Veeam strikes the right chord with its Partners

Veeam recently concluded its month-long VeeamON Tour India with a major event in Mumbai. The event brought together prominent industry leaders, organizations, and innovators to take part in thought leadership sessions and panels. This year, the event was centred around Veeam’s 'Bharat Cyber Suraksha Campaign - Enabling a Resilient Bharat’ that aim to shape the future of data resilience in India.

Amarish Karnik, Director - Channel Sales, Alliance & Cloud and Service Provider - India & SAARC, Veeam Software speaks to VARINDIA to give more details on how this event is positioned for the larger good of the partners and also its customers - 

Could you give us some idea on the recently concluded multicity VeeamOn Tour?
Veeam does this event globally, focusing on two things – one is our customer, and the another one is the partner. We believe that if we do the right messaging through our partners to our customers, of letting them know what are the things we are doing or which are the problems we are solving in the industry, then we are pretty much sure that growth will be taken care of. During this event, we demonstrate some of our capabilities to the partners. This also happens to be our route to the market, where we learn from the partner ecosystem, of what are the things we can do it together and then work on them in the next four to five months, and then eventually launch it in the next financial year. 

For instance, we never had a program called Veeam Cloud Service Provider which is built on an MSP model.  But during one of the events in US, it was suggested by the partners of why don’t we offer our solutions on a consumption based model. And this program was announced which was an outcome based on the feedback from received from the partners and also a few learning that we took from other software vendors. 

How do you position both the VeeamOn Tour and the Veeam Pro Partner Summit?
The Veeam Pro Partner Summit is all about focusing on partners, unveiling new programs, new products and solutions, which we normally do it in the month of January or February. Now, as we finished the first half of our financial year, it is time for us to recap, and take stock of the situation of where we are, and then do the correction if required. So this is the VeeamOn Tour, where both your customers and partners are present. Also, this Tour takes place at a regional level - we have done it in Bangalore, Delhi, and Mumbai. So we have more regional partners coming to us.

Could you throw some light on what is Veeam’s Cyber Suraksha campaign? 
Today, every business is talking about resiliency, and we no longer look at it only from a datacenter perspective. With data protection becoming more critical than ever, this has set us to thinking on how to have a resilient business. So through the Veeam Cyber Suraksha initiative, Veeam’s mission is to power data resilience so that data is always accessible, whenever, and wherever needed. We have extended this commitment to over 550,000 businesses in 150+ countries. So for instance, during any cyber incident, if any of our customers lose any data, how do I help them recover the stolen data so that the breach does not impact the running of their business much. 

So that is the framework which we have built, by offering some very robust solutions for data resilience. Today, this has become like a business model for a lot of our partners. This allows customers to also have confidence on my partners and partners to have confidence on OEMs like us. 

Veeam also shared insights from its first-ever ransomware whitepaper for the Indian market, titled "Comprehensive Ransomware Mitigation Strategies for India” at the VeeamOn Tour. This whitepaper provides essential guidelines from the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) on how to effectively respond to ransomware attacks.

How important is the SMB vertical for you?
The SMB business segment is a very important vertical for us. Since this segment is all about volume, it had to be coupled with the channel ecosystem, in order for that growth engine to take off. So the SMB vertical together with the channel ecosystem is driven by a channel manager. Hence this has been a fruitful collaboration. As a matter of fact, the SMB has emerged as the second largest growth engine for us.

 
Veeam being a 100% channel driven company, how do you align both partner and your business strategies together?
Veeam is a channel friendly company. Our channel policies have played a crucial role in the Indian market by building strong, mutually beneficial partnerships through customized support and strategic initiatives. Through collaborative discussions during onboarding, we ensure our solutions are tailored to meet the unique needs and challenges of the Indian market. This strategy not only boosts our partners' capabilities but also supports the long-term success of our business. Consequently, partners are more effectively equipped to meet customer demands, resulting in enhanced customer satisfaction and driving business growth in this dynamic environment.