Deepak Prasad has been associated with Safenet since the beginning of its Indian operations. He has witnessed the sea change security market in India has been through. Prasad is one of the old hands of IT sector; e has an experience of working with companies like HCL, NIIT, Altos and PCL

What are your responsibilities as GM - India operations of Safenet?
I am carrying out dual responsibilities in my present job role. Firstly, I am acting as local operations head and while executing this role I remain
instrumental in bringing synchronization among products, services, manpower, R&D initiatives and other general issues. Apart from that I am also VP of global sourcing.

Since when has Safenet been operating in the Indian market? How has the market dynamics been during all these years?
Safenet started its operations in India in the late nineties with an employee strength of five people and today we are a team of more than 200 people destined to make the India chapter of Safenet exemplary. Earlier common perception of security was restricted only to firewalls, anti-spy ware and anti-virus solutions but overtime people have started understanding the true sense of security. 

Deepak Prasad GM - India Operations, Safenet

Now with data security being a crucial issue, people are searching for solutions that could ensure seamless security of their data in motion as well as of data at rest. Today more and more enterprises are putting sensitive information on their network that its employees could access remotely, but there is a probability that this information can be hacked by unscrupulous elements, hence there is a genuine need for a solution that could authenticate incoming connections and block out any mal ware residing on a trusted persons computer from entering an internal network. Also unpleasant events that happened last year like the floods in Mumbai and call center data thefts have created circumstances for the spontaneous growth of security industry.

What is Safenet's current focus on India? How do you view India when it comes to profitability?
India is the market on which every vendor across the globe has set its sights. Safenet has been very aggressive in Indian domain since its inception, in fact we have taken a lead over competition in PKI infrastructure space by executing Reserve Bank of India (RBI) project of implementing Payment Gateway Solutions SafeNet CryptoSwift HSM at the research and development arm of RBI. As far as the profitability factor goes India is a very lucrative market, it is one of the emerging markets of the world that holds tons of hidden potential for all businesses.

What are the industry verticals Safenet is currently working on? Which other segments are the prospective customers for Safenet?
Banking and financial services sector is the area where Safenet has been doing fairly well. Apart from banking and telcos other target verticals that could bring us profitable business are pharma sector, government, mid to big enterprises and service providers. Digital rights management is another area that has been growing fabulously.

Until recently Safenet was executing its India business mostly through direct sales initiatives, what has been the reason behind shifting focus on channel sales?
It's partly true that we have been dealing through direct marketing initiatives in India; in fact Safenet has a history of growing its business in APAC mainly through channels. It's only that our engagement with channel partners has been very minimal; we had only two channel partners working with us apart from big system integrators who shared business relations with Safenet. The reason for moving onto channel centric business model is very obvious. With the kind of product and solutions Safenet has in its portfolio it is not feasible for us to reach out to all the prospective customers in the market. By working with partners we can reach out to a larger mass. Partners would work as an extended arm for us and take Safenet products to its target customers through their expertise in specific verticals. Also the core objective of our new channel focused strategy is to combine Safenet's industry leading product line with channel partners integration and consulting expertise.

What strategy you would adopt to enhance the channel reach nationally? What are the parameters based on which you would take partners on board?
First of all we will make sure that we work with the right kind of partners who would work as the catalysts for our growth. Our goal is to build a strong foundation that offers our partners the products, training, tools and opportunity to grow their Safenet security business. The criterion that will matter in partner selection is their commitment towards the brand; they should be firmly entrenched in specific verticals towards which Safenet products are targeted. People whom we will make partners with should be able to understand things from solutions perspective. Our partner should be able to sit across the table with CIO/CTO's of the company and explain the products he is taking to them.

What are your expectations from partners, what kind of fillip do you anticipate in your business after bringing in strategic changes in business model?
We expect at least 30 percent boost in our sales revenue by the end of 2006. The only expectation we have from channel partners is their dedication and long term bonding with the brand.

What is your current focus on partner training initiatives? According to you how important is it to provide partners with the right kind of training, regularly?
It's very true that imparting regular training to channel partners is crucial. We plan to provide training to channel partners on various pre-sales, post-sales and technical aspects of its products and solutions, which will be carried out by channel sales manager and technical services team. In addition to this training material will also be made available to partners on our partner portal.

How does Safenet view mergers and acquisitions, since the company has remained very aggressive on the acquisition front since last year?
Mergers and acquisitions are certainly the way to move ahead in today's fiercely competitive environment. Safenet's outlook on this aspect is not to grow marketshare wallet but mergers and acquisitions should bring with them solutions and products that complement our existing product range. For us acquisition is how well our partners and customers could actually leverage the change and how we can enhance our product capabilities. Evidently, mergers and acquisitions have their own share of inescapable challenges the biggest among them indeed is how effectively companies
integrate their existing values to work out a profitable standard for its respective customers.

Safenet is also very keenly promoting cross selling among Safenet's and partner's sales teams, what does this mean?
Cross selling is the concept wherein we want to facilitate more synergistic working culture amongst our partners. The idea behind this concept is to sell value to the customer rather than price and enhance sales tools within the company and provide a broader range of sales, support services to effectively address customer needs.

ANJALI CHOUDHARY

Page(s)   1