FUTURE TECHNOLOG
FUTURE TECHNOLOG
Reengineering the channel
platform solutions, and data integration
between legacy and digital applications.
However, NIIT Technologies would
not have been able to manage these
expectations from its global end customers,
reflected in the high revenue growth
from digital solutions, without significant
internal restructuring.
These have included micro-
specialisation and focus into market
segments to understand the customer’s
customer, changing the internal culture
to plan for smaller and more failed digital
projects rather than a few large-scale
extended projects, and leveraging the
partnership relationship model.
(Left to right) Vimal Kocher, Managing Director Middle East, Arrow Electronics, Enterprise Computing Solutions; Arvind
Thakur, Chief Executive Officer and Joint Managing Director of NIIT Technologies; and Alasdair Kilgour, Vice President of
MEA and APAC at Nuvias.
Demand for solutions, the adoption of cloud, technology inflexions and a bimodal outlook
are prompting the regional channel to rapidly adjust to new realities. By Arun Shankar.
L
arge-scale changes in the end-
user business environment are
creating challenges across the
entire IT supply chain. System integrators,
resellers and distributors are adapting to
the transformation of business and the IT
consumption pattern.
A solution-focused approach rather
than a product and technology based
approach; a consumption-based payment
model rather than an asset-based payment
model; and managing the expectations of
the customer’s customer are, increasingly,
the new equations driving change.
These challenges are now spread across
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the entire IT supply and value chain, from
the vendor, into the sell-through and
implementation channel structure, the end
user and the end user’s customer.
Global system integrators, such as
$450 million NIIT Technologies, are
usually the first rung in the supply chain
to be affected by changing end user
spending and business models, challenging
economic conditions and inflexions
of technology. Arvind Thakur, Chief
Executive Officer and Joint Managing
Director of NIIT Technologies, points out
that ‘consumerisation’ of technology, and
the rapid pace in the change of customer
demographics, are creating challenges for
the end users of technology and business
decision makers.
“Earlier, customers would tell us
what they wanted and you built it; faster,
cheaper and better for them, because that
is how all of us scaled our business and
our industry. Now things are changing so
quickly; technologies are coming in so fast,
they are looking for partners who can lead
them on this job.”
Thakur points out that digital solution
offerings from NIIT Technologies are now
among its fastest growing. This includes
digital experience, digital analytics, cloud
ssue 07
NTELLIGENT TECH CHANNELS
Earlier,
customers
would tell us
what they
wanted and you
built it; faster,
cheaper and
better for them.
Scaling skilled resources
As one of the largest global technology
distribution companies with a turnover
of $24 billion, Arrow is in a position to
provide its community of channel partners
the benefits of its relationships with more
than 125,000 technology manufacturing
companies. Arrow Electronics, the global
distribution entity as it is called, covers
both electronic components and enterprise
computing products.
Within the Middle East, the Arrow
Enterprise Computing division, or Arrow
ECS, is primarily focusing on hyper-
converged infrastructure, cybersecurity,
vendor certified training and professional
services. With the increasing convergence
of sensors, devices, operational
technologies and IP digital technologies,
the fact that Arrow distributes both
electronic components and enterprise
computing products is likely to help
it gain ground in the IoT distribution
business as well.
“What we are doing is creating or
transforming the organisation to have that
Arrow style in our dealings with partners.
Now, obviously, as far as the business is
concerned with vendors, whatever vendors
we had in the past, we are continuing with
them. But now we are in a position to give
more solutions. That does not mean all
the technology vendors will work in the
Middle East. But we have access to all
those technologies. And because of the
worldwide releases from these vendors,
as and when we require we can derive the
technology that it is focused on,” explains
Vimal Kocher, Managing Director Middle
East, Arrow Electronics, Enterprise
Computing Solutions.
With increasing challenges in the
business and economic environment,
and the push into the realms of digital
transformation, end users are looking
at working with channel partners who
can actively work on their pain points.
This requirement has pressured both
Everybody
recognises the
shift in terms of
how end users
are making
a purchasing
decision.
distributors and channel partners to move
towards a solution-based approach rather
than a product-based approach.
“Customers are now looking for
partners who can really work on their pain
points and suggest solutions that will help
them increase their business. This is the
change. And in that process, they look for
partners or distributors who can provide
them with solutions. It is no more a case of
the distribution of hardware, or software,
or service. It is a solution. And this is what
we do exactly,” elaborates Kocher.
However, to meet the expectation of end
users in their technology transformation
journey, channel partners feel challenged
and constrained. A key requirement for
channel partners to reduce end-user pain
points is to have sufficient skilled resources
on-board, and this is often not the case.
Increasingly, especially within the Middle
East, channel partners are turning to
distributors to provide them with skilled
resources in the form of professional
services, which can be used by channel
partners to reduce the pain points of their
end customers.
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