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30 Minute Interview
Beyond subscriptions: Red Hat looks to services
Red Hat recently opened an offshore development centre in
Mumbai. It is spreading its wings in the services sector. Rachel Cassidy,
Vice President –Global Services, Red Hat talks to Kushal Shah about
the company’s services thrust.
Not Just Linux
Rachel Cassidy |
One of our major challenges is that people know Red Hat solely
as a Linux provider. So our goal is to show the world that we offer more than
Linux. We find that when people go to Gartner, they send them to us for Linux
but we are now developing our expertise in product offerings around open source
solutions. We were not so good at this earlier so now we are focusing on that.
With the help of Red Hat global services, we have all our services under one
umbrella. We find that when we are working with a customer, first they come
to ask about open source and so we have experts to help them at various levels.
Later, they find a need to learn more so we have our instructors and number
of other initiatives such as e-learning and virtual learning. Some customers
come to us saying that they can’t have their IT guy out for five days for
learning, so we have changed and extended our offering by providing night classes
and e-learning to address customer needs. We are updating and revamping our
JBoss curriculum and other offerings. We even offer services such as migration
management for Windows to Linux and help them save money using Linux. Ask-learn-do
is our motto and we do it through consultancy where we have a strong team and
are even creating a technical advisory board for all services.
Catering to customer demand
A lot of SMB members are looking to go for Linux and we provide them with a
full roadmap for the same specific to each customer’s needs. In services,
we will get some of the migration solutions and will be doing more of application
development for clients.
Enterprise focus and partnerships
Our focus on SMBs is not by design. We have different coverage models for different
markets. We do specialize in verticals such as financial services, health, telecommunications,
education and the federal government. We develop in-house expertise not only
in sales but also on the technical side something which we have in India as
well. The financial services segment seems very strong here and we see a lot
of opportunity in the telecommunications sector as well. Scope in healthcare
segment is also on the rise for us. The government is coming out as a major
adopter both in India as well as in North America. We are increasing our presence
in media as well. In terms of partners, we have a certified services partner
program that targets the SMB market. Presently, we are looking at partners focused
on the services side which is strategic to overall work plans. We are signing
some partners here in India. We have already signed up Satyam. Globally, we
have Unisys with whom we are working actively in North America. We even have
IBM as our partner and many more partnerships are in the pipeline.
Working with the competition
We work with them in order to grow. We have IBM as a partner. We deal more in
middleware, so we are a little different in that aspect. In some areas we are
new so we are partnering for that and moving ahead. It’s a mix and we are
developing core competencies around things which are our strong points and developing
a go-to-market model in those areas. Besides, offering services around open
source is a new concept.
The Mumbai ODC
We have always offered products to our customers. What we found was that its
technical consultancy which adds value to these offerings. It is a different
and new concept for us and the India offshore centre will play a big part in
our growth and strategic decisions. At this centre, we will be developing all
open source related products and will focus on migrations activity. Later, we
will think of coming up with some specialty vertical solutions from this centre.
India as offshore development location
We already have a strong presence in India. We have a framework and a team here
which can support the offshore centre completely. The team here is established
and experienced. Other people might be going to Brazil or China but due to our
strong presence here we thought of setting up the centre here. We have the capability
to have an on site presence which is supported by an offshore presence. Another
reason is that it is a lot harder to start from scratch. Further, if we look
at China, the talent pool is not as large as that of India and communication
is the biggest barrier. Since India uses English as the primary language for
technology it comes as an advantage to us. We don’t mind paying a slight
premium for better quality. We will be looking for other opportunities in other
countries but India will be our primary centre.
Training talent
We have global initiatives for training and certifications around open source.
We are doing some curriculum development in India and will take this initiative
global. As far as the education space is concerned, they are not just our customers
but are also the biggest Linux adopters who help spread the word of open source.
We are growing our Red Hat academy program and also looking at an executive
MBA type offering for Linux. In India, we have IIT as a major partner. Further,
the talent pool is a challenge not only here but globally and we are trying
to bring out a whole batch of graduates equipped with Linux knowledge.
Vision for professional services business
Our priority is really to be solution focused. Apart from that, other things
that we are really good at is understanding the customers’ small queries
and do the bits and pieces of what needs to be done for that. We find that it’s
not just selling Linux subscriptions that are important to us, but it’s
more than that. Apart from subscription, it is training, services and partnership
opportunities which play an important role in our strategies. Our goal is to
provide a complete customer experience and to keep up the level of satisfaction
we have been able to deliver to meet their end-to-end goal. We want to focus
on not just Linux but open source. For India, since we will be developing out
of India, it will have a big impact on our strategic growth plan. We even plan
to have new partners here in India.
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