Partnership in Every Sense

One of Lenovo’s preferred partners; Redington provides end-to-end supply chain solutions for all categories of Information Technology hardware products (PCs, PC building blocks, networking, software and enterprise solution products).  Over 100 international brands and relationship with major brands have been for years. Now, says Mr. Anand Chakravarthy, President, Redington India, it’s time for emerging technologies to get integrated in enterprise technology. Lenovo, with its extremely god channel relationships, will benefit the most in this market.

1. Tell us something about Redington’s business?

We are one of the top distributers in India dealing with the best known brands of IT as well as mobility products. We have been present in the Indian market since 1993, and have taken our growth impetus with the growth of the Indian market for enterprise technology.

In 1997-98 we expanded to Middle East as well. Today we have 54 branches in India, with corporate headquarters in Chennai. We were listed in 2007. Our revenue stands at USD 5.5 billion an almost 49% of it comes from India, the rest from markets outside of India.

We have more than 30,000 partners, and are still expanding. We have plans to expand in Africa and Middle East and also some parts of Europe. Our strategy is, we pick the tier 2 markets, not the most advanced ones, and try to use the first- mover advantage in those. It’s a challenge and also gives a good playing field for market domination.

We have been associated ever since IBM sold their PC division in 2007-8. Since it’s a Chinese brand, the market had a lot of apprehensions but Lenovo has very professionally and efficiently expanded their turf. As far as PCs are considered, it was a matter of time that they get into servers…, so it finally happened last year.

2. ThinkPad is a new product, how is the market taking it?

Knowing Lenovo, they are always leaders in bringing innovation. ThinkPad has created a spark, and customers have been waiting with curiosity and find a lot of value for money for these products. Good products

3. What is Redington’s role in promoting it?

As a distribution partner we deal with a large set of numbers who sell Lenovo products, we continue to push Lenovo brand to partners…that is where we get the right penetration as well as the spread the business requirements.

4.  Do you see any vertical specific advantages of Lenovo’s products?

Lenovo, I think they have been mid market players in the past. With their upward growth, they will definitely get greater access to a large set of enterprise markets going forward, which is an additional market ground for them. Getting a larger share of the enterprise hardware market is a huge opportunity, and I am sure Lenovo will take it up very well. In my opinion, their expertise in all sectors is great but I still think data centres will be where they will play a bigger role than they have, so far.

5. How has Lenovo been a beneficial partner for Redington?

Lenovo has remained a consumer as well as commercial partner. We have been selling their SMB product line for a long time. While they are associated with selling PCs to some large enterprises, ever since they bought over servers from IBM, the game has been changed. I see their movement as very strategic and well planned. They have recognised their role in the rapidly growing data center market. It is clearly opening up new opportunities for them in large enterprises in a bigger scope. This will help them grow even more.

Our play has been enterprise, mid market and SMBs too.  I guess, with the expanded portfolio of Lenovo, we can offer more products to the market as their channel partner and cover more customers going forward.

6.  Redington is a preferred channel partner for Lenovo but it also has a network of 23,000 channel partners. How do you keep them motivated?

Actually our number is more than that; they all come in different sizes. Some of our partners have skills, some aspire to higher skills. What we do is to try and see how much we can help their product portfolio. It is usually handled through solution sales and distribution of technologies. Our role is to provide technologies, offerings, trainings if required to upgrade skills, and in some cases, also help in installing products if they don’t have skills.

7.  what are Redington’s focus areas for 2016, and is Lenovo a part of it?

Our focus areas for 2016?  It’s one more year of hope. Macroeconomic situations have not been so great, but we feel infrastructure space will be in a growth mode now, and give a fillip to the economy by investing in infra in public and government sectors. 2015 could have been better; it was definitely missing in what the market expected for some years. 2017 will be much bigger. Maybe the last 2 quarters there will be a push, and GST being rolled out will be the biggest thing the market will see.

There are a lot of opportunities that are being created. Specially in fasts growing sectors like BFSI, telecom and IT. Lot of opportunities are taking shape and these sectors will see continuing investments. One more area will be physical security surveillance where a lot of states governments are also investing. Of course, in India, digitization will take more time to get established, but with adequate technology available to us, it is certainly on its way.

One huge opportunities for all technology companions will be the advent o Smart Cities- and this traction will increase over the next five to six years.