Charles Chen,
VP, Accton Asia Pacific
What has been SMC's go-to-market approach? What kind of market strategies have you adopted ?
We extensively conduct training programmes so that the channels are made aware of the new strategies and also when we are targeting the launch of new products, if any. Since SMC Networks has its presence only through channel partners, we try to trap as many distributors as we can to make a strong network grid across India. In order to position ourselves uniquely from the competitors, we organize seminars and get-togethers on a large scale frequently. In these seminars, we basically provide hands-on training and also impart information through demo units for a clearer understanding. Very soon, we are planning to implement money-back guarantee programmes.
How do you view the Indian market and the competition today?
For the past forty years, SMC Networks has been the pioneer in bringing technically proficient well-poised networking products to the Indian customers. With 3G and WLAN becoming mainstream in India, their demand is expected to burgeon for many years to come. Thus, SMC plans to aggressively woo the Indian IT and telecom market, to create SMC as a “Brand of first choice” so that they will be coming out with more and more application-based products. These will specifically cater to the ISP, IT and telecom market.
With its successful implementations in the Asian and European markets, Edge-core is also catering now to the Indian market through the same range of feature-rich products.
How are you empowering your channel partners?
It is very important to educate the channels about the benefits of the products over the existing competition. This helps them to instill faith in the customer's mind and consequently a long-lasting business relationship is born. We have witnessed a good brand acceptance in our decade-plus association with our existing distributor. It strengthens our resolve to work strenuously hard to expand our activities and serve our channel partners and corporate customers to live up to our reputation as a reliable networking vendor. Pursuing SMC's mission to connect people and organizations with a comprehensive portfolio of networking solutions while delivering best-of-breed technology, we want our channel partners to make more money through us.
What makes your company successful amongst the channel community?
Leveraging its 30-years-plus market and technology experience with strong attention to end-user and reseller feedback, SMC Networks has set the standards for quality, reliability, ease-of-use and affordability in network solutions and components. The company continues to introduce a host of affordable and high-performance products that benefit from the combination of its strong internal R&D resources, global manufacturing resources and strategic relationships with technology innovators.
