Guest Speak of this Month :Zubair Alam, General Manager - Enterprise Business, NEC India Pvt. Ltd

Zubair Alam,
General Manager - Enterprise Business,
NEC India Pvt. Ltd

Tell us about your Stint with NEC.?

It is more than fifteen months that I joined NEC. This has been a very different environment for me. I come from a distribution background that has been a quite an interesting journey so far. I have been able to make contribution to the channel ecosystem. 

It has been an evolution for NEC and channel ecosystem. In 2010 we have four national distributors and as of today we have ten distributors across different product lines.  Our dependence on channel is very high. Though we had started with a mix of direct as well indirect and till 2012 we had that mix with a very little proportion of direct. However beginning with 2013 I had made the conscious decision to shift the entire business to indirect model only.     

Verticals which will invite your immediate attention in the coming months.?

We have been very strong in hospitality segment where we have global relationship with most of the hotel chains. Our sales and channel leverage on that relationship in India also. And we enjoy a majority market share in that vertical. In government vertical we have always presence. This year our share in government business will increase. SMB is, as usual, our stronghold.  Beginning at next year we start looking at increasing our presence in large enterprises. This year we will work on strengthening and nurturing our channel ecosystem to make them ready to address the large enterprise. 

How are you empowering your channel partners?

We believe training is the most important thing. Historically we have been organizing training programs on a periodic basis. Now we are ensuring that it becomes constant activity. We are also introducing a certification stream on the training program so the sales team of distribution partner and tier II channel partners will have also an opportunity to carve a career around it. We are going to launch this program by end of December. Apart from this, we are immediately rolling out training programs for the next six months. It will run till December. 

What are your expectations from Tier I Partners?

My only expectation from Tier I Partners is that operationally they are expected to share information in a transparent manner, which they usually do. We are on the way to adopt best practices for channel as a whole.