Piti Pramotedham is focussed on expanding Computer Associates' business with the help of its partners. For this, the vendor plans to launch the global 'One' channel program in India soon. The prime focus of the program would be generation of business lead from CA to the partner and vice versa. Piti tells CI how this initiative will bring it more closer to its channel.

What will the future of IT security be?
Globally the trend in mature markets is that people have bought all the security hardware and now want more Return on Investment (RoI) from this investment. We see this as an evolution for technology management and consolidation, rather than mere provision of hardware. This also gives rise to service opportunity, as partners can help customers formulate policies, provide technologies for monitoring and put in a system for management of this entire infrastructure.

In India, the investment phase is still going on, as people are still adding products to their security network. This is natural, since we are seeing huge IT infrastructure being put in place by companies. Once they have the systems in place, they will want their suppliers to manage them. This offers immense opportunities to partners, especially in migrating from product supplier to complete systems manager.

How are you empowering your partners to evolve with this trend?
We keep running roadshows to educate and train them. Our partner education process is not merely in helping them understand the technology, but also the thinking in helping the customers to make sense of the technology. We are also infusing security awareness in smaller cities.

When do you plan to roll out CA's global One partner program in India? How will it benefit local partners?
CA globally is also putting a renewed focus on partners and the One partner program will be rolled out in India by October, 2004. This program is not something new, but it has a global corporate structure to it, which will help us explain to partners the value of working with CA. Its implementation in local conditions will depend on where we operate.

What are some of the elements that will comprise the One program?
In the One partner program, there will be technology pieces to help the channel interact better with us. We will use it to train our partners electronically through an e-learning system. These are some of the enhancements that have been built into the One program.

Piti Pramotedham

Within the One program, there will be facilities that will help us look at our relationship with partners in terms of how much money we are making with them and what kind of programs they need. We will have heavy focus on lead generation from CA to the partners and vice versa.

What are the concern areas for partners when it comes security deployment?
At the moment our direct business is around 25%. We want to do 100% business through partners. We know the only way to grow is by bringing the local partner into the fold, empower them and bring the value proposition to the customer together.

At this point, security deployment is still making money for partners. The management service is an incremental aspect of their solution offering. And this is where we plan a good role in helping partners build this business aspect.

Incidentally, even customers are showing an increasing awareness of system management, rather than just the hardware requirement. Therefore, to help partners in this migration, we help them to architect the system. Then the partner takes this solution and works with the customer to deploy it.

Over time, the partner will become good, if not better than us, in this deployment. When our partners start as well or better than us in security offerings, then the value they bring to the customers using our products is going to increase tremendously.

We are expanding in B-class cities and the first thing we do is train the local partners and build a network of Value-Added Resellers (VARs) in that location.

Will you come out with financing options for your SMB customers, who want to invest in the infrastructure, but over a period of time?
We have been doing that for years. We introduced Flec-Selec two years ago, which is a licensing programs. SMBs can license our programs for a month at a time, almost like renting it, without getting into a one time-payment. They can actually use and pay for our software on a monthly basis or tie on their product matrix, as needed.

Maybe these customers do not want to buy the software, which is why we offer them managed services. So, with a certain amount a month, their security issues will be taken care of. 

VINITA BHATIA

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