WD believes in Channel Empowerment

  Khwaja Saifuddin,
Senior Sales Director - South Asia, Middle East and Africa,
WD

In an extensive chat with Khwaja Saifuddin, Senior Sales Director - South Asia, Middle East and Africa, WD discussed about empowerment of Channel Partners through different programs, trends in storage market and recent launches.

Keeping in mind the growing markets like Enterprise andSMB in India and to address the need of secure personal data the storage company, Western Digital (WD) has already chalked out plans for the year ahead.But to take it forward the company is all dependent on Channel Partners as it is a channel focused company. WD continues to build mutually beneficial relationships with channel partners and ensure that it invests time and effort to listen to their concerns, provide solutions and train them on products and after sales services so that they can properly address the needs of the consumers.

Partner Empowerment

"WD always believes in empowering channel partners and addressing their needs. We will continue our foray into non-metros, targeting more cities in the process and spending time in educating and training our channel partners and addressing their concerns," shares Khwaja Saifuddin, Senior Sales Director - South Asia, Middle East and Africa, WD.

The company conducts channel partner meets and training continually across major cities in India as well as in smaller cities to engage with the partner community. ‘WD Master Blaster’ is a way of reaching out to channel partners at their doorsteps and updating them on solutions in a fun-filled manner. ‘WD Ki Paathshaala’ consists of regular training sessions with partners to apprise them of the offerings. ‘WD Contact Program’ helps to initiate and grow relationships with relatively new channel partners in the upcountry markets and provide them direct access to the company.

The  myWD Partner Program is specifically created to help resellers, solution providers and system integrators to grow their business.
In order to expand the reach beyond metros, WD organizes partner and customer meets in non-metros. Partner meets are conducted so that the particular need of each city is identified and partners are educated on the usage and availability of its drives.

WD endeavours to live up to the expectations of customers. The company provides an excellent after sales service and warranty support across India. It believes that a user should be able to get a replacement product with the same ease as they have purchased the product. WD provides ‘WD Express’, a door-to-door replacement service. With ‘WD Express’, the product is collected from the user’s address and once it passes the warranty criteria, a replacement drive is then delivered to the user at the same address. A customer can also drop his product at one of the 74 drop points spread across India and then, once his product has been processed, a new product will be delivered directly to his doorstep.

Trends in Storage market

With the changes in consumers’ lifestyles, the emphasis is not just on buying any storage product but a product that supports their changing lifestyle in terms of increased capacity, contemporary look and mobility.

The core strategy will remain same but to keep ahead of the various trends and the way in which people are creating and consuming data, WD has undergone changes in its products. For instance, as mobility and data access on-the-go has increased considerably WD has developed My Cloud family of personal cloud storage devices, which allows users to keep their data secure and delivers on their need of data access while on the move. Additionally, The company has come up with My Passport Wireless, which is a Wi-Fi enabled storage drive that allows consumers to save, access and share stored content wirelessly with any smartphone, tablet, computer or other device.

Roadmap for 2015


WD is gearing up for an exciting 2015 where the company will be introducing new solutions and technology, especially storage for small businesses and enterprises. WD has also expressed its desire to be part of the Indian Government’s Digital India initiative and the vision of developing 100 smart cities in future.

aparna@varindia.com