Spotlight

Raritan to extend its reach

Chirasrota Jena analyses Raritan Computer’s growing interest in the Indian market

Raritan Computer Inc, a global supplier of solutions for managing IT infrastructure equipment, has become aggressive in the Indian market. In its attempt to increase its reach across the country, Raritan opened a liaison office in Delhi in 2004. Earlier, the company was operating through its channel partners.

Raritan India has nearly 65 percent marketshare in the Indian enterprise segment, and the range of its products includes analog and digital KVM switches, secure console servers, and products for a remote or branch office. The company’s Command Center Secure Gateway appliance is the ideal solution for IT managers or service providers who need to access and control a large number of heterogeneous IT devices in local or remote offices.

India has been witnessing large data centre deployments in the recent past, centres which need to simplify their IT management. This is where Raritan has found acceptance for its products and solutions.

The company has therefore decided to have a direct presence in India to support its more than 200 customers and channel partners in optimising its marketshare. According to industry estimates available with Raritan, the market size for KVM and serial console management solutions in India is around Rs 27 crore or $6 million. With the rapid growth in IT infrastructure—especially the large data centre deployment that India as a market continues to witness—the CAGR for KVM and serial console management solutions is an impressive 40 percent. This is expected to scale up even further in the years to come.

Triple play

"We believe in entering the market with the best products and solutions in the domain" -Sanjay Motwani Country Manager Raritan India

In order to increase its base in India and maximise revenue, the company has framed three strategies: expanding the channel network, creating awareness about its products, and aggressive marketing. Sanjay Motwani, Country Manager, Raritan India elaborates, “Besides educating the target audience through a host of activities, our strategy for growth is simple yet effective. We believe in entering the market with the best of products and solutions in the domain, appointing the right channel partners with appropriate skill sets (both at the distributor and tier-two level), training the channel partners, and supporting the products and solutions deployed.” The company even organised various training programmes last year for its partners.

The manufacturer has become more conscious about maintaining a healthy relationship with its customers and partners. Raritan believes that building such relationships will result in good business for the company. It has provided comprehensive tools to its channel partners to strengthen their business and maximise their ability to serve customers. Under its reseller-authorised programmes, the company provides training, demonstration tools, sales leads, special discounts and generous margins.

Targeting SMBs

Like every player in the field of IT manufacturing, Raritan has also planned a strategy to tap the SMB segment. At present Raritan India’s SMB marketshare is nearly 30 percent, and it is planning to double the figure by the end of the year. It has also targeted the BFSI, telecom, transport, manufacturing and BPO sectors to push its products and solutions. Because the SMB sector is price-sensitive, the manufacturer hopes to do better business by selling its cost-effective solutions.

Raritan has been stressing the need for hardware-based solutions (as against the popular network management software) since they can work at the BIOS level even when the network or the OS is down. Motwani believes that his company has been able to generate sales because it offers multiple advantages in terms of saving rack space, HVAC (heating, ventilation and air-conditioning) costs, costs towards buying multiple IT equipment, and staffing and travel costs. Most importantly, downtime which can amount to substantial financial losses could also be limited.

Creating awareness

The major challenge lying before Raritan India is to create awareness about its various products and solutions. Though there has been significant growth in the deployment of data centres, the growth in the sales of IT infrastructure management solutions has not been corresponding.

Indian IT managers are still not aware of the advantages that secure remote access solutions can bring in. Some are still using primitive management solutions, unmindful of the fact that IT management costs are growing exponentially as is the number of servers in their infrastructure, and that the cost of downtime is much more serious than what they suppose. They have not been optimally utilising the rack space available to them, paying huge HVAC bills, buying multiple pieces of equipment, overstaffing, sending trained personnel from one location to another, and compromising on the security of their IT infrastructure. Other managers are yet to graduate to the centralised and integrated management appliances that enable them to monitor their network (even if it is spread across multiple locations around the globe) from anywhere and at anytime using the same interface and IP over a Web browser.

India’s contribution

On his proposed drivers of growth for Raritan India, Motwani says, “We are looking at tie-ups with system integrators who have expertise in specific verticals and who will work as our channel partners for KVM products. They will sell our products as an element of a solution rather than as a box.”

Considering that India is among the top ten contributors of revenue to the global earnings of Raritan, the company is planning to focus more on the country. Motwani explains: “Potentially India has a lot to offer, and therefore we shall continue to invest in the country. We have been spending regularly on marketing and channel initiatives. The investment and addition in numbers on the workforce front will always be in accordance with the growth of the IT infrastructure management market in the country.”

In order to provide the latest technologies to the customers, the company is planning to add some more products this year. Motwani states, “Now it’s time to focus on the Indian customer. Raritan is providing solutions, along with cost-effective products, to anyone who has an IT set-up. To create awareness about our products in each and every region, we are spending considerably on various kinds of advertisements.”