The Indian storage market has been witnessing an upsurge in the demand that is being derived from the adoption of SSDs, RAMs, HDDs across verticals to boost the performance of PCs. Leading storage brand Micron has been successfully meeting this demand with its wide portfolio of powerful next-gen storage solutions. Rajeev Ranjan, Editor, Digital Terminal got a chance recently to interact with Rajesh Gupta, Director, Country Manager-India Sales, Micron. Mr. Rajesh spoke about their new Crucial Connect partner meet series, product offerings, market landscape and their channel strategy to accelerate the growth. Read below the excerpts:
Rajeev: How do you see the Crucial Connect partner meet in New Delhi? What is the objective behind starting these channel events?
Rajesh: We have received a very positive response at this channel event as over 120 channel partners have attended and participated here. As part of the channel engagement strategy, we want to have a high connect with our channel partners. During the pandemic we could not get the opportunity of engaging with our partner face to face. Due to this, we decided to initiate the crucial connect channel partner program. In this phase, we want to connect all the metro cities and have face-to-face interactions with our channel partner.
Rajeev: Which are your key focused products for this channel event series?
Rajesh: The focus of our event is essentially to share with our channel partner what is the technology trend and what are the entire roadmap of products available. Also, to guide them that these are the products that are available so that they can fulfill the projects they are participating in. So instant of focusing on a specific product our focus is to lay entire products roadmap in front of them. So, they have good knowledge about the range of products. Micron has also developed excellent online tools to enable our channel partners to quickly find out the right DRAM and SSD part for the PC system/Laptop they are servicing or providing parts for upgradation to a customer. The FTF event is an excellent opportunity for us to deliver the training on these tools in a face to face demo.
Rajeev: Please tell about the areas where you still look to increase your reach.
Rajesh: In India, you need to constantly increase your coverage. So during the last two and a half years, our endeavour is to focus on geography expansion program. Our products and program reach to hundreds of towns and serviced from 45+ cities across India for sales and post sales service. Our endeavor is to keep on increasing our reach and take our products to every possible market that exists.
Rajeev: How have you been taking care of the service support?
Rajesh: Service is the most important element for us. Right from the day one, we are engaged with Kaizen services. While working with Kaizen, we can give crucial and micron product warranty replacement in 44 towns where kaizen has its centers. Other than that, we have an email-based support program for consumers. In any place they can call through a toll-free number and can get Micron product replacement via courier. So, service is a very important part of our strategy, and we will continue to work on it.
Rajeev: Micron has grown exponentially in last 2-3 years and partners across India are very happy with Micron. So, what is the DNA for this success?
Rajesh: There are three things, one is extremely superior product quality that is available in Crucial and Micron products. Second thing is that we focus on building good coverage with our distribution partners. We ensure that our products are available widely, consistently, and lastly, back it up with a strong service support. So, these are the three pillars that we identified right from the beginning.
Rajeev: What is your plan for the gaming segment?
Rajesh: Gaming is one of the fastest growing segments for both professionals and as well as amateur gamers. This is something that grew rapidly during a pandemic because for many people this was possibly the only source of entertainment. So, Micron has great products on the SSD side as well as DDR side. We believe, we have great products, and we are making those products available to gaming-focused channel partners who can utilize the new emerging opportunities in gaming market.
