When it comes to making its presence vigorously felt in an industry, very few companies come close to CA, formerly Computer Associates, a leading eBusiness software company. CA's world-class solutions address all aspects of eBusiness Process Management, Information Management, and Infrastructure Management in six focus areas: Enterprise Management, Security, Storage, eBusiness Transformation and Integration, Portal and Knowledge Management, and Predictive Analysis and Visualization. CA serves organizations in more than 100 countries, including 99% of Fortune 500 companies.
With decades of success under its belt, CA instills a sense of trust among the customers. With cutting-edge and innovative technologies at its disposal, the company offers trusted and successful products, which are used by more than 98 per cent of Fortune 1,000 companies. In addition to this, the company has a large network of distributors and dealers in India.
A strong brand is critical to any successful enterprise. This has been well recognized by CA. "Our brand identity is more than just a logo - it is a reflection of our customers' experiences. Today, our customers and prospects recognize us in the market and identify with our 'unify and simplify' message," says Sunanda Ambardar Chak, Director - Marketing, India and SAARC, CA.
In essence, that is what CA is about - helping customers realize better value from the IT resources they already have, and with a unique approach to managing IT. With our unique capabilities, customers can unify and simplify the management of complex IT environments, enterprise-wide, for greater business results.
CA India follows an integrated approach to brand building. The brand messages of the company are delivered through a number of unique vehicles which include advertising across Print, Television and Online. "In addition, our campaigns include highly targeted and attention-grabbing direct mail aimed primarily at the C-level executives of IT. We also invest very heavily into events and face-to-face interactions with our customers and prospects. Our annual customer conference - The CA Tech Retreat - has set industry standards in knowledge sharing and hospitality," says Sunanda. CA's customers play a very important role in promoting the CA brand in India. We use customer testimonials widely and effectively across various tools of communication. All this is targeted at building the CA brand among our customers, partners, analysts and employees.
India Operations
India as a market is central to CA's focus. Many new challenges lie ahead for the company in India. CA started its operations in India in 1997 and has made investments from time to time. The company has expanded its operations with offices in seven cities - Bangalore, New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Lucknow, Chandigarh and Hyderabad. CA has a development centre in Hyderabad where various product teams work on developing new CA products.
Through the year 2007-08, CA has been consistent in terms of media presence through advertising in the tier one publications and websites in India. "We also concentrated on extending our message to B- and C-class cities through seminars, conferences, press interactions and Webinars (web-based seminars). We recently concluded the CA Tech Retreat, which was a confluence of our key customers and partners and was a huge success," says Sunanda..
CA's marketing strategy in India provides customers' solutions across the company's three brands in the eBusiness infrastructure management space, through a single-window access from the software point of view. CA also has a strong sales force, good channel strength for enhanced market reach and increased investments to educate and grow the eBusiness management space.
CA sells its products through OEMS, VARs, distributors and dealers. The company too has deployed a formidable sales force to complement the other outfits. The company is aware that the need of the hour is a structured channel programme that caters to all customer segments.CA Channels is focussed on increasing sales from the SME sector to the large enterprises through channel partners that comprise of distributors and resellers. Building customer satisfaction tops CA's priority list. The company is of the opinion that the channel will play an instrumental role in this endeavour.
CA's channel-friendly credentials can be seen in its partner programme. "At CA India, we follow a hybrid go-to-market model, whereby more than 80 per cent of our revenue is generated through our partners. The CA Partner Programme is a competence and performance-based model that ensures that all market segments are not only addressed, but also are serviced by partners who have demonstrated sales, marketing, technical and integration expertise. We are committed to our partners and provide sales, marketing, technical and account management support. The partners, in turn, invest time and resources into getting trained on the CA solutions and taking them to the prospective customers."
The SMB market is one area CA would not like to lose sight of. A sound channel strategy is something of an absolute must to cater to this segment. When the company started their operations in India, it had just two distributors and two partners. However, the scenario has undergone a change. The number of partners has now gone up to 55. And, two big organizations are its distributors - Redington and Ingram Micro.
These partners resell the CA Data Availability, Threat Management, Desktop Management and Application Lifecycle Development tools. CA's OEM partners include some of the big names in India, including HCL, Wipro, Xenitis and Acer for Threat Management products.
CSR Responsibilities
CA is truly a company with a global vision and local commitment. Our CSR efforts in India focus on providing quality education to underprivileged children and protect the environment through "go green" programmes. CA calls it CA Together.
CA Together is a dual framed social initiative for building strong and productive communities where CA operates. This formal programme identifies non-profit organizations with a clean record and helps reach out to more people. The CA Together IT Programme supports non-profit organizations through a broad range of activities, including IT need assessments, CA products and services, training, project management and grants. Such technology help has been enabling the non-profit organizations achieve greater impact in the communities they serve.
CA Together in Action, launched in 2006, provides employees with an opportunity to form groups and work with local non-profit organizations during a designated two-week period. The CA Matching Gifts Programme is an online charity initiative where, for each employee's contribution, there is a matching contribution by CA. (If an employee contributes, say $1,000 for a cause, CA adds another $1,000 doubling the contribution.) CA employees from around the world contribute over $2 million annually for charitable causes.
The Hope School As part of its global philanthropic initiatives, CA India has established a long-term partnership with the Hope Foundation, supporting the creation and development of a pre-primary school in Hyderabad since 2004.
CA India fully supports and funds the Hope School that provides kindergarten and primary education to children from the weaker sections of the society. The school currently provides education to 200 students till the 5th grade, and has been growing bigger every year. CA India takes care of education, health, administration expenses, and faculty salaries. CA India also provides breakfast and mid-day meals to the children of the school. Nutritious and healthy diet is provided to the children daily. The diet plan is provided by the volunteers of CA India to the school. Visits by health workers are arranged at the school by volunteers, who speak to students about health and nutrition.
CA India's employees regularly conduct and participate in various school activities, which include conducting medical camps, distributing free medicines, and counselling parents. Employees of the company also sponsor the surgeries of children who are advised for one by the doctors. The medical camps are conducted annually. CA India's employees have conducted drives for clothes. These clothes were donated to organizations that are supported by CA India on a regular and need basis.
Project 511: This initiative supports quality education in Government-run schools. CA has adopted three government schools in Hyderabad under the Project 511 programme to provide infrastructure support. CA India's employees organize medical camps and extracurricular activities in coordination with the school authorities.
Working Towards a Green World
To be eco-friendly, the CA India (Technology Centre) facility was built without removing the natural rocks and trees around the campus. Care has been taken while designing the floors to ensure a pillar-less work area (84m X 15m) that generates a sense of open space. Cubicles have healthy ergonomics, are roomy, and give employees ample private space, yet keep them integrated with the team. As opposed to the industry standard for workspace of 100–120 sq. ft., at CA it is a spacious 160 sq. ft. average per employee.
To keep up with the green spirit, ITC is building a vermi-compost facility to recycle organic waste. An air compressor station has been set up at the campus to help the employees fill air. Maintaining exact air pressure in each of the four tires reduces pollution and consumption of petrol. Air dryers have been placed in the rest rooms to reduce paper towel usage. In a big leap toward environment awareness, ITC has switched from paper to ceramic mugs resulting in a reduction of 100,000 paper cups per month. Printer paper usage has been reduced by 25% through responsible use of printers and automatic double-sided printing. Around 500 employees registered for paperless billing.
Finally…
With a turnover of $4.3 billion in the fiscal year 2008, CA is all set to put up a stellar performance in 2009. "From a marketing perspective, I see us continuing our efforts to strengthen the CA Brand in India by engaging even more closely with our customers, partners, analysts and employees. We will continue to use our Customer Reference programme to demonstrate the value that the CA solutions provide to an organization. We will also continue to invest in programmes that help us reach potential organizations beyond the metros and 'A' class cities," says Sunanda.
CA will also be initiating a lot of partner-based marketing programmes that will help the partners communicate the value of the CA solutions to their customers. "There are a lot of very interesting ideas we have on the drawing board currently and they will be revealed in the new financial year," adds Sunanda. CA has an ambitious "Doubling-up" strategy for India, whereby the company intends to double its revenue every two years. "We will also continue to build on our Partner-centric model as that is the key to our growth strategy," says Sunanda.
