We provide partner opportunities for predictable and profitable business growth

Vineet Sood
Head - Channels & Alliances
Symantec India

What kind of trends you see in the security market in India?

Last year saw the convergence of business and personal lives due to the devices that people brought into their workplace and the way networking gripped the world of business. This means IT is no longer about systems and infrastructure, but people and information. And, IT needs to bring the two together. There is a need for a fundamental shift - a shift that focusses not on the systems but manage the identities and information, regardless of the device, the location, the infrastructure, whether it is physical or virtual.

This is also because the threat landscape has changed dramatically. While cybercriminals earlier operated for fame, they are now motivated by financial gain. According to Symantec's latest report on Attack Toolkits and Malicious Websites, as cyber attacks have become more profitable, the popularity of attack kits has dramatically increased. This has attracted traditional criminals who would otherwise lack the technical expertise into cybercrime, fuelling a self-sustaining, profitable, and increasingly organized global economy.

What is the overall market size? 

According to a recent Gartner prediction, the Asia-Pacific security market is growing at an average rate of 28 per cent, and the worldwide market for antivirus solutions at large is growing at 12 per cent. Specifically in India, IDC predicts that the market will grow at a CAGR of 28 per cent over five years, from a base of $291 million in 2007.

It is a view expressed in a report by the APAC Research Group, which rates China and India as the fastest-growing markets for information security solutions, with a combined industry segment that is expected to be valued at $1.2 billion by 2012.

What is your product range to cater to this market?

Symantec's heterogeneous and platform-agnostic solutions are aimed at helping enterprises secure and manage information by providing comprehensive and up-to-date solutions.  Symantec is the only vendor to offer security (web/mail/endpoint/network) and data protection in a single solution across all size companies.

The following are some of our recent offerings across security, data protection and recovery and storage optimization.

• Symantec Endpoint Protection 12
• Symantec Protection Suite Advanced Business Edition
• Symantec Protection Suite Small Business Edition 
• Symantec Protection Suite for Enterprises 
• Symantec Backup Exec 2010
• Symantec Data Insight Technology 
• Symantec ApplicationHA and Symantec VirtualStore
• Symantec Enterprise Vault 9.0 and Enterprise Vault Discovery Collector 

What is Partner's role in the deployment of products and services? 

Today, a channel partner is the customer's go to person when it comes to understanding the range of technologies in the market, the best option suited to meet their specific needs and actually be present throughout the sales cycle from pre-sale to the actual deployment phase.  Symantec focusses on empowering and enabling our channel partners with tools and resources that will help them addresses customer's issues and find solutions for their unique problem.

What kind of benefits your partners get?

Symantec is a channel-led company. So, our partners are a fundamental asset and a force multiplier for our business. Partners today want to position themselves as the go-to IT expert for their customers so that they can deliver true value to their customers. Thus, our focus is on empowering and enabling them with tools and resources that will help them to address customer issues and find solutions for their unique problem, thereby growing their businesses and revenues.

The Enhanced Symantec Partner Programme  includes new solution Specializations (Enterprise Security, Endpoint Management, Data Loss Prevention, IT Compliance, Data Protection, High Availability and Storage Management), and new Master Specialization categories (Enterprise Security, Data Loss Prevention, IT Compliance, Data Protection, and Archiving and eDiscovery) for qualified partners with established consulting practices in one or more solution-area specializations. It is based on a specialist model that rewards partner investments with increased engagement and a closer relationship with Symantec.  The enhanced programme enables partners to further differentiate their business from competitors, maximize returns using new sales, technical and business enablement tools and resources, and accelerate profits with more predictable results. Specializations will be required to attain Silver, Gold, and Platinum partner levels within the Symantec Partner Programme. We have Master Specialization categories for qualified partners who maintain established consulting practices in their solution. Specialized partners will be rewarded with increased rebates, access to enablement resources, and recognition by Symantec and customers.

In terms of rewards, Symantec offers multiple reward programmes for the benefit of partners like Real Deal which is loyalty-based reward programme, Opportunity Registration and Rebate programme.

What are the opportunities for channel partner?

Symantec is reinforcing its commitment to the partner community with fresh approaches to collaboration and enablement for our partners. Our recently launched Enhanced Partner Programme helps partners to build competitive advantage over others in the market, thereby improving recognition and increasing profitability with more predictable results. The enhanced programme is based on a Specialist model, rewarding partner investments for competencies in solution or market segment specializations. Moreover, in evolving consulting services to partner-led approach new Master Specialization categories (Enterprise Security, Data Loss Prevention, IT Compliance, Data Protection, and Archiving and eDiscovery) will be available to eligible partners who specialize and maintain an active consulting practice, and complete business and technical. New consulting tools and methodologies will help partners build pre- and post-sales service practices around their solution specializations.

As partners achieve Specializations and deepen their expertise in Symantec solutions, Symantec will continue to provide partners with additional resources to help partners differentiate themselves, deliver greater value to customers and take advantage of new market opportunities:

• Symplus is Symantec's new partner incentive promotion for members of the Symantec Partner Programme. The programme recognizes partners through cash rewards for their efforts in selling Symantec products, promoting solutions, obtaining technical accreditations, and registering and closing opportunities. 
• Symantec IQ for Partners provides partners with access to product and solution content created by Symantec experts. 
• Partner Support Centre for Marketing acts as a help desk for partners wanting to leverage the broad range of marketing tools and programmes available to them to generate new business and maximize their participation in the Symantec Partner Programme. 
• Renewals Partner Portal is designed to provide channel partners with a simple view to manage their renewals sales opportunities, which helps to ensure the continuity of their customers' licensing requirements. 

What is the evolution path in the future? 

From intellectual property to customer records, data has become critical to the bottom-line. So, it is not surprising that enterprises and SMBs are asking some hard questions about security, availability, disaster recovery and compliance. Going forward, a channel partner will need to be the trusted expert on whom the customer will rely on completely for all their IT needs.

How do you provide after-sales support?

Symantec is committed to delivering high-quality products and support to its customers and partners. We view every support engagement as an opportunity to demonstrate our commitment to customer satisfaction. Symantec offers eligible partners a number of 24x7 priority Technical Support incidents at no charge, depending on partner's type and level within the Symantec Partner Programme. Symantec Partners have access to a range of Technical Support resources, including incident based phone and online support, notification services, knowledge base and partner technical forums.

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Harish Menon, Chief Operating Officer, Futuresoft Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

Businesses are ever evolving to meet demands of consumers. Such evolution triggers innovation and creates new trends. Most customers we are working on in India are focussing on optimization or doing more with less, resulting in investments around Virtualization, Cloud, Hosted Solution, Data De-duplication, Archival, Outsourcing, Biz Intelligence, etc.   

Partners have been the primary contact for customers providing right counsel and solutions to address business challenges. This will not change. Futuresoft offers products with services on most Symantec solutions. Symantec is a leading vendor to offer security and data protection solutions and a preferred partner in our offerings to customers. We sell Symantec’s Endpoint Protection 12 and Symantec’s Endpoint Protection Small Business Edition (currently in beta), Protection Suite Advanced Business Edition, Protection Suite Small Business Edition, Protection Suite for Enterprises, Symantec Backup Exec 2010, Symantec Data Insight Technology, Symantec ApplicationHA and Symantec VirtualStore and Symantec Enterprise Vault 9.0 and Enterprise Vault Discovery Collector. 

Margins on Symantec solutions are healthy providing upfront product margins to partners, rebate and opportunity to offer professional services. This will further improve with the recently announced Partner Programme that focusses on solutions specializations. Specialization should be a differentiator for partners and help demand better product and service margins.

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Peter Theobald,  Sr. Vice-President, (Enterprise Sales),Softcell

For more contact:
beenish@varindia.com