Channel Partners have to work to move up the value chain

Ranjit Metrani, Director & Head – South Geo, Dell International Services India Private Limited, talks to itvarnews.in on the changing business scene in which it has become imperative for channel partners to move up the value chain. He also shares his views on the bottlenecks and opportunities in the Indian enterprise IT setup.

What is the biggest change you are seeing in the IT channel partner ecosystem?

The biggest change which we are seeing in the OEM – partners – customers relationship lies in the chain of value creation. Today, every single vendor, customer and OEM needs to create a value for themselves, and for their customers. The resellers of yesterday want to become value-added resellers today. The value-added resellers are moving up the chain by becoming solution sellers. So, it is the same chain that exists for OEM, partners and our customers too. If our customers don’t move up the value chain, then their customers won’t see the value of doing business with them.

What are the current drivers for this evolution in the value chain?

Today, most business scale up happens with the adoption of new technology. They use new technologies to not just enable their IT, but to drive their business as well. Once customers start doing that, there is an expectation from the customer to the partner to start doing exactlythat. Hence, the partners who were earlier resellers or value-added resellers, can no longer do just that. They need to really move up the value chain, and start adopting technology. Partners who were earlier selling nuts and bolts (hardware), have to now sell technology.

In today’s technology, hardware is largely incidental. For example, a desktop is mostly bare bones for most of our customers. But when you get new technologies – say, a virtual desktop solution – that’s where the partners bring value in addition to just selling the hardware.

How is Dell equipping its partners to face these changes?

We are enabling our partners with certifications and trainings to help them move up the value chain from selling desktops and laptops to selling solutions, so that their customers see value in them. The channel business has to graduate. Historically, the channel players have looked at themselves as pure resellers. In the current market dynamics today, every customer is looking at partners who offer value, and not partners who just sell them a product. We want partners to create value for their customers and in turn for themselves, because today, the most important consideration for a partner is not just driving revenues, but also bottomline – and that happens in the value they create for the customer.

We run a partner direct programme which is running certifications for our partners across the country. We have categorized partners based on each partner’s capability, because there are partners at the bottom as well as at the top of the value chain. We classify partners based on their current abilities, and then target programmes specific to the partner’s current potential based on their capabilities and scale. We need to move each partner up to a level that is relevant to them.

What is the biggest bottleneck medium scale and enterprise IT setupsin India?

The biggest problem for the industry is the adoption of technology itself. The lack of adoption of new technology is the biggest bane in the industry. In this area, the south (India) leads in terms of adoption – it is a largely IT-mature market. The first thing the industry needs to do is work on quickly adopting new technologies. Cloud adoption and mobility are low in India – so, most of the technologies that are relevant to our business – like social media, mobility, cloud and analytics – all the four parameters are critical for Indian enterprises to really adopt, so they can go up the value chain and create value for themselves and increase their business.

That’s the difference that e-commerce has brought in India. Largely, they have adopted new technologies, which has helped them scale the business in comparison to some of the brick and mortar companies in India today.

What do you think is the biggest disrupter in technology today?

The biggest disruption is analytics. After social media, cloud and mobility, the next disrupter is analytics. The reason is simple: firstly, because of population size, India has the biggest customer base. Secondly, Internet adoption is at its lowest in India, in comparison to the advanced countries. If we are able to effectively use the kind of database we have within India, that will enable our businesses better.

Take the example of the mutual fund industry. Eighty five percent of the mutual funds investment comes from metros and major cities. Mutual fund investment itself is done by less than 15% of the tax paying population in India. What it means is, if we are able to effectively analyze and use existing data of our own customers (customer’s customers), we will be able to improve the mutual fund industry itself. Analytics will be the disrupter in this market. Of course, allied technologies of social media, cloud and mobility will also play a part since those are required to make analytics happen.

Where does this analytics adoption start?

Our customers need to be enabled for analytics. It starts with our customers. If customers start driving and using analytics, then we will see them pushing our partners to enable them. Our first task, as OEMs is that we enable our customers to start using this technology. In parallel, we are going to work with our partners, to make them realize the benefit analytics and bring their customers. It all starts with our customers. If our customers do not use analytics in an effective way, we will never see the value of it coming down to the partner or the OEM.