"Channel partners are the face of our products"

Vishal Dhupar
Managing Director - Asia South
NVIDIA 

NVIDIA has continuously reinvented itself to delight users and shape the industry. From PC graphics, it expanded into professional graphics to become the standard-bearer in visual computing. The company later harnessed the parallel computing capabilities of the GPU to advance high-performance computing. NVIDIA's recent move into mobile computing puts it at the centre of one of the industry's fastest-growing segments.

Channel Initiatives 

NVIDIA has a structured distribution system in the country in which the business is divided into two segments - consumer and professional. The company has about 100-plus partners addressing the professional business, while it has about 2,500 partners responsible for its consumer business segment.

Currently, NVIDIA has a strong focus on 35 cities which include metros and non-metros which are responsible for bringing in around 80 per cent of NVIDIA's overall business in India. NVIDIA India has appointed distributors like Rashi peripherals, Aditya Infotech, Abacus Peripherals, TAG and Topnotch Infotronix which address the professional as well as consumer-business related channel partners.

Vishal Dhupar, Managing Director - Asia South, NVIDIA, says, "NVIDIA has a strong collaboration with the channel partners in India and is always keen to continue growing. Channel partners are the face of our products. They interact with end-consumers on a regular basis and they play a very important role in propagating our vision. We have been present in India for a significant period of time and enjoy a great mindshare amongst channel as well as the consumer base. We believe that our channel partners are an extended family of NVIDIA."

NVIDIA sponsors various gaming tournaments in major towns and cities, which help hardcore gamers, enjoy their favourite titles on immersive NVIDIA graphics. 

Vishal shares, "NVIDIA has initiated an Elite partner programme, which enables channel partners to join our business family. For GeForce, we have 5 national distributors and 140 Elite partners. This business partnership is then extended to more than 2,500 focussed system builders. On the professional lineup front, our exclusive national distributorship is with Rashi Peripherals for Quadro. Apart from this, we have 35 focussed partners, 10–15 value-added resellers and more than 1,000 system builders and ISV partners."

Educating the Channel Partners 

From a channel training perspective, in order to educate the channel partners about the brands, NVIDIA has developed a periodic training programme. The objective is to reach out to the channel partners, give them insights about all the latest and upcoming products and technologies and educate resellers about NVIDIA's GeForce and Quadro lineups to demonstrate how NVIDIA enables both consumers and professionals to enjoy interactive graphics. The company has conducted about 500 trainings just this year for all partners across India.

NVIDIA has also initiated an intensive channel development and training programme for its reseller partners to strengthen the delivery of relevant GPU computing solutions to professionals in India. The initiative aims to educate more than 2,000 channel partners, including Quadro Preferred Partners and resellers. NVIDIA's channel development road show covered eight cities, including not only the four metros but also the key cities of Pune, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad and Bangalore. The initiative focussed on increasing awareness of the company's professional graphics solution, Quadro where partners were educated about the application of Quadro Solutions in a professional environment. The training programme also provided a hands-on demonstration of NVIDIA's revolutionary 3D Vision Pro technology, including professional applications like CAD-CAM.

Understanding customer's needs

A good channel management programme motivates channels to sell the product and ultimately develops a better relationship between customer and product. To build a brand takes a deep understanding of customer's needs, technological prowess to meet those needs in a superior and cost-effective manner, and consistency in communicating what the brand stands for in the market and in the consumer's mind. Vishal says, "As a channel head, in order to ensure that our partner community is equipped with the right skill set recognize the need to run channel engagement programmes as well as offer certification with regard to solutions and products."

In today's complicated marketing world with disparate marketing avenues, a channel chief plays an integral role in creating formalized programmes for selling and servicing customers within a specific channel. This can be achieved by identifying the goals for each distinctive channel and then making sure that those goals are attained, all the while staying consistent to the overall brand of the business.

Right channel for business growth

NVIDIA is now focussing on high-performance computing needs of the country with Tesla, post the government's support in this area. The company is planning to heavily invest in research and development for meeting the requirements of infrastructure. On the flip side, the mobility segment has become extremely crucial to its existence, which has blooming opportunities in the mobility market. NVIDIA is continually trying to stay ahead of the curve and become a key trend-setter in this vertical as well!

Vishal adds, "There are multiple elements that we take into consideration in order to design a channel programme, like right price with respect to performance, Controlled market operating price, Optimal schemes and programmes for distribution and stocking partners, SKU-specific focussed activities to improve ASP, Training distribution/ reseller partners on high ends and Working closely with system builder to channelize higher sellout to end- customers."

Message to VARs 

The market is into visual computing and the need for graphics is only increasing. The attach rates are increasing at a tremendous space, focussing on the graphic business today will reap not only high volumes but higher margins in the future. From gaming to professional uses, every graphics need is on the rise in India.