Security is More than Just Surveillance Cameras

Manoj Khadkikar
All India Head, Channel business
Zicom 

Surveillance continues to have a good mindshare across all segments in 2012. Zicom has seen the demand growing in SMEs as enterprise. Requirement for security solution from government -state or municipal level has also grown substantially. The company has also seen a shift from pure product to a combination of product and services. Services led offerings like Zicom SaaS has also seen an increasing adoption from all segments.

The Right Approach…

As security solutions become more and more acceptable, the basic technology becomes a mass product. Resellers can take advantage of this opportunity by being able to offer the whole range of products. Zicom has a program called “Active Assistance Program” to help resellers so that they can provide enhanced services through Zicom to all their customers while focusing on reselling of products. As they progress in the reselling, they need to slowly grow into providing solutions. Zicom, through extensive hands on training modules help resellers transition into solution providers. 

Zicom and Channel…

Manoj Khadkikar,  All India Head, Channel business , Zicom says, “As the technology becomes more and more accepted, we will see more and more partners starting to sell security solutions. However, it is critical for partner to evolve beyond a single solution, they should be able to extend the solution to CCTV, Access and Intrusion so that they become the single point contact for their customers for all security solutions. We are also seeing demand growing in Tier 2 and Tier 3 towns where are expanding the channel base. Going forward we will see channel evolving into multi product Solution providers and resellers.” 

More than just Surveillance Cameras…

Surveillance solutions have grown beyond a DVR and cameras. Customers have now also started specifying their security needs. As a result, the partner needs to be aware of the various options and technologies available. Beyond this, it is also critical to have the skill sets to be able to deploy the solutions properly. Manoj Khadkikar opines, “As a vendor, we have to continuously offer products with the best in class technology and have been refreshing our product line accordingly. We have also taken an active role in educating our partners so that they are skilled to offer and deploy all the new technologies.”

Special channel enablement program for surveillance Partners…

Zicom has seen a gap between the growth of technology and the skill sets for deployment in the channel. To ensure that this is bridged, the company has been doing channel trainings across India. Now it has gone one step ahead and will be launching a certificate program targeting Channel service engineers. This will help partners go to customers with Certified Installation Engineers.