Netgear’s Indian Odyssey

Patrick Lo
Founder, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer 
NETGEAR INC. 

Since it started its operations in India, Netgear has witnessed stellar growth in India. What sets the company apart from competition is its wide range of product portfolio encompassing networking, storage, wireless and security all under one brand, accompanied by complete client focus and strong channel strategy. 

In the last more than a decade, the networking giant Netgear has come a long way in making its presence felt in India. All these years the company has devoted its energies to developing, producing and marketing high-value networking and inter-networking products. In the process, Netgear has been able to create a stronger brand proposition. 

When Patrick Lo, Founder, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, NETGEAR INC, recently visited India, he was all praise for India, “India is a strategic market for us. From Netgear’s point of view, our focus will be to bring new innovative products at a great value. Secondly, we will also focus on strengthening our market reach." 

"India is also a high-growth market vis-à-vis the rest of APAC market. Our clientele is growing handsomely.” says Mr. Patrick  reiterating company’s commitment to India and Indian subcontinent.

Netgear is synonymous with SMB infrastructure. The company is unique in the sense that no other company in the industry has such vast range of products encompassing networking, storage, wireless and security all under one brand. With the advent of faster broadband in India and cloud based services, SMB/SME organisations can have strong and fast connectivity to the internet. “NETGEAR is known as a company which provides the largest and most capable range of broadband connected and cloud enabled secure network and storage infrastructure,” says Patrick.  

Netgear’s strength comes for constant product launches and updates which helps it keeping its range of product updated and relevant. NETGEAR is a very nimble company with its ears to the ground. “We are constantly evaluating what works best for the customers and are quick to act on new product ideas and modifications. We are also very focused on SMB/SME which helps us marshal our resources better.”  

“Like others we do not want to focus on enterprise and SMB/SME together, we are very clear about the value proposition we bring to the table and we would like to be the no 1 infrastructure brand ( networking , storage and security) for SME/SMB.”

Netgear’s core competency lies in product development. A cent percent channel oriented company with singular focus on SME/SMB, the company is creating specific and logical product for the focus segments. “We are not a price player and believe in delivering value through improve features, specification and easier operability.”

NETGEAR identifies itself with solving the need of the SMB/SME customer. Its value proposition is to be best in class by developing product for the specific segment. The company will not create products for SMB by simply taking away a few enterprise features. On the contrary it focuses on building products which have enterprise class features in a more user friendly and affordable way. 

Finally…

India stands high in Netgear’s scheme of things, and making its presence forcefully felt was always going to be a major challenge for the company. However, with sustained efforts to understand the needs of this important market, Netgear continues to rise to the expectations. Richard Jonker, VP Emerging Markets, Commercial Business Unit, NETGEAR Netherlands, opines that Netgear’s products and services have allowed SMBs  to positively impact its business results. The company will have a much accelerated growth this year because its plans are executed at the right time and in the right direction. Patrick says, “Netgear India is growing faster in this region because of our innovative products and solutions.” 

Richard Jonker VP Emerging Markets, Commercial Business Unit, NETGEAR

How do describe Netgear as company in the technological landscape?

The whole world is moving to cloud computing which has revolutionized the technological landscape. Lot of applications are either cloud based. This has given us a lot of opportunity to expand beyond our traditional market because more and more infrastructure has moved into cloud. As applications are moving to cloud it is of utmost importance that the network access should be fast. We are providing the access to the cloud in an efficient way.

How important is channel for you?

Channel is 100 per cent important for us. Unlike all our competitors we don’t go direct.  Ever single deal of ours is inked by our resellers and distributors.

Tell us about your security business.

Though we have been in security business, unfortunately we have not been that very successful. We have to concede that. Netgear has its line of security products like firewalls, UTMs, content filtering appliances.