Partners Help Vertiv Start 2021 Positively | Sanjay Zadoo

Sanjay Zadoo, Country Head—Channel Business, Vertiv India elucidates how their partner friendly approaches helped them manage customers better during the pandemic.

What are the solutions and services in the Vertiv portfolio currently for the Indian market?

Vertiv has a wide range of solutions. When we look at data centre critical management space, the products we offer include UPS, racks, monitoring system, cooling, power distribution system, remote management system. Vertive has got all the products available as a part of the solution. We also have a strong  service network which is pan across India. I think that gives us edge over maybe the rest with respect to our strength in the marketplace.

How was Vertiv able to manage its service network uninterrupted during the pandemic?

It was a really tough time and I think our service team did a fantastic job. I remember then reaching out to the customers. We had to go through some trouble on account of getting permissions, but this being an essential service we managed to get those permissions in the end. Still we had to ensure that we are complying with the laws. In this pandemic your up-time did not decrease, instead it increased. Our service team are franchising networks with partners. Everybody did a wonderful job in terms of keeping customer systems up, during this pandemic. We are proud of them.

How was Vertiv managing remote support services especially in the first three months of the pandemic during the lockdown?

Remote support was very much in place and active because the moment was very much limited and restricted. Whenever we could not manage and needed physical support on site, then we worked permissions out, completed all formalities with respect to the laws. Then also I think that our remote support was quite robust. We managed, to provide our customers with easy access to our services and we adopted to it very fast and our online support was also completely functioning.

In this pandemic we made lots of changes which were innovative in nature.   When we got  permission on manufacturing, we had some capacity of manufacturing activity allowed. Some of our customers wanted to do testing, thus we enabled our online testing through which they can they can see the products and they can ask questions. They can get it technically evaluated. In terms of understanding how we are going to be able to provide support to the customer when the lockdown was declared, we did lot of brainstorming and innovative ideas came out. We settled on online support plus physical movements. We managed to get lot of appreciation from customers for providing complete support during the lockdown period.

How did Vertiv manage on the manufacturing and services when the supply chain for components and equipment’s itself was erratic?

Most of the organizations went into panic when the lockdown was called and perhaps they were not able to open their operations. If I look at a net impact on everybody’s mind then I do not think that people are ready to take the deliveries open up their sites for installation. Any critical application or any critical requirement was still fulfilled because we have a very beautiful model existing. We have three distributors operational and we have a partner set up.

If we look at the complete ecosystem we have on ground which is closest to the customer. We have partners and these partners do keep some inventory with them, they would want to turn around any critical requirement, which is manageable and has standard specification. Distributors couldn’t have their operations up they took a while but the partners on ground did have some invented turn around especially, supporting places like hospitals and other places where tests are conducted. We managed to get manufacturing started, especially there are some sectors who started demanding material like telecom was one of them and we had laid down a framework by virtue of which we used to get the approval letters from the customer so that the truck movement can be stated.This was completely backed up by great amount of planning from our operation team as well.

How did Vertiv manage the impact on existing SLAs especially when services and support moved mostly online?

Vertiv is a service organization. We were completely enabled and equipped to respond to the escalating need of customer. There were limitations but we had a framework set which helped customer to maintain the time.

We use to get mails, then appreciations also from customers. I can recollect some of the service calls which was made by a partner and he managed to restore the full operation, which was down on account. I think if you have a product which is robust that brings the pressure down. Some critical services where the load was, high somewhere, in some cases but otherwise we could manage to maintain SLAs to an extent. We did not face much lag in the early couple of months.

How did Vertiv help partners manage their cash flow challenges and support services challenges?

This impact was universal it was not only restricted to partners but everybody went through a challenge because the fund flow was impacted due to the business coming to a standstill. When we look at Vertiv, we supported the partners not only on account of their cash flow, but also on account of other areas. So the way our partners operate on the ground, they need a lot of support and we have processes in place and some processes demand, documentation.If we go one by one I think when you look at cash flow what you can call we bailed the partners out on account whether we could manage delaying payments.We absorbed that impact on us which was quite significant on us because we also were having the same challenge. We absorbed the impact on account of cash flow so we allowed some, bailout time there.

In addition, the documentation which was required for the process of processing claims got struck. I think we somehow looked at how do we process these without having issue on compliance and without having issue on statutory needs. We converted to digital which can make it aster so that we can settle most of our claims immediately.

The third point was the realignment of targets and looking at the partner ecosystem it was important for us to realign the targets so that people earned something. The number four point was it was important to maintain the pressure and also have a high level of engagement with the customers. Do the partners have pipeline visibility whatever we could do, do they have customer base intact, this were few area which we supported very well. We digitally connected with our customers not only from the sales side but also from the services side. We connected over calls have customers engagements with our customers all the time.

So these three four points eased out the pains and helped us to start 2021 on a positive note in a very fast pace.

How did Vertiv and its partners manage to balance between retention of existing customers and acquisition of new customers?

It was a strategy internally because when we look at the situation, all of us are confined to our rooms and in the new normal the new way of engaging with people is by using digital platform. Initially I remember people could not understand how we connected, there were bandwidth issues but now in this new normal people have very quickly aligned to this.

A new business stream emerged in the whole process what we realize is work from home gained strongly as a new opportunity in the marketplace and Vertiv has products to support it. Connecting with old set of customers and our customer base was planned on a daily basis. We had set webinars, calls, appointments and feedback sessions. We engaged to organize training programs, virtual events and online portals. These all things were appreciated by our customers and by the complete ecosystem.

How did Vertiv re-orient its partners to shift towards a more digital mode of selling?

If you look at our partners or anybody for that matter, they are technology-savvy guys. They can quickly adjust to anything which comes from technologies. So that’s one that played then in, the partners then selves starting adopting digital modes of selling.  Vertiv became a catalyst in the whole process, where it was very easily available to us because the whole force was working behind in bringing, digital platform to connect Vertive as well so we became a catalyst, we started setting up meetings using various platforms and inviting Partners. The key here is not that how quickly they got adjusted to the new normal, but because everybody felt that there is no other alternative.

How Vertiv’s partner ecosystem is currently structured?

We have three Distributors –Ingram Micro, Compuage and Savex and our partner ecosystem is tied up with respect to the scope they have with us. We have some partners who are exclusively with us they enjoy all the benefits with us. These partners are a very integral part as their strength lies in supporting customers and have strong deliverances.

We manage them through a relationship manager. We support them pre-sales post-sales when we look at it holistically on a micro –level where we have some partners who are skilled and trained on stream segment of business. We have another set of partners who are looking at bringing our portfolio along with their solutions.

How do you expect Vertiv and the partners to move in 2021 even as normalcy gradually resumes?

The good thing that happened is the inventories are out both the partners and distributors are happy about that. The market is providing opportunities we should take then and look forward to then understand the customer base and and get those opportunities back to our system. Vertiv is maintain both internal and external communication, keeping in touch with our internal employees and customers our partners. I think that as a support engine we will support the whole attraction on the ground. We continue to progress on digitization of the network and our focus will be more on edge because edge plays a flagship and I think it’s a growth driver. So we along with our partners need to move out and utilize technologies like 5G telecom, IoT, etc, to maximise our piece of share.

What will be Vertiv’s message for both partners and customers?

I always believed in sticking to fundamentals basics make it simple. I leave a message for our partners that “customer first” is our mantra so we stick to it. Let us keep looking at what customer needs and look at the pain areas if they have any and align our offering accordingly. We keep our customers happy through various formats of feedback.  To the customer Vertive has most of the products that goes into their manufacturing setup. We provide end-to-end solutions in critical information infrastructure management space. We want customers to identify us and give us an opportunity so we can integrate our solutions and support. So my message to everybody will be first of all everybody have great 2021. We need to align better, to see ourselves working together and creating a reliable ecosystem for our customer.