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Cisco Accelerates its SMB Roadmap for India

Cisco, a major enterprise vendor is now betting big on Indian SMB marketplace. The company has launched a surfeit of partner initiatives to target this emergent and wide spread segment. As a tool to create awareness, the vendor is conducting a mobile showcase of customized Cisco Networking Solutions. “A van - Network on Wheels would visit industrial belts/SMBs across 50 cities in next eight months,” said Patrick Mathias, Vice President – Commercial Sales, Cisco India. “The objective is to conduct live demos across at least 100 customers per city,” he added.

The solutions on display include security wireless and Unified IP solutions. “This doorstep – like initiative attracts owner (who is decision maker) of SMB personally visit NOW. We are witnessing almost 50 percent conversion rate from this exercise and sales cycle is much faster,” said Mathias. Cisco partners are also advising their SMB customer across cities to visit NOW. India is the third country after US and Canada for Cisco’s NOW concept.

Cisco has been trying to identify the specific needs of Indian SMB market for past couple of years and introduce relevant changes in its business model for this segment. “Most vendors try to force fit their enterprise solutions across SMB which does not work very well,” said Mathias. “We have divided our product portfolio, company resources and partner initiatives into three customer classes – Basic, Open to Guidance and Elite. This approach ensures simplified end user experience across product life cycle through right sized solutions,” he said.

An exhaustive week long training sessions for partners (as per their convenience), which cater to SMBs is our priority as per Mathias. A 24X365 call centre, tech portals are few other initiatives. “Scalable, reliable and secure networking solutions are key factors for SMBs. Our portfolio comprises of affordable solutions with latest technology for price sensitive SMBs,” he said.

About 1500 partners currently deal in Cisco for SMBs which includes 300 in Western India. “We would scale the partner strength in western region to 1000 in next 10 months. For SMBs, it has to be more of a geographic appointment of partners. We have renewed focus on upcountry market,” said Mathias.

According to Cisco, integrated surveillance is a big playfield for partners. “Channels can extract almost 3x times business from same SMB customer through up sell by their technical expertise and product know how,” added Mathias. Partners should sell solutions as per SMB needs and not as a product sale according to him. “We expect SMB revenues to grow double every year for next two to three years through consistent market demand and robust channel ecosystem,” he said.