Amid the increasing blare of the pandemic and the spectre of omicron casting its long shadows over the tech landscape, we have ushered into 2022. Channel success which has always been the holy-grail for any business is all set to get a makeover in the new year.
As part of our effort to get the channel community better informed and get an earful of what the leading distributors, who sit at the most critical point of IT business, are thinking, expecting, and planning for the channel community in 2022, we have started this new section to record the channel predictions of the most prominent players of the IT industry.
Here, as part of this special series of Tech Forecasts, Iris Global Services registers its predictions for 2022.
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“Channel fraternity will embrace the white field territories and greener pastures, especially, where not much developmental work has happened. There is huge scope for everybody to try and succeed in newer interesting space, as per one’s inclination.”
Sanjiv Krishen,
Chairman,
Iris Global Services
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A leading technology distribution company, Iris Global has established itself as a Services oriented systems and technology integration company with a strong focus on internet-facing and mobile businesses.
The main architect behind Iris’s spectacular growth story is its maverick Chairman, Mr Sanjiv Krishen. Mr Krishen, an industry veteran, has led the company through the turbulent pandemic times and has successfully forged a dynamic and resilient organization that has sailed through the ever-changing distribution landscape. Through his long stint as a business leader and head of the organization, he has built a distinct reputation as a conducive interface between vendors and the channel community.
In a special interaction with SME Channels, Sanjiv Krishen, Chairman, Iris Global Services, shares his company’s Channel Predictions for the year 2022. Edited excerpts…
Give a brief introduction about your company.
Iris was incorporated in 1996 with a major focus on distribution of IT products. Iris today, is an established name in the industry distributing a wide range of products from IT Hardware, Power, Telecom, and Network to Security. During these last 25 years Iris has grown from a turnover of Rs. 5 Crore to Rs. 1800 Crore. Iris has, over the years, invested heavily in building the distribution infrastructure, developing and automating its vast network of offices to cover the length and breadth of the country with ease.
Iris is an Authorized National Distributor for all major IT brands like Dell, HP, Acer, LG, Ruckus, APC Schneider along with many other multinational companies and have offices and warehouses in 22 cities across India including Hyderabad, Mumbai, Delhi and Ahmedabad.
Iris has a strong base of 10,000 partners, who specialize in verticals like Smart Cities with Government, Telecom, BFSI, Manufacturing, Healthcare, Hospitality, Education etc. Besides this, we also have dedicated vertical focusing only on GEM business.
Iris, with years of expertise in distribution of IT products and solutions provides the below offerings:
- Sophisticated and highly focused distribution network
- Customer-centric approach for each product
- Strong team of sales and support executives
- Flexibility and fast deliveries
- PAN India coverage
- In-house Marketing Team
As the pandemic is still there and a new variant is spreading, what are the major market trends you are forecasting for 2022?
Despite the pandemic, 2021 has been phenomenal for us, both in terms of revenue and profitability. Technology has sustained us through the pandemic and continues to redefine and restructure how we work, live and interact.
We expect 2022 to continue that trend and build on the explosion of technology-enabled growth.
Some market Tech trends that will come to the fore are:
Automation / Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT): Automation helps the workforce work more efficiently, as automated processes are consistent and auditable, which can help reduce errors and improve quality. It can also free skilled tech talent to focus on higher value-added tasks and results in costs reductions. Hence, more organisations will embrace automation through Industrial Internet of Things IIOT / Robotic Process Automation (RPA).
Virtual Reality: Many organizations are already working on life-like VR platforms, and are extending this Metaverse concept to sectors like education, health, entertainment, and gaming. It is an exciting area to track and where large pools of capital will attempt to accelerate adoption.
What major trends would you forecast in the channel market?
Channel fraternity will embrace the white field territories and greener pastures, especially where not much developmental work has happened.
There is huge scope for everybody to try and succeed in newer interesting space, as per one’s inclination.
We ourselves are witnessing huge transition from box business to solution providing as customers want to imbibe newest technology to maximize their productivity.
We foresee the channel embracing more and more Automation, Virtual reality related products. There will be huge demand from channel partners for make in India products.
As a distributor, do you have any channel expansion plans for 2022? Do you plan any additional investment in terms of skillsets enhancement including technical, sales and marketing for your team?
As already said before, we are looking forward to newer tie ups and hence, we would want to equip our sales team, our partners with the required skillsets. We are ready to go out of the way in investing for training purposes.
We also believe that we can reach out to maximum customers only if our sales team and our partners are technically sound and confident.
In addition, as a wise man has said, “only visible things sell,” we have invested large amount of funds in our marketing efforts for maximum reach.
What are your plans for onboarding new brands or addition of new business lines for next year?
As this is a fast-changing world of technology, we are very much excited to tie up with various market leaders. It is really important to upgrade ourselves with time. Hence, we are going to tie up with a lot of “Make in India” products, because we feel it to be the need of the hour.
Also, we are associating ourselves with latest technology products for our customer’s empowerment.
How would you like to value add to pre-sales, training, post-sales services for your partners and customers?
We have a certified team to give value-added services to our partners like pre-sales, training and post-sales for products like Servers, Storage and Networking.
Further, we are expanding our technical team to give best services and experience to our partners and customers.
Moreover, we consider ourselves extremely fortunate to be backed by some of the best OEMs, and wherever required, they also support us with their resources to provide the right products and solutions to our customers.
What is your geo – spread? What is your plan for enhancing geographies presence from Point of Presence or sales points perspective?
We are present in 22 locations in Northern, Southern, Western and Eastern zones across the country. We have footprints in Delhi, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Goa, Patna, Cochin, Jaipur, Mumbai, Raipur, Chennai, Jammu, Nagpur, Bubaneswar, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Pune, Vijaywada, Dehradun, Indore and Bhopal.
Besides that, we have recently deputed manpower in Srinagar and will be further expanding our presence in some more strategic locations like Surat, Trivandrum, Coimbatore and some more cities.
