our main principals are Alcatel Lucent, NEC, LG, BenQ, Posh, Lenovo and Hitachi.

What are your expansion plans?

We are already present across the country, with 40 branches in India. As far as solution expansion is concerned, we are expanding in terms of getting more technology savvy people who can actually help the partner in designing the right solution. We are concentrating on lot of Tier II and Tier III cities. Pune, Ahmedabad and some towns in Punjab, Gujarat, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Cochin are big prospective cities for us.

How many partners you are working with?

We do have specific partners stronger in different cities and today almost 10,000 channel partners because of the product range that we carry. We carry almost 40 plus brands so through these we are connected with almost 10,000 partners, but actively we would be working between 2500-3000 partners. Each of our partners has their own strength so we have defined their domain. We look at their best strength, customer base and their expertise and expansion plans before deciding on a partner.

Please throw some light on Advantage win partner program?

We have launched Advantage win during these roadshows in seven cities. This program gives the partner 1.5% as reward points against every purchase they make and those reward points can be used for different services. We also run other programs quarterly for certain products into certain vertical from time to time.

How do you incentivize your partner?

We have some business plan sign up which is divided by quarters and if they achieve those plans, there are certain rebates. The targets for the partners are of course different for different regions.

Which are the potential verticals for Neoteric?

Hospitality and healthcare are the two major verticals. IT/ITES, Manufacturing are also big for us. We have experts for these verticals who give solutions for these verticals. WE are now designing solutions for Hospitality brands, after having exhaustive rounds of meetings for their particular properties, to help them to give their guest the best possible hospitality experience. Hospitality alone is adding 25% to our total revenue. IT/ITEs are a growing sector for us and manufacturing would be adding between 12-15% to our total revenue.