Subbaram Gowra, Managing Partner of GBB, was certain that he would be able to win over the people in Rural Development Trust (RDT), a non-government organization (NGO) located at Anantapur, the western most part of Andhra Pradesh. But there was a surprise waiting for him there.

For Secunderabad-based Gowra Bits & Bytes (GBB), convincing any customer was not a major concern at all, as they have dealt with at least 500 different types of customers till date. As a result, Subbaram Gowra, Managing Partner of GBB was in no doubt, as usual, that he would be able to win over the people in Rural Development Trust (RDT), a non-government organization (NGO) located at Anantapur, the western most part of Andhra Pradesh and win an order for IBM blade servers. While traveling to this remote under-developed district head quarters, Gowra didn’t sense anything unusual. But there was a surprise waiting for him in the form of an independent software vendor (ISV), who gave him a tough time!

ISV-An Unexpected Trial
RDT was implementing SAP and was also looking at upgrading its hardware in connection with it. For this, the organization had partnered with an ISV of SAP. It was in fact the ISV’s responsibility to choose a rock-solid hardware that has minimum downtime and high availability. “Choosing the right hardware and ensuring zero-downtime was actually part of the ISV’s ‘Key Result Areas’ set by RDT,” says Gowra.

The most interesting part is the fact that GBB was not aware of the ISV’s role or even its presence. “The ISV was a sheer surprise to us as we expected to only deal with the customer. Our initial discussions were over the phone directly with RDT. And, at that time, we did not come to know about their agreement with the ISV.

The ISV was working hand-in-hand with RDT to ensure the uptime of all the applications running on their systems and as a result, they were part of all critical discussions,” recalls Gowra.

GBB was asked to present its solution before a steering committee that consisted of members from both RDT and the ISV. The steering committee had three members from the ISV and two representatives from RDT. Gowra says the ISV was acting like a consulting partner to RDT. He however realized that if he does not convince the ISV, he would not be able to bag this deal. Gowra explains how the SI changed its overall approach after coming to know about the ISV’s presence.

“Had it just been the customer, we would have focused more towards addressing their various pain points and also on the price. But we felt, price is a secondary factor while dealing with the ISV. They would be interested more in stability and rock-solidness of the solution. So, we slightly tweaked our approach. We recommended a solution that had all the required features and also had a smaller footprint. We did not focus on the price factor at all,” says Gowra. GBB also talked about some of the similar implementation it had done for other customers to establish its credibility as an experienced SI with adequate implementation skills.

He adds, “It was indeed challenging for us to convince the ISV than to convince the customer. The ISV was technically very sound as they knew the exact hardware requirements for the implementation. The customer also had deep technical knowledge. We were in fact amazed to see this level of technical awareness from such an organization in a small town. So, we literally had two people to talk to and prove to. We realized that if we have to get the deal, it has to be by proving the core advantages of our solution and our technical skills and not just by talking English.” But, cleverly changing the approach was just half of the battle and GBB had more challenges to tackle.

Fighting with the Giants

Fighting with the Giants
While GBB was sure that it would be able to provide a solution with all the features the ISV and RDT was looking for, pre-sales was still not a smooth journey for GBB. RDT was also approached by a couple of giants. “Apart from GBB, we were also approached by Wipro, who recommended HP hardware. We were also approached by Dell directly. Our primary requirements were zero downtime and high availability. We were in discussions with all the three at the same time,” says Abdul Samod, IT-Head at RDT.

Gowra says RDT and the ISV, which did not want to be identified, had a very open approach right from the beginning and it helped him discuss every small point in detail. As there were three options and all of them seemed interesting, RDT and the ISV naturally decided to go for a solution that had more features and was reasonably priced. “Cost was not a major concern for us, as we were looking for the best hardware that ensured maximum uptime of our critical applications. All the three vendors quoted competitive prices. But IBM hardware assured us more features like integrated storage and single-interface management, which was lacking in the other two solutions. In terms of the pricing, HP offered a solution on par with IBM’s, whereas Dell’s hardware was more expensive. So, we were in favor of IBM as it gave us extra features for a very realistic price,” explains Samod. Though GBB did not focus on price, its proposed solutions turned out to be cost-effective too.

Gowra recalls that he was able to close the deal, to his own surprise, just by doing three calls. He also took the technical team of RDT and the ISV to his IBM Blade Demo proof of concept center (POC) and showed them the entire demo step by step and also gave the first round of training. Samod also clarifies he was more convinced after seeing the demo of the IBM solution, whereas the other two companies did not take this initiative. Surprisingly, RDT had zeroed in on IBM even before visiting the PoC.

Rare Learning
GBB had a smooth implementation process by working hand in hand with the ISV. Apart from blade servers, GBB’s solution comprised power, IO, SAN storage as well as Racks. “It was like a data center in a box,” says Gowra. GBB provides support to RDT remotely from Secunderabad and for critical trouble-shooting, the SI ensures the presence of a support person onsite. Since the customer is running critical applications on the servers, it cannot afford to have downtime. Samod is happy about the efficient after-sales support given by GBB. “The implementation was completed in January 2009 and since then GBB has been giving us support both remotely and onsite. In March, we suffered an unexpected crash and our systems stopped working. A team from GBB and IBM immediately attended to it and made sure our systems are up and running,” recalls Samod.

Gowra says he and his team enjoyed working with both RDT and the ISV. “Imagine selling blades to a customer who asks you the definition of it. It will be a disaster to deal with companies who do not understand what you’re talking about. RDT was a challenging and encouraging project for us as both the customer and the ISV were clear about what they wanted. They had deep technical knowledge and it was more of a technical debate than a sales pitch. It was in fact an advantage and proved to be a new learning for us,” says Gowra adding that in the future he would prefer to have such quality-oriented projects.

While initially the presence of the ISV in the negotiating table may have come across as a surprise, or rather as a shock, to GBB, it has, in the end, proved to be a blessing in disguise for the solution provider. GBB plans to take forward its new relationship with the ISV and work in collaboration with it in the coming days to bring more business to both the parties.