Antony Chapman has a lot of hopes pegged on the Indian market, especially for SonicWall’s products, as he outline his plans to increase sales by 100%. He expects a good market penetration with the help of new partner, Iris Computers.

How has your experience from the Indian market been?
We have been in India for three years now. For about a year, our sales office is up and running in Bangalore. We have a fairly good experience in India, which is why we are more focussed towards India. Earlier, we were operating in the Indian market through our distributors - Mumbai-based IT Secure. Now we have a strong presence in the southern part of India and are aggressively eyeing other regions as well. SonicWALL in India is growing rapidly. Last year we registered 100% growth and this year are expecting the same. We expect to become a million dollar company by the end of the current fiscal.

What are SonicWALL’s expectations from the new tie up with Iris?
Iris is known to have extremely satisfied customers in India. Their strength, especially in north India, will add the requisite capability for our growth there. The Indian market has accepted SonicWALL’s global quality products and the demand is huge. Fulfillment is what Iris will help us with. Iris will definitely add substantially to our existing number of partners. We expect to have 50 medallion partners by the end of the current fiscal. Iris will also, simultaneously pursue direct new business development and market growth. The appointment will be for a year and is renewable after a review.

What channel strategies are you going to adopt for Indian market?
Channels are an important aspects for our kind of business in India. We have a clear strategy for strengthening our channel base. Through our distributors, we will reach out to partners and make them aware about SonicWALL’s product range. We have a very aggressive SonicWALL Medallion Partner Program, which is up and running globally and is applicable in India as well.

Antony Chapman, Senior Director-Asia Pacific, SonicWall

Since the Indian market is attaining good growth, we are aggressively focusing our energies here. As of now, we have a strong presence in the southern and western regions. Although we have our office in Bangalore, we have a Return Material Authorization (RMA) centre in Bangalore and a call center.

What is the present market position of the company globally?
We are a known brand in Internet security appliances and have a worldwide installed base of more than 500,000 units, protecting millions of computer users. By integrating our line of high-performance, solid-state firewalls and VPN appliances with value-added security subscriptions such as enforced anti-virus, content filtering, and other security applications, SonicWALL Internet security solutions deliver the tools businesses need to counter multiple security threats and to optimize productivity. SonicWALL’s award-winning Global Management System, allows network administrators to centrally manage and provide thousands of security appliances across a widely distributed network, further enhancing the value businesses realize from a SonicWALL solution. We continue to develop strategic relationships with key partners and resellers. More than 10,000 resellers worldwide offer the SonicWALL line of security solutions. However, these figures are far ahead of what we are in India. But we want to become a number one company in Internet security solutions in the Indian market.

What is the focus of your company for Indian market?
As far as business verticals are concerned, education, solution providers and retail POS are being focussed by us in a big way. But we are changing the entire focus for business verticals globally. We are doing this as part of our global strategy to tap these segments and India will play a major role. The Indian market is of immense importance to us and are targeting to double our revenue base coming from India.

FAIZ ASKARI

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