Hughes Communications is creating a channel network, which will carry out delivery, installation and maintenance of its enterprise solutions as well. Krishna elaborated about the company's business offerings and channel strategies

Brief us on Hughes Communications' business offerings.
We have four business divisions, all of which go through the channel in one way or the other. The first two cater to large enterprises and smaller enterprises.

We also have an education sales division, which is a franchisee-based model where we have tie-ups with educational institutions like XLRI and IIM and we take their management programs through the retail level for the premium education market. The last division is called Fusion, where we take Internet education packages to non-metro markets in a kiosk-based model.

How do you work with the channel in the enterprise and the SME space?
On the enterprise space, our predominant model has been direct sales and not through the channel. But recently, we have noticed that in order to bring in operational efficiency, we need to work with the channel. By working with the channel we can become more customer friendly by offering local delivery and locally stocked hardware. We can also exercise options like rental. We are trying to spread into the channel environment with partners who will look after fulfillment.

So how does the enterprise customer acquisition take place? Is the channel involved in that or is it handled entirely by your direct sales team?
There are 300 named enterprise accounts where there are direct sales engagement. But the customer might say that he/she wants installations across several sites all over the country. Earlier, we would ship this from our central stocking facility and carry out the installation and maintenance ourselves. While doing this we would get into a lot of problems related to road permits and local issues.

Working with a channel partner will help us tackle these issues. We are talking to some large systems integrators (SIs) like HP or CMS, who will help us to carry out quicker deliveries.

In the SME division, we work with the tier-2 channel partners and we will expand that network because we want to tap into a larger base of SMB and even single site SOHO customers.

What does your company offer its channel partners?
We work with a channel network that is not into hardware sales predominantly but offer services as well. Our partners carry out the entire sales engagement like customer identification, sales engage­ment, fulfillment and maintenance.

We also do not work with the traditional IT channel who are used to high turnover and low margins. Instead we work with partners who can offer connectivity solution, because our products do not need the seller to be very tech savvy. Most of our partners have 70 percent of their revenues coming from our business.

VINITA BHATIA
vinitavs@cybermedia.co.in

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