Enabling digital transformation, Rahi covers the full lifecycle of technology solutions – from assessment, architecture, design, implementation, and managed services, to professional services and support.
As we usher into 2022, it’s time to look back and take stock of the channel performance of leading vendors and distributors and the key achievements and take-aways from the Channel Market. More than this, it’s pivotal to get a hang of the key predictions for the Channel Market for the year 2023.
The year gone by will go down the memory lane as a year of mixed experience. Starting from the widening market opportunities to a somewhat visible respite from the raving pandemic, from being the year of Europe’s greatest war since World War II that pushed the pandemic-battered global economy and the European markets into recession to a year of greater cybersecurity concerns — 2022 has seen it all.
In a series of interactions with the poster-boys of Indian IT, SME Channels embarks upon understanding how leading vendors and distributors have fared in the year gone by; what drives their growth engine; the key milestones for 2023 set from the channel perspective; key channel predictions for the New Year; direction for channel partners and their growth roadmap for 2023.
We spoke to leading Global Systems Integrator and Digital Transformation Enabler, Rahi, to get a sneak peek into its performance in the channel market and its key channel predictions for 2023.
[quote font=”tahoma” font_size=”13″ font_style=”italic” color=”#262626″ bgcolor=”#f9f9f9″]
As a growth-driven organization, we are always looking to partner with firms that share our exceptional service delivery philosophy.
Rohit Singal,
VP-India,
Rahi
[/quote]
Rahi has developed the processes and skill sets to deliver IT solutions for customers globally and is further elevating digital transformation to create integrated IT environments. The company’s offerings cover the full lifecycle of technology solutions, from assessment, architecture, design, implementation, and managed services, to professional services and support.
Rahi has recently been acquired by Wesco International for $217 million and with this Wesco will combine Rahi with its Communication and Security Solutions (CSS) strategic business unit. The acquisition will strengthen Wesco’s leading data center solution offerings for their global customers.
Rahi combines its global reach and in-depth analysis services to understand clients’ business goals, IT requirements, and operations and work towards integrating IT Solutions to assure business continuity and stay relevant in an ever-changing tech landscape.
In an exclusive chat with SME Channels, Rohit Singal, VP-India, Rahi, reveals his company’s key channel Predictions for 2023, major achievements and the unique matrixes that design his seminal vision for the Partner Ecosystem. Edited Excerpts:
Please give a brief introduction of your company.
Rahi was founded in 2012 with the aim to provide end-to-end global IT solutions by Sushil Goyal, Tarun Raisoni, and Rashi Mehta. With the goal to help enterprises convert long-term goals into success, entrepreneurs continually work towards harnessing the ongoing evolution of technologies and facilitating the building of businesses with enhanced productivity and profitability.
Rahi concentrates on providing tailor-made solutions that meet every enterprise’s specific requirements and helps them with their technology adoption and scalability in a flexible and effective manner. We are a si stop provider for an organization’s IT needs and leverage the best-of-breed innovative technologies to give a curated solution.
The journey that began a decade ago has been full of important milestones with strategic investments and recognitions along the way. As of today, Rahi has a presence in six continents, 30+ countries, and across 41+ cities with 1000+ customers. The hyper-scale start-up that has become one of the leading IT system integrators, offers a full life cycle of technology solutions and works around various IT verticals that are critical to the advancement of digital businesses. Our key offerings include:
Our key offerings include:
Data Center: Our data center infrastructure solutions help enterprises build an IT environment to meet increasing business demands while factoring in agility and dependability.
Enterprise IT Infrastructure: Our enterprise IT services extend from data center infrastructure management (DCIM) solutions, server consolidation, and virtualization to storage and asset management.
Networking & Security: We provide assessments for security, simultaneously scanning the network for cyber breaches and delivering a threat intelligence report. We brief the clients about security incidents and provide a cyber threat assessment for better security measures.
Cloud Infrastructure: Our expertise in designing and implementing private or hybrid cloud environments using existing or new infrastructure has helped many businesses maintain visibility and control of workloads ensuring performance.
Audio/Video: We offer A/V products that can help to communicate, entertain and increase engagement and enhance collaboration. We enable businesses with flexible options that can be tailored to each specific environment.
Global Services and Logistics: We also offer logistics services that include product assembly, packaging, tracking, and security. Together, these capabilities enable us to deliver multivendor IT solutions across geopolitical boundaries, helping customers operate efficiently and effectively in every market they serve.
Cybersecurity: Recently added to our portfolio offerings, Rahi’s cybersecurity solutions help enterprises to build robust fool-proof IT infrastructure.
As the war in Europe refuses to end anytime soon and China bubbles with uncertainty and the world economy is yet to come out of the pandemic shock, what major market trends would you forecast for 2023?
The ongoing political climate has changed the economic landscape which was hard to predict. While the future is still uncertain, there are a few things that will affect the market trends. A few of them include:
Demand for semiconductors will decrease
While 2022 saw a surge in the semiconductor which was halted due to a supply chain crisis, 2023 showcased a different story. As per the latest report from Gartner, the global semiconductor market is expected to decline to 3.6% in 2023. This is primarily driven by rising inflation that resulted in a decline in consumer spending as well as reprioritization in other areas. On the other end of the spectrum, the enterprise-driven markets including enterprise networking, computer, and industrial have been resilient despite the looming macro-economic slowdown and geopolitical concerns. Still, the coming year will be difficult for the semiconductor industry.
The usage of AI and ML technologies will increase
AI has already gathered a buzz in the past decade. In fact, the AI market is expected to grow to USD 190 billion by 2025. With the rising cost and an uncertain economy, AI and ML technologies will help enterprises to get actionable insights. It will empower enterprises to tackle the challenges and swiftly go through to achieve their objectives.
Supply chain will become resilient
Enterprises will increasingly utilize IoT to bring full visibility into their supply chains in 2023. IoT and other technologies not only play a critical role in bringing resiliency and efficiency into supply chains but will enhance cybersecurity and IT network management. With the surge of cyber-attacks and threat actors advancing their techniques to infiltrate vulnerable supply chain frameworks in place, there will be more to incorporate IoT and cybersecurity solutions in 2023.
Decreasing carbon emissions
Carbon emissions have become one of the biggest concerns for governments across the globe. While the current political climate has worried experts that countries will take extreme measures to provide energy to their nationwide infrastructure, governments will still take time to identify ways to reduce their carbon footprint. In 2023 and beyond, the push for clean energy and more renewable energy consumption will only increase.
What key megatrends do you foresee emerging in the channel market?
Channel market has been central to Rahi’s overall growth, especially in the past couple of years. A few trends that will shape the overall channel market include:
- More in-person and hybrid events: As the environment seems to become normal, the push for in-person events will see an increase. Rahi Tech Day 2022 is a great example of a successful in-person event. It also provides a networking opportunity to both customers and enterprise partners.
- Webinars: Webinars have played a critical role in enabling enterprises to promote their products and services. These especially benefited Rahi and our partners to form new alliances with customers across the globe.
Which areas do you want to focus on in the channel – skillsets – sales and marketing, vertical and technology practice development, service capability, etc.?
Our channel strategy requires sales and marketing, vertical and technology practice development, and service capability to receive equal attention from us. As each aspect is crucial to not only help us land new clients but also strengthen our relationship with them, we focus on optimizing every component of the channel. With that said, delivering exceptional service to our customers is still at the core of Rahi’s philosophy and we continue to deliver on that promise.
What percentage of budget growth are you expecting for channel development?
The success of Rahi Tech Day, Infocomm and our other in-person events with Microsoft, Cisco, and Neat has been one of the major drivers towards Rahi’s overall success. As we continue to expand our horizon, we have understood that such in-person and hybrid events along with online webinars have helped to uplift the overall growth of Rahi. As we continue to increase the number of events we host, we expect to witness a surge in channel budget in the coming years.
What is your expectation from this channel this year?
We expect such events will help Rahi to continually expand its global presence. In-person tech events and online webinars beefed up the portfolio of Rahi. Moreover, our revenue has seen positive outcomes by hosting such events or sponsoring them in partnership with our global partners. We expect these events to positively contribute to Rahi’s overall growth in the years to come.
Are you planning to onboard any new brand/product to your channel offerings?
As a growth-driven organization, we are always looking to partner with firms that share our exceptional service delivery philosophy. Recently we added cybersecurity solutions to our offerings and plan to expand our customer base and technology partnership in this area. With more and more customer acquisition happening in the coming year, we will diversify our approach which will help us to onboard new partners while acquiring new customers.
Is there any channel expansion plan in terms of numbers in 2023?
Rahi plans to continually expand its global footprint and acquire new customers. And channel partnership is central to it. The success of our channel partnership has helped to acquire more projects. Additionally, We have large orders and projects across our seven pillars offerings for which we will be recruiting new talent. We plan to further increase our workforce to meet the growing demands of our customers.
We plan to continually hold online and offline events to connect with leading CXOs across the nation and plan to further amplify our India’s business to overall Rahi’s revenue in the coming years.
