Cisco hits the road to woo SMBs

Tech major creates 25-ft van with live network which will move across 50 cities.

Cisco Systems has thought of a unique plan to cater to small and medium business (SMB) segment in India. Called the 'Network On Wheels' (NOW), the company has created a 25-foot customised van with a live network environment on board.

"The van will demonstrate exciting interactive technology solutions for SMBs, designed to enhance their competitive advantage, maximise productivity and ROI, enhance customer care and loyalty, increase user satisfaction and reduce operation costs "" ultimately driving business growth," says Jangoo Dalal, senior vice-president, Cisco Systems (India).

Average SMB networking deals in India range anywhere between $5,000 and $100,000. Dalal says Cisco has been averaging about five customer demos every day and the "conversion rate has increased". "The time of closing a deal has been reduced by 40 per cent," he says.

NOW will see Cisco augment an eight-month long, 50-city roadshows that will showcase customised Cisco networking solutions, including advanced technologies such as security, wireless and unified IP communications aimed at helping Indian SMBs leverage the power of networking technology for business growth.

The SMB segment is the fastest growing segment for Cisco in India. Besides the US and Canada, India is the only market where the NOW program has been launched.

The van is expected to visit Mumbai by end-June (it started with Delhi and Chandigarh) and plans to visit strategic industrial locations across key tier I, II and III cities and host live demonstrations for more than 100 customers per city in the country.

It will cover cities including, Lucknow, Jaipur, Coimbatore, Hubli, Guwhati, Raipur, Rajkot and Surat among others.

An AMI Partners study estimates there are 7.6 million SMBs in India. These SMBs are set to spend around $7.7 billion to beef up their infotech infrastructure and solutions.

Networking forms the backbone of all IT and telecom investments and is a key component of the overall expenditure, reasons Dalal.

Moreover, SMBs (in a majority of cases) are unlikely to have a dedicated IT department. At most, they may have an administrator who is not a networking expert.

"What we have done is to give SMBs a 'plug-n-play' box," says Dalal. Till a year ago, Cisco had seven depots. In the last 12 months it has added 30 depots.

"The cumulative investment in spares for our entire customer base in India is around $100 million," asserts Dalal while emphasising the need for after-sales service and remote care of networks (wherever the SMBs give permission).

NOW is a location-scalable model and flexible. It makes sense even from a real-estate point of view since Cisco's proof-of-concept centre in Bangalore may not be a viable proposition for SMBs whose IT spend does not justify them being flown to Bangalore for a demonstration.