The pandemic has opened a wide opportunity for the technology partners in the field of education. The segment has gone through a sea change and education organizations have adopted digital transformation to keep up with the situation. In a chat with VARINDIA, Kanak Raj, Alliance Head, Redington discusses about the transformation in the education segment, how Microsoft is helping to expand in new geographies, WFH as new opportunities etc. Â
Education sector has gone under tremendous transformation as technology is creating big divides between the haves and have-nots and this gap is getting wider. What is your take on it?
The National Educational Technology Forum (NETF) recommends a platform for free exchange of ideas on the use of technology to enhance learning, assessment, planning, administration which should reduce the gap. So, Education sector adopts Technology as a New-Normal, where the transformed support system eventually becomes inclusive.
As a top technology distributor of Microsoft, how have you planned to expand to newer geographies in the country?
Redington in association with Microsoft, has strategies for executing several Webinars, Seminars and PoC’s using Digital-Marketing, Inside-Sales and Field-Sales force. Redington onboarded 450 schools across Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala benefitting 500K students.
We want to create strategic long-term partnerships with our partners in Geo territories. With Microsoft, we are committed to enable and onboard cloud partners in every tier 2 and tier 3 cities across India. In FY22, we onboarded more than 2000 partners on MPN (Microsoft Partner Network) and invested in Inside Sales factory to enable and transform these partners on to cloud journey.
We support our resellers in building capability and growing cloud skills (Certifications). Thanks to Microsoft Surestep investment, tier 2 and tier 3 partners can reach out to our certified resources to address their customers cloud requirements. With CSP GO BIG, we had extended support further through consistent investment in Go to Market wherein resellers can organize webinars, workshops and digital campaigns to generate new opportunities for the business.
Technology has the power to completely transform education, which can of course be both good and not so good. What will say on it?
Erstwhile, proliferation of Computers and Technology revolutionised numerous practices while experiencing challenges like Y2K and Ransomware, which was mitigated easily. Similarly, the benefits of technology adoption in Education far outweigh the negatives while education experts play a key role to maintain balance for effective adoption with the help of technology partners.
As many organizations have adopted WFH (Work from Home) what are the new opportunities where Microsoft can value add to your business growth?
Remote Access platform combined with Security & Compliances using Microsoft tools, enables Redington to expand its Managed Services Play. This transforms Redington from being a standard license re-selling Partner to an extended arm of Microsoft in Support Services. The framework encompasses three cloud (Modern workplace & Security, Azure & Business Applications) and six solution areas (Business Applications, Data and AI, Digital and App Innovation, Infrastructure, Modern Workplace and Surface, and Security.)Â
Voice of Partners
Sziiah Technology growing with Microsoft
Avinash Kumar
CEO, Sziiah TechnologyÂ
Education segment - an opportunity:
Sziiah Technology is a solution provider that provides solutions in Cloud, hardware and software. We are more into channels and only 20% of the business is based on the end customer. Gradually we are increasing our business in the end customer segment. As of now we have very few clients in the education segment but we provide support to them in terms of hardware and software.
Journey with Microsoft:
The relationship with Microsoft is indeed very good and we are doing good business with the company. We have the capability and team to onboard for new programs in the education segment. The journey with Microsoft is good. Microsoft is educating us and we are growing. We provide solutions as per the requirement of the end customers and channel.  Â
Microsoft Teams – A collaboration friendly tool in the education space
Akhil Ranjan Jha
Owner, Comprehensive Consultancy Â
Opportunities:
In the current scenario, especially the pandemic and the post pandemic scenario there are few different opportunities that have come up. One is that because of the online or hybrid mode of teaching/learning there are two things that have come up. One is that the need for a platform and amongst the available platform Teams is the best platform for education, and it is being very widely adopted amongst our customer base. So that's one large opportunity because the moment one goes on to Teams there are quite a few things which come by alongside. One of it is one needs to be able to use Teams effectively, which means other than using Teams you also need a specific set of devices to be delivering the lectures online which can be captured on Teams. So that is the area which we are focusing on.
Microsoft empowering partners:
Microsoft has been a partner friendly organization. Whenever they launch a new product they try to train their partners on the new features which have been launched. So they always handhold throughout the journey and try to proliferate that and see that everybody is on the forefront of technology. Since this is the underlying principle, as things move from offline to online in terms of education, for us Microsoft came out with flying colours. For doing a proper online education no platform was really geared, neither Microsoft, but the speed at which they added features to their platform - Microsoft Teams it became collaboration friendly. Teams for education include things like learning management and because of that, the journey has been quite good. That is the reason why Teams has been more adopted than any other platform.
Expansion:
In an educational environment, Teams become a very complete solution. Naturally, a lot of people who were just seeing it as a productivity tool in their campuses are now seeing it make more of an essential thing. So there is growth there because not everybody went for a campus wide licensing. Some people bought some licenses as we did from time to time. Now people are thinking about full campus licensing so that helps not only our faculty but all students. As it is on Cloud we are also able to address clients which are not in our geography.
Ace Brain Systems & Solutions foresees potential in education segment
Yogesh Godbole
Director, Ace Brain Systems & Solutions
Focus on education vertical:
We have a dedicated team which is selling to various government schools and colleges across Maharashtra and Goa. We are providing Microsoft Teams solution and also Office 365 A1 and A3 solutions. There is a huge response and we must have covered more than 900 schools in Maharashtra. Basically because of lockdown everybody wanted a collaboration tool especially the government school as their infrastructure is at the lowest level as compared to private schools or private engineering colleges and institutes. However, Microsoft has helped them in a great way to collaborate and impart the training syllabus etc. It is the most appealing solution as compared to the competition solution when we spoke to the Department of Education, Government of Maharashtra as well as Government of Goa. Â
There are two thoughts one is that people are saying now schools are restarting, all the tools are not required. There are various problems, like kids are at home and missing out schools, however this trend of hybrid education will still continue even if the school restarts. That is how there is still a lot of potential in this industry. It is a market which is still open for sales.
Microsoft helping partners to address new challenges:
There were initially challenges and it was related to pricing because it was not affordable for some of the schools, especially the government. However, Microsoft has changed their offering depending on the situation and including the features depending on what competition is offering.
Experience with Microsoft:
Microsoft has engaged an agency for skill upgrades. They have experts and they have taken a great length of training for our sales team. There were four training programs. First and second was about sales, sustainable sales, key account management and large account management. In this case, school is very small but commissioner education is a very large account because it caters to 66,000 schools across Maharashtra. So when you manage a customer, what is the difference between key account and large account management, all those things were highlighted by Microsoft and they have trained us, taken regular feedback on any difficulties my team is facing on the field while making sales, and they used to guide us also. Â
“Hybrid learning is going to become a way of education going ahead”
Milind Shahane
CEO, Tata ClassEdge
Growth in EdTech domain:
The edtech domain has really grown in the last two years, COVID pandemic has actually accelerated the use of digital technology in edtech, because the fact that schools and colleges got closed, even higher education had the same issue, and hence the teaching had to be done using digital media. Edtech has been an area which is growing in the last many years and Tata ClassEdge has been there but the last two years has seen a boost where the growth rates have jumped more than 25-30%.
Importance of hybrid learning:
Hybrid learning is going to become a way of education going ahead. So it is going to be offline and online, both simultaneously, or it could be sometimes offline, sometimes online. And hence, both options need to be available to the teachers as well as students to access the content, classroom and be able to have a class being conducted by the teacher, whether it is a classroom from the school or tuition class, and be able to get the material and the content.
Microsoft helping partners to grow:
Microsoft can bring in more products, the classroom solution can be brought, it can then definitely help to be able to sell through companies like Tata ClassEdge or even small business can adopt this and put their content to be able to give it to the schools. Similarly, they can bundle MS Office into this along with the Windows, which can then give access to the other software which Microsoft has like Word, PowerPoint and Excel.Â
We can also bring in the video conferencing through Microsoft Teams which is an excellent software for collaboration and it can then be pushed into the school environment where the class can collaborate on various projects and use that not only for online video conferencing, but also for other collaboration software. So, there are lots of scope for small companies or medium sized companies.
“We have a very cohesive and strong relationship with Microsoft over a period of time”
Dhirendra Khandelwal
MD, E Square System & Technologies  Â
Education segment: An opportunity:
With the pandemic the entire education landscape has changed. In the education sector the digital transformation enriched learning experience and improved the overall experience from alumni, mentors and faculty along with institution management. Top areas where digital technology can make a difference are classroom coaching, online examination, admission process and complete student lifecycle management. Technology can be used to create an immersive classroom experience, there is a huge opportunity in the digital revolution in the education segment. It can assist students and teachers in a significant way in their education journey.
Microsoft adding value to address challenges:
With pandemic we have seen that there is a new normal of hybrid working that has started. With cloud computing we see that software has become one of commodities and one can consume on pay per use basis. Microsoft is a frontrunner in all these areas. While working from home, they provided an office productivity suite with Microsoft Teams where one can collaborate and work from home solutions like Azure cloud, Azure Cognitive Services and Azure DevOps. So Microsoft gives a host of solutions to work from home. There are across the board solutions which can be migrated from on premise to the cloud which helps our customers to have agility, reduce their operational costs and have scalability. Microsoft also provides a range of software and service solutions which help our customers to maintain productivity and use them to grow their business in a scalable manner.
Journey with Microsoft:
Microsoft has been at the core of E Square’s business. When we started our business Microsoft was the first OEM or technology partner for us. We have seen our business growing with Microsoft. The Microsoft share of business is also growing at E Square. Today, almost 30% of our business comes from Microsoft licenses or services. Microsoft solutions are cost effective and easy to deploy. That's how it syncs with our philosophy of providing cost effective and innovative solutions for our customers. We have a very cohesive and strong relationship with Microsoft over a period of time. We look forward to grow our business with Microsoft.
Microsoft understands the importance of Education sector
P. Suresh Kumar
CEO, Techfruits Solutions
Education as an opportunity:
This pandemic has helped a lot in terms of exploring, exposing and adapting new technologies. It helped multi-fold in the education segment. These days the classroom is now at people’s homes. This means bringing the Cloud to the classroom. Microsoft provides a hybrid learning solution.Â
The latest Microsoft product, Windows 11 SE works with and without internet connection. It also protects against online threats. So the new Microsoft Windows 11 SE is an operating system which is built purposefully for education. Microsoft understood that it is the most important segment and it is the first OEM to provide the right solution to this specific segment. This solution is affordable and simple which makes learning accessible to every student. They have different applications like Microsoft 365 Education which fulfills all the needs of students, educators etc. It has a lot of apps that students can use and moreover, it can be customized so that they can use the internet in a secure way. Â This is the biggest turning point of Microsoft in the education segment. Also, Microsoft Teams is one of the biggest web solutions which can help them more in this industry. Every year almost 3,65,000 new businesses are coming up in Microsoft Teams. This strategy has helped us to stabilize and address the education segment. Â Â Â Â
Emerging technologies shaping enterprises: Â Â
The emerging technologies are Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, IoT, RPA and security. Each customer needs to adopt these technologies based on their business requirement. The Zero Trust model is not industry specific but it is relevant to every organization. It is very important and needs to be adopted by all. Â Â
Microsoft adding value to partners:
Microsoft is one of the leading technology organizations which gives the right solution and adopts new technologies quickly. It is also a security leader and at present the company is focusing on a lot of technologies like machine learning, artificial intelligence, IoT, security. It shows that Microsoft is providing solutions in emerging technologies. So we are happy to partner with the right OEM. It is the most innovative information technology company. It is addressing the current technology challenges that people are facing.Â
“Tools like Microsoft Teams is the future in learning”
Rinkesh Aror
a
VP - Sales Operations & Programs, Bitscape Infotech
WFH as a new opportunity:
Work from home or work from the remote has become normal. It has been embraced by many customers irrespective of the vertical or the size. Microsoft has varied offerings like Microsoft Teams, which is for a seamless and secure collaboration of virtual desktop solutions for secure and anywhere access. Microsoft Teams is the future for all the things enabling secure collaboration, seamless integration, and even third party applications and tools. Having specialization and focus on Microsoft technologies, we are confident of taking customer experience to a new level, ensuring the peace of mind with security and compliance adherences for those customers who also are very choosy about their security posture.
Education vertical as an opportunity:
So, hybrid learning is the current, it is not even the future. We did not really anticipate but it has actually happened. So hybrid is something which is already there and it is going to stay. Hybrid learning has now become an integral part and information technology services are now very important for edutech.Â
Tools like Microsoft Teams is the future in learning, not just class, but collaboration and projects also. We have experience and expertise from working with the edutech sector in other geographies, which can surely benefit the Indian edutech sector and will be focused on delivering great value for our customers who are ready and mature enough to understand this opportunity for their own benefit.
Journey with Microsoft:
We have been Microsoft partners since our inception around 2002 and the journey has been phenomenal. We really appreciate the support that we get from Microsoft and it is not just only restricted to sales but overall support or collaboration in terms of technical readiness, knowing the nuances, having a roadmap of what is upcoming and what is going to be the focus. So I think the experience or journey has really been rewarding and we really look forward to having many more such successful collaborative times along with Microsoft.
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