In a bid to address the increasing opportunities in the SMB segment and encouraged by the significant growth in its SMB business last fiscal, NETGEAR, Inc has decided to expand its product portfolio and drive a stronger partner strategy, with the prime focus towards SMBs in India.
Addressing at a National Seminar organized by PHDCCI on “Affordable ICT solutions for SMBs” in New Delhi, Subhodeep Bhattacharya, Regional Director, India & SAARC said, “Our focus is on SMBs. As per statistics, India is home to around 50 million SMBs, of which 10 million are tech-savvy. This number or the addressable market opportunity will upsurge to approximately 11 million by 2015. Also, SMBs in the country will grow at a CAGR of 15 % by 2015, contributing $15 billion or over one-third of India’s overall IT spend.”
NETGEAR has been focused on its SMART IT vision which envisages a reliable, affordable and simple range of products covering the entire infrastructure needs of small and medium businesses, encompassing switching, storage, wireless and security solutions and it foresees huge growth in this field.
The company already has a popular home and prosumer product business in wireless routing, including 802.11ac routers, ReadyNAS storage, and security hardware products like UTM and VPN. It has also forayed into service providing with 3G products and Wi-Fi equipment.
Bhattacharya added, “We want to see ourselves as leaders in home and retail segment, commercial space, and service providers sector. In India, the initial focus was on low-end market but now we have ambitious plans to expand heavily into the mid-market.”
He said, “We are looking at increasing the reach to partners like value added resellers and tier-2 SIs who will take us to the SMB in terms of providing solutions. But for large deals, we will definitely work with large SIs. We are also looking for very capable and focused partners who can drive specific product segments. In fact, we have already initiated the process of roping in these specialized partners.”
In order to tap the SMB segment, NETGEAR is in the process of building a strong channel ecosystem in the country, wherein it is looking for competent partners who could help the company penetrate deeper into the Indian market. Though NETGEAR has a broad base of channel partners, we are foreseeing for more solution partners (system integrators) who could handle larger accounts for the company.
NETGEAR currently has Ingram Micro and Rashi Peripherals as its national distributors; together they address close to 1,000 partners in the country. This fiscal, the company will spread its footprints to the top 40 cities, up from the top eight cities and some B- and C-class cities last year. It will also participate in customer events for product demos, ATL activities and road-shows. In terms of post-sales the company provides lifetime warranty for most of its products. It also has Intarvo as its service provider for the top seven cities and Rashi Peripherals for the remaining cities.
