SMC Networks is determined to make a definite mark in networking market on Indian shores. A brand by Taiwan based Accton Technology, SMC has forged alliance with national level distributor – Priya Limited.

Sarfaraz Dhanji, Country Manager – India, SMC Networks informed, “India has always been a key country due to emergent networking landscape and wireless revolution. This partnership will help us scale India operations wider and deeper across various geographies.”

“Priya Limited’s fourteen branch offices with sales and technical staff will elevate us in a league of a more competent networking vendor,” admitted Dhanji.

The company aims to gather a partner strength of 300 plus in the next six months growing from their present number of 100. Priya Limited has an active channel partner base of 1000.

“We expect 20 to 30% of partners to sell SMC products as many of our partners were demanding a reliable networking brand from us,” added Aditya Bhuwania, Executive Director, Priya Limited. The distributor will distribute SMC products from first week of December.

Priya Limited is engaged in forming a separate technical team acting as service and support arm for SMC products. “Their wide spread offices will help us increase service levels to channels and indirectly end customers,” said Dhanji. The distributor is keener to focus on B and C class cities where PC adoption is on the rise and networking solutions are more in demand. “Metros would be on our radar. But opportunity in upcountry is large for us and our channels across SMBs and SOHOs,” said Bhuwania.

Highlighting the channel strategy, Bhuwania elaborated, “We are mainly targeting channel system integrators and solution providers who sell to SMBs. With a right mix of system integrators, VARs and resellers as our regular buyers, networking portfolio will be another upsell for these channels.” He further said, “As SMBs are comfortable dealing with limited solution providers, we would cultivate the distributor’s focus to engage with system integrators.”

Accton’s enterprise networking brand, Edge - Core is the next ‘Go to Market’ for alliance of SMC Networks and Priya Limited. Edge-Core’s latest technology includes broad stack of products including L2/L3 managed switches, 10G products and others for enterprises and ISPs.

“In next few months, we would introduce this brand to partners. We are looking for system integrators with enterprise expertise, domain knowledge and customer base,” said Shekhar Kulkarni, Vice President- Marketing, Priya Limited.

Talking on the opportunities in a networking marketplace crowded with dozen odd vendors Dhanji said, “India is a large country which is at the cusp of wireless adoption. As applications increase and networks get complex, enterprise infrastructure will always be on a constant upgrade. Many SMBs are still in nascent stage for networking.”

Bhuwania at Priya Limited added, “Partners have a choice to align with SMC or Edge-Core or both, depending on their customer segment. We will avoid any over distribution to help channels make good profit margins and more business opportunities.”

“We received an overwhelming response for SMC products when introduced in Kerala, because many of our dealers new about Accton technologies and the quality of their products.”

Commented K R Varma, Manager, Priya Limited., “We are appointing regional distributors for SMC products, to enable us to move SMC products to all nooks and corners of the state, because the migration to networking is taking place in the state in a very fast pace”, he added.