In an interview with Sharon Lobo, Mr. Ramesh Narasimhan, Director, General Business, IBM India/South Asia, elaborates on IBM's commitment to SMBs in India and its innovative, value added offerings that give SMBs a much needed boost.
Could you tell us more about IBM General Business unit and its SMB strategy?
The SMB market is, and will remain, a key focus for IBM India. As the fastest growing sector in IBM India, the General Business unit is ready to address this growth and offer SMBs the solutions and technologies that are critical to their survival in the challenging Indian market. SMBs have distinct needs that are often ignored by most service providers and IBM's technologies solutions for Indian SMBs provide a competitive edge in this era of globalization. IBM is one of the first companies to adopt and change and focus on SMB way back in the early 90's. IBM saw the potential in SMB market and had a focus group within IBM going after them with not only its products or solutions, but also followed it up with innovative offerings and value added offerings which gave SMBs a much needed boost.
IBM delivers its offerings through strong and experienced sales and marketing team of people and a network of 3000 business partners, organized in 8 local sales territories in India. The launch of our SMB operations in 14 cities in recent years has help us to make inroads into Tier II and II cities and our relationships with our local ISV s and partners have attributed to the tremendous growth of our General Business unit.
What is the value proposition IBM offers to SMBs? How are SMBs set to benefit from IBMs offerings?
IBM offers Hardware, Software, Services and consulting all under one roof. Also the total man years of experience from all the businesses helps IBM go to market with what the market wants. Unlike competitors that offer only point solutions, we help clients look across the entire IT and business environment infrastructure for optimization opportunities. We bring a robust combination of expertise across software, hardware, services, financing and support to help the client from strategy design through IT implementation. We can also support heterogeneous environments, so clients can build on their existing investments and by leveraging assets that they already own, the costs of moving to a more dynamic infrastructure can be kept low, yielding a more rapid and greater ROI while delivering value to the business along the way.
SMBs have unique needs and that is the reason we have a healthy and most diversified end-to-end transformational solution portfolio for our client. Our clients save money when they do business with us. We have invested in the development of products and services specifically priced and designed for the SMB marketplace under the brand name "Express Advantage".
IBM's Express portfolio is comprised of hardware, software, services, solutions and financing and is designed to meet specific needs for SMB's. IBM Express Systems are easy to install, deploy and manage and very affordable. Now with Express Advantage product portfolio, we are offering complete solutions from IBM's Software, Systems and Technology, and Services groups - and will address security, business analytics, business recovery, employee collaboration and energy efficiency needs of SMBs.
What is the response IBM is getting from SMBs in India?
IBM conducted focus groups with hundreds of SMB business executives around the world. They told us about their IT experience. They said existing offerings from competitors were costly, complex and limited their choice, as well as their business agility. For instance, Kusumgar Corporates, a leader in technical textiles in India, has chosen IBM's Smart Business solution to help it consistently meet the stringent quality standards that govern the technical textile industry.
Kusumgar Corporates, a mid-sized company with 200 employees, manufactures a variety of military, industrial, geosynthetics and recreational fabrics. While a leader in the industry, Kusumgar maintains a lean IT staff and sought an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution that it could easily manage and maintain. The company selected IBM Smart Business running Infinite s Textile Integrated Manufacturing (TIM) ERP application to allow Kusumgar to focus on its business while IT works almost invisibly in the background.
How does IBM's relationship with its partners change when it comes to reaching out to the mid-market?
In 2009 IBM updated its Business Partner charter. Our goal is to streamline virtually all business processes, increase our commitment to training and education, and to dedicate ourselves to doing whatever it takes to make our clients successful. Our first priority is to develop the existing partners through training, solution enablement and attrition management. Our channel initiatives are in tune with evolving partner needs, understanding their primary growth drivers and establishing a two-way communication channel with them. We work closely with our Business Partners and enable then through learning and training, skill enhancement, finance options as well as innovative marketing outreach. At a time when our competitors are cutting back on resources for partners, we are continuing to invest in sales, marketing, and technical resources to help partner go to market faster, find new market opportunities and connect with other partners to create new ecosystems and drive revenue.
We have increased our focus on the mid-market. We find that clients, especially in this segment, are increasingly conscious about value . To address this, we are working with our Business Partners on building and enhancing their skill levels to help them showcase the value proposition of our solutions to medium sized businesses. At a time when our competitors are cutting back on resources for partners, IBM continues to invest in its partner s success -- to the tune of $2.5 billion this year, globally. We continue to increase our marketing and demand generation program spend in India so as our Business Partners can effectively address the needs and demands of our customers.
What are the different initiatives, programs IBM has for its partners?
The Partner Sales Support Centre designed to provide IBM Business Partners throughout India with services specific to sales opportunities. This centre comprises a centralized team operating from IBM that helps business partners with product positioning, competitive updates, customized customer configuration, and customized product pricing. BP Seller Eco-link Model is designed to enable co-selling and co-delivering with Business Partners on highly customized solutions that include a combination of IBM and Business Partner sales and technical skills. The Eco-Link is a cross-IBM function and cross-IBM partner business network that promotes Partners collaboration to come up with a compelling value proposition to the customers. The advantage of the eco-system is it enables ISV s in getting market reach to new geographies and new customers with help of IBM Value added resellers and system integrators.
In partnership with IBM Global Finance (IGF), we also help arrange flexible payment terms for our clients and partners. With IGF, our aim is to help our clients manage their IT acquisitions and operational costs, allowing them to invest for growth. Business Partners can exploit the power of their inventory and cash flow to obtain low-cost working capital for their business. By doing so, they can increase IT purchasing power and conserve financial resources for their core business requirements. IGF's web based financing tool for Channel Partners (Rapid Online Financing) is specifically aimed at providing solution for lower size deals. This tool provides a convenient way for Channel Partners to obtain quotes right through to contract preparation.
Are there any industry verticals IBM tends to focus on for now?
Our solutions and services span all major industries, including financial services, healthcare, government, automotive, telecommunications and education, among others. Clients like Innovation AutoRisk, Sistema Shyam TeleServices Limited (SSTL), Himachal Futuristic Communication (HFCL), India Glycols, Kurmanchal Nagar Sahakari Bank Ltd. etc highlight the diversity and breadth of our portfolio -- spanning hardware, software, services, research, financing and technology -- that uniquely differentiates IBM from other companies in the IT industry. As a globally integrated company, we are committed to high value creation and that means utilizing the skills wherever they may be. IBM will continue to focus on real-world innovations enabling business transformation for our partners, business and society. We will help customers transform the way they do things.
Courtesy –
Press release link -
www.cxotoday.com/India/Interview/IBM_Focused_on_SMBs_Way_Back_in_the_Early_90s/551-106455-906.html