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Harish Laddha

On Record: Tata Communications - Managing Customer Relationship Smartly

Interviewed by Tasneem Balapurwala Thu, Dec 17, 2009

image The partner’s role is to facilitate sale and maintain the relationship with the customer on Tata’s behalf. We also conduct credit risk and evaluation, so when a payment doesn’t come, the risk is ours. image

Harish Laddha Head of Channel Strategy, Tata Communications

What offerings do you have for enterprise and SMB customers?

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LADDHA: We cater to the medium enterprise segment through our network services offering and managed services. Within network services, going by our core capability, we provide business-class Internet, international private lease circuits (IPLC), MPLS solutions, and global Ethernet connectivity in India and overseas.  
Under managed services, we offer managed voice services, such as hosted contact center services and infrastructure hosting services. This includes security, VoIP, managed storage, and mobility solutions.

What is the channel strategy that you have in place?

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LADDHA: From a channel strategy perspective,at the beginning of the year, we had about 100 partners in 22 - 23 cities. Hence, the first leg of our channel plan was to enrol new partners in 70 cities; of which we have achieved a count of 50. The other strategy is to organize market development events to ensure that we work with local partners to increase awareness and conduct training events in various cities. The third part of the strategy comprises a strong training and certification program called the Certified Sales Associate Program for our partners, which would work over 12 months. Six months later, we intend to follow it up with the Premier Sales Associate Program which would be a two-day detailed training workshop.

What initiatives have you devised to get new partners on board?

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LADDHA: When a new partner comes on board, it takes 3-4 months before the business leads to money flowing in for the partner. We have devised a commission program, which pays a certain amount of money to partners, so that by the time they start meeting their monthly numbers, we are already paying them some commission. It is independent of the actual implementation and collection and is an overlay for the initial six months that a partner works with us.

What are the incentives for a partner to be a part of Tata Communications?

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LADDHA: We run an annual incentive program by way of which we reward top partners in three categories by paying them on a quarterly basis. At our annual partner meet we honor partners; this year’s meet was called the Gladiators Rising. This is a national program that indicates how much business each partner brings in quarterly. This program now has a new category wherein we single out three services that have the most growth potential. Then partners are offered rewards, on the basis of the volume of business they bring in.

You have a direct SLA with the client. Why do you eliminate partners at this level? Shouldn’t they be accountable for delivery?

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LADDHA: The partner is not directly accountable as the SLA is between the client and us. This is a ‘sell through’ model and not a ‘sell to’ model, which is unlike other models where the relationship with the client ends at the partner level. There is no accountability for the partner at the service level, as Tata is liable for failure; the partner’s role is to facilitate the sale and maintain the relationship on behalf of Tata. We also conduct credit risk and evaluation, so in case a payment doesn’t come through, the risk is ours. From that perspective, a partner’s investment is that of people rather than working capital.

Tata Communications has also ventured into SaaS. Who are the target clientele and what is the go-to-market strategy?

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LADDHA: We have tied up with SugarCRM to provide its CRM applications to customers in India on a pay-per-use model. This is our first SaaS (software-as-a-service) offering and an extension of our managed services portfolio.
The sectors we see demand from are manufacturing, pharmaceutical, technology, retail, and mid-size BFSI which require high sales, marketing, and customer contact management.

There is a 70 percent drop in profits posted this quarter. Where does your strategy go from here and does it impact your channel plans?

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LADDHA: Though this does not affect our channel strategy, it does indicate that we need to intensify our expansion process, both strategically and geographically. The impact is in terms of building urgency but it does not impact how we deal with and pay our partners.



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