SOPHOS and GCR - EDGECORE Graced the Debut Tech-day of 2018 for ASIRT

The debut Tech-day of 2018 organised by the Association of System Integrators and Retailers in Technology (ASIRT) saw an enthusiastic turnout of members who were enthralled as much by interesting business and collaboration opportunities as by the insightful lecture on self-improvement.

While leading international brands in the B2B segment like SOPHOS and GCR - EDGECORE showcased their latest offerings, renowned ‘life change catalyst’ and NLP trainer, Hemu Karkera, enlightened the audience with insightful powers of the sub-conscious mind and how these can be harnessed by individuals and professionals to overcome personal or business roadblocks.

SOPHOS, the international leaders in endpoint security and encryption, presented their latest, offerings in the field of synchronised security through a single, integrated cloud management console. They also highlighted their latest Intercept X approach, incubated as part of Cyberoam Technologies, a brand they acquired in February 2014.

Heralded by experts like Gartner and Forester as the leader in endpoint security and encryption, SOPHOS has been successfully operating through a channel first sales approach, especially catering to interests of SMB’s. Also, on the agenda was the latest deep learning and AI-powered offering intended to address the next-gen requirement of managing threats from the Artificial Intelligence.

Highlighting the Channel First Sales model of SOPHOS, Ashish Sud, Zonal Head West, Sales for India and SAARC, mentioned, “As one of the fastest growing IT companies in the field of cyber and information security, SOPHOS operates across all geographies through strong channel partner relationships. With SMB’s and System Integrators being our main target, ASIRT and associations of this nature that can bring key decision makers on a single platform, are valuable to us. We are delighted and grateful to ASIRT for providing us with this opportunity to interact and reach out to this valuable target segment that contributes to 30-40% of our annual sales.”

Next on the agenda was the India launch of the esteemed Global Channel Resources (GCR) and presentations from their investor and global strategic alliance partners, EDGECORE networks – international leaders in industrial grade POE switches. While EDGECORE enthralled the members with their latest innovations in the field as well as their contribution to the Open Network Ecosystem, they highlighted the expansive global market reach and the potential markets open to potential GCR member partners.

With the focused objective of promoting an integrated e-platform of technologically supported services exclusively to system integrators and channel partners, GCR operates through a single IoT/ Cloud connected integrated e-platform solution. Their value-added offerings include Applications, SaaS and Infrastructure solutions coupled with the business benefits of transparent transactions, easy logistics and installation and secured payments.

Speaking about this initiative, Amod Phadke, Director – Sales, said “One would be surprised to understand that almost 40% of successful IoT’s are incubated from India, making this one of the leading markets for accelerated digital transformation, supported through a robust Channel partner backbone. With GCR, as the first of its kind partner community portal in India aims at organising and unifying these IoT based efforts and innovations through a vibrant ecosystem where SI’s and partners can attain accelerated business growth. Having worked closely with ASIRT and its members, this was our first choice to announce the launch of our ambitious project and are grateful to ASIRT for this opportunity.”

Prabodh Vyas, Country manager - India, said “GCR was essentially born out of the concept to connect good vendors and partners spread across the globe, by harnessing the business potential of IoT as a SaaS-based model. Essentially, the partners or SI’s own the customers. So, the best way to go to the market was to service these partners through a strong system of technology support, backend support, RMA, Training and pricing support. With regards to our India operations, we are focussed on catering to the needs of SMB’s and smaller SI’s – a group perfectly represented by ASIRT members.”

Overall, with the multitude of collaboration and business opportunities supported by an avenue to overcome psychological and perceptive barriers that often hamper success, the ASIRT February 2018 Tech-day was an extremely well received and successful event.