VAR Panchayat

GUEST OF THE MONTH : Sudhindra Holla

by VARINDIA 2011-02-22

Sudhindra Holla Head-Channels,India And SAARC,Juniper Networks

How are you empowering your channel partners? In order to keep the channel going, it becomes indispensable for any company to educate the channel from time to time and keep it abreast with the latest developments happening in the field of technology. We have a structured Juniper Partner Programme that is further sub-divided into three distinct categories - the Elite Category, the Select Category and the Reseller. While the Elite category pertains to service providers - usually large enterprises at the national level, the Select category focusses on medium enterprises both at the national and regional levels. The Elite category usually looks into the sales and support skill-sets of the service providers. The last Reseller category is opportunist based and is focussed on SMEs and SMBs.

How have you seen the Channel emerging in the past decade?

The Channel has come of age and has risen to a level we would not have even imagined a decade back. By entering the solution space, they have expanded their frontiers from being mere "box pushers" to solution providers. The commendable job that they have been doing is partly responsible for the overall growth that the economy is witnessing.

What makes you successful amongst the channel community?

The Channel is an important asset for our business as it acts as an interface with our customers. We make lots of investments in our channel by organizing loyalty and orientation programmes. This facilitates us in properly networking with the channel and also educating them on our new products that we bring to the market. We understand the pulse of our partners and back them in their endeavours. The Channel will remain an important aspect to us and we expect this relationship to grow to a much larger extent.

What are the pre-requisites while selecting any channel partner?

Robustness, Reliability, Credibility - we heavily depend on these three pre-requisites while selecting our partners. Credible, accountable and committed partners are what we look for. This is complemented by a robust channel programme that we implement for our partners for their benefit. We also encourage our partners to go to the market, understand the requirements of our customers and also tap market opportunities that would put us in good stead for a lifetime. At the end of the day, making customers happy is the prime concern for us rather than just aiming at making higher margins.