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This year, 3Com is going all out to get more partners on its side and equip
them with the right skill sets to make successful business deals. But while
signing up new partners, Rampal will focus on those who are aggressive in the
verticals that 3Com is interested in entrenching itself. And rewarding partners
for their performance is one way he hopes to keep his channel loyal to 3Com
What new responsibilities have you taken up in your current role?
My present role gives me the opportunity to address the needs of my
customers, especially on the secured converged network (SCN) and open service
network (OSN) solutions. My main agenda would be to educate the end-user on the
advantages of these solutions. I would also educate the market about 3Com, which
is one of the few vendors in the market that offers customers end-to-end
converged solutions in the enterprise and the SMB space.
What are your plans for propelling 3Com's growth in India?
We plan to offer strategic solutions based on verticals. We have identified
the key vertical that we would like to be in as well as the key accounts we need
in these verticals. From here, we build solutions around these industries and
verticals.
3Com will be increasing its presence by strengthening partner programs as
well as acquiring more partners and increasing the size of our team. We are also
widening our reach across the country by partner acquisitions. Together with our
sales strategy, we will also be stepping up our branding and marketing campaigns
in the near future.
Are you also looking at expansion of your operations here? If yes, would
they be geographic or product-specific?
We are already looking at SAARC region. We are growing our presence and
reach in the country and also in SAARC with our expansion being both product and
geography-specific.
Our criteria for partners and channel expansion would be partners who fit
into the verticals we are targeting, are aggressive and ambitious, have a wide
reach, and are customer-focused.
In addition, we are looking to expand our channel base partners. Our channel
partnerships will be critical for us if we are to be successful in increasing
our marketshare in India. We will identify and recruit potential partners based
on their existing customer relationships, their specialized skills in our focus
solution areas, and their willingness to work with us in the sense of a true
partnership. Specialization is something we will be promoting heavily to both,
existing and new channel partners. We believe our partners are most successful
when they choose to focus their resources into one of our solution areas, be it
enterprise LAN, IP telephony, enterprise wireless, security or SMB solutions.
Our Focus Partner Program is geared to reward those partners who get skilled in
one of our specialization areas.
What can one expect out of your stable for the SMB sector?
3Com has a lot to offer to the SMB segment, such as SCN solutions, VoIP-based
solutions like the VCX connect, and the 3Com Asterisk Platform solutions for the
voice segment. We also have the Baseline Switch 2900 Plus Family and new
OfficeConnect Managed Gigabit PoE switch that can help SMB customers grow their
network at a pace and price designed specifically for them. We also bring to the
market managed and unmanaged switches, routers, wireless access points, wireless
client devices, as well as network management tools for businesses with up to
1,000 users.
Increasingly, we see the SMB market demanding more high-performance
technologies, such as gigabit connectivity and power-over-ethernet (PoE). In
addition, we see the global trend towards 'all-in-one' products for the SMB that
accommodate and support various feature functions within one product. Another
advantage for the SMB is that 3Com's products are built on open and
industry-proven standards, which means that SMBs can integrate our products with
their existing infrastructure as their business needs grow.
All this is done to help SMBs future-proof their IT network investment.
What is 3Com's UC strategy?
Unified communication (UC) is a powerful and effective way for organizations
to improve their business processes, increase their productivity, and enable
higher customer satisfaction. 3Com has a host of solutions for enterprises of
all sizes. We understand the requirements of organizations and how UC can
improve an enterprise's overall productivity and processes. We are basing our
strategy on our key strengths, products, partners and solutions.
At the core of our UC strategy is 3Com's OSN solution, which gives our
customers the flexibility to use the best of breed technologies. We are also
working with CRM and ERP software vendors to integrate our UC solutions.
What new products and solutions is 3Com planning in the UC space over the
next quarter and how do you see the UC opportunity in India?
3Com was the first to introduce a pure IP-PBX, and today we have UC products
and solutions in the market such as the 3Com NBX UC. This solution integrates
voice mail, e-mail, and fax functions into a single inbox for easy message
retrieval and management in real-time. It runs on the leading IP-PBX
systems-3Com SuperStack 3 NBX and NBX 100 networked telephony solutions;
optional software connects third-party PBXs and other voice mail systems.
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Mohit Rampal
Country Manager, 3Com India |
UC opportunity in India is at a nascent stage right now but is developing
rapidly. The opportunities and market here is large and customers are quickly
learning about the benefits of UC and deployments will be in place soon.
In future, what trends do you expect to emerge in the networking space,
globally and in India?
Networks today are increasingly being used to support more applications such
as voice, video, and data. At 3Com, we see a trend where more enterprises need
greater flexibility to run the applications they need on their network. We call
it OSN that incorporates technology with open source applications creating a
flexible multi-vendor platform for our customers.
Talking of competition, what are the factors that differentiate 3Com from
its competitions?
Technology wise, 3Com stands out with its OSN and SCN solutions. We believe
in innovation at reasonable prices placing our customers first. 3Com also has a
very strong partner network that does well to understand the customer's needs.
Subbalakshmi BM
subbalakshmibm@cybermedia.co.in Page(s) 1
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