Ranjit Nambiar,
Director of Sales, IAM, South Asia,
HID Global
How do you position HID Global in the electronic security market?
We are a premium product company. We are scaling up with new technologies, compatibilities which our competitions do not possess. HID has a lifetime product warranty across most of its physical access control products. So it is testimony to the fact that we believe and backup on quality.
How do you differentiate between the IT channels and security channels?
I don’t have a specific data but I can say that 15 to 20% of the security channel today touches to the IT background. So there are companies who are predominantly into IT but have also moved into the security. In the days to come we will notice that the overlap will increase to 40 to 50%.
What are the verticals that you are targeting?
Our focus continues to be on our core verticals or our larger installed base but at the same time to make sure that we do not miss out the opportunity in looking at the newer verticals. So what we have done is that we segmented our team structure under new vertical business as well as the existing channel business. Existing channel business is taking care of partners who are doing business in the building automation and the security industry in the existing verticals. But the new team which is the vertical structure is largely looking at the opportunity coming from the newer verticals.
What about the B & C class cities? How far have you gone into that segment?
HID has a very strong distribution model. From national distributors to regional players we have about 8 distribution partners. Through our distribution model today, we are directly or indirectly serving about 25 to 30 different cities in Indian market and as days go by we are sure that this will become bigger and bigger.
What is the secret of your success among the channel community? What makes you so popular?
A channel business model works on trust and value addition. I believe that you need to have trust and strong alignment and partnerships and have value addition because end of the day, the partners will perform where they see sales happening. So if you are able to be the enabler and create a tool for the partners with a combination of trust and value addition, I think that is what will help in the long term sustenance of partners.
