ATEN integrates its strong manufacturing & R&D capabilities to cater to different markets

Mike Chiang
Head of Sales, 
South East Asia and Middle East- ATEN

Mike Chiang is the head of ATEN International’s Sales division 1 comprising of South Asia, South East Asia and Middle East/Africa. He joined ATEN in the year 2018 and was previously associated with companies such as AOPEN and ACER and has a total of 22 years of experience. Mike has taken time out of his business schedule during his 1st business trip to ATEN India to talk to VARINDIA about his vision for ATEN in India and how it will contribute to India’s technology journey -

What will be your business and marketing strategies for 2019?
We are focused on creating an efficient Partner Channel ecosystem. In Taiwan, our strength lies in strong manufacturing and R&D team.  We integrate the same value when it comes to India. At ATEN, we build a value chain for our customers with the support of local partner’s competence in technology and customer service. We strive to create an open environment where channel partners, customers and ATEN can discuss, share and grow together mutually benefitted from one another, thus making the business bigger and successful. 

What products and solutions will ATEN target for the Indian customers in 2019? 
We manufacture high quality technology products such as KVM, ProAV and eco PDU which are trusted by our customer. What sets ATEN apart, regardless of the competition, is the expertise we provide in integrating all our technology together and giving our customers the flexibility to remotely monitor and control all devices on a network.

Our key to winning is not just the value of the individual devices,but also the value that we provide to our customers– complete technology integration and compatible systems that we have built for practically maximizing security and ease of use.  

What role will the channel play in helping ATEN build its presence in the country? 
ATEN strives to create a channel based value chain ecosystem. We have four extensive R&D operation facilities, one in Canada, two in Taiwan and one in China, doing progressive product development and research. The resourceful knowledge generated by our R&D experts is passed on to our channel partners, thereby equipping them to provide sustainable solutions to end-clients, rather than just passing on specs or product details.

We provide extreme importance to sharing the technology learnings and skilling up our channel partners, which makes our sales experts equipped with the technical details. We use ‘Trust’ as our capital investment and bank on it to build our brand value, giving us an edge over competitors. 

What new opportunities do you see in the market that you plan to put to your advantage?
Even though our strength lies in the two business lines of KVM and Pro AV products, we are currently focusing on integrating ProAV solutions with the KVM technology and also upgrade the software to control it, thereby creating a new segment. Using our latest technology ATEN can truly support India’s path towards true digitalization. We have an all-round expertise in providing better connections from analog to digital, or hardware to cloud thereby aiming for a perfect connectivity solution in India. 

How difficult or easy is it to focus on the SOHO, SME, Start-up customers in the country?  
With a strong R&D and production capabilities, ATEN can cater to all kinds of customer who want to change their business tools from analog to digital. All companies start small, may it be SOHO, SME or Start-up. ATEN plays a paramount role in providing the right connectivity solutions for the company to expand using the current infrastructure.

ATEN’s widespread reach in ‘Military’ segment is proof of our product’s value and reliability. We play a vital role in providing local as well as remote connectivity solutions custom made for military and government sectors.

What kind of a future do you see in the space of connectivity, amidst latest trends like hybridcloud, hyperconvergence, security/back-up? 
ATEN products are not just popular for the spec or diverse features they provide. The amount of research and product development done in the initial stages of a project is immense. In our custom made business model, we collect regular feedbacks from our end client and update our solutions systematically. We try to know the complete scenario, application and the demand for a particular product or solution in line with the user behaviour which gives us an extra advantage over our competitors.

What is your vision or strategy for ATEN this year?
Create our own value added ecosystem with the help of our channel partners, which begins from ATEN and is transferred to our end-clients. We scale our technology expertise, strengthen core offerings, up skill, our channel and localise our presence for enhanced customer experience. That’s the direction we resonate with our customers, the market and our employees within the company. With this kind of value added approach, there is no doubt that every year we can aim to have a 30% increase in revenue, from the connectivity solutions for true digitalization.