Select Technologies moving slowly towards Managed Services in Security Space

With the growth of the Indian economy, the penetration level of IT has increased drastically causing the market to grow both vertically and horizontally. In this scenario, small and medium businesses (SMBs) are emerging as the key market driver, thus creating a huge business opportunity for vendors as well the Systems Integrators. In this competitive ambience, providing value-added services has become the buzz of all the distributors, systems integrators and even for the resellers. Operating in this milieu, Select Technologies, a subsidiary of WeP Peripherals Limited (WeP), has taken the onus of providing innovative Information Protection & Management Solutions and Services to large enterprises, corporates and SMBs. Select Technologies was established in 2000 and, later on, in the year 2002, it was acquired by WeP. Since the takeover, the company has grown six times and last year it has shown a growth of 60 per cent year-on-year.

Select in Distribution Space

The core strength of Select Technologies is its partnering with the best-of- breed security technology vendors. The company has always endeavoured to provide best-of-class services to its partners. This dual combination has distinguished Select from simple distributor to a Value-Added Distributor with a unique business model to cater to its customers. The company has successfully developed its business consultative selling, enabling the channel partners to find solutions for their customers and provide strong pre-sales and post-sales support for end-to-end customer requirements.

Select is a 100-per cent channel-driven company with 17 technology partners and more than 300 Rishtey partners with a customer base of more than 70,000. Apart from this, the company has been doing regular events for enhancing visibility, creating awareness and generating leads. Recently, Select organized biggest national channel event “Rishtey 2006” to address the growing solutions and emerging concerns amongst the channel community. About 80 channel partners and nearly 16 technology partners participated in this four-day event. During the seminar, the participants discussed their roadmap for the year ahead in terms of new products, technologies and they were also enlightened on the market opportunities that existed for the channel and how best they could capitalize on the existing opportunities. Some of the major highlights of this channel event were following:
*Understand ever-evolving trends in threats and solutions to help your customers stay ahead
*Understand new solutions to map with your customer lifecycle needs on security and storage
*Use market trends and new solutions to grow your business by adding the relevant ones to your basket
*Share and learn from other Rishtey partners across geographies through networking
*Interact with technology partners and understand how to cash in on newer opportunities
*Enhance mind and market share by building Rishtey Speaking about this event, S. Sriram, CEO of Select Technologies, said, “Rishtey 2006 is an attempt to bring together the people, programmes and processes to expand sales and help our partners gain a considerable lead over competition. Rishtey 2006 is an occasion for Select Technologies to celebrate our enduring relationship with partners that has only grown stronger with time.”

In the channel event “Rishtey 2006”, Select also distributed awards to the selected partners. On the list of the awardees were many partners who were felicitated under various categories of national and regional channel partners. Among the winners were IBM, Wipro, TCS and HCL Comnet along with Taarak India Pvt. Ltd., Raksha Technologies, Trident Infotech in the security space and Kinfotech for Best Business Practices. The winners in the storage space included Ace Data Systems, Tata Elxsi, HCL Info Systems and Chabria Infotech.

Being in the distribution business, Select has always endeavoured to provide training and upgradation of the skill set of the partners. The company has been continuously heavily investing on the channel community so that they could comprehend the emerging market dynamics. In order to offer a better service to its channel partners, Select Technologies’ 20-per cent staff is dedicated to technical services in the pre-sales and post-sales domain. The company is pretty strong in terms of its post-sales mechanisms. It has multiple options for customers based on their requirements. Currently, Select Technologies has footprints in eleven locations for level-2 support and logistical support, and ensures periodic training for the first level support of its channel partners. Apart from that, it has got sales coordinator profiles at Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai.

Expanding its geographical reach, last year the company took the key initiative to expand its geographical reach from five locations to ten locations. At the same time, Select has increased its product portfolio by adding four new solutions to its kitty and entered into alliance with Sonicwall, BigFix, Aventail and Pointsec.

The company is pretty much optimistic of growing its business in the near future. The goal for 2006 is to consolidate its position in the information protection and management domain and strengthen its portfolio of solution to include all types of emerging solutions. Speaking about the growth plan, Sriram says, “We have shown a growth of 60 per cent year-on-year. This year, we also want to outgrow the pace.”

The IT business is fairly well spread these days. Only the metros do not uphold much of business promise anymore. It is the B- and C-class cities and even smaller ones adding substantially to the revenue of a vendor. Select Technologies is the early mover in this space as well. The company has made a pretty much penetration in the B-class cities. This year also, the company is going to continue its expansion plan in these cities. On this front, Sriram says, “As a market leader, we ensure that we are ahead in catering to all the classes of cities across a diverse population. We have made good revenue last year from these cities and we are expecting the same type of revenue from this year as well.”

Seeing the demand in the storage segment, the company is going to focus more on storage business and wants to make the business as successful as the security business. Expanding its wings, Select also wants to enter into the SAARC market. Recently, Aventail has appointed Select Technologies as its distributor. According to the agreement, Select will provide sales and support to Aventail’s growing clientele both directly and through their channel network across the country. Together, Aventail, Select and systems integrators will offer a three-level support system.

In the end…

Today, Select Technologies has become a strong player in the distribution business. With a strong geographical reach and wide reseller’s network, the company has become an optimal choice for vendors. In addition to this, it has become the “one-stop solutions shop for security solutions” for all the Systems Integrators across the country.