India's Channel Partners Offering SaaS Capability Earned More Than US$500M in Annual Revenue Last Year.(Company overview)

Software-as-a-Service is still at an embryonic stage among India SMBs. At present, a relatively low number of India's SMB-focused channel partners offer SaaS capability. However the number is rising rapidly. AMI-Partners' analysis of these channel partners reveals that they have above 30 employees and annually transact business with almost 100 customers on an average. Moreover, the average annual earnings of an SaaS channel partner is almost double that of other partners, implying greater maturity and scale. These are some key findings obtained from AMI-Partners' recently released 2010-11 India SMB SaaS Channel Partners report. Over the years there has been a slight drop in the proportion of traditional channel partners or value-added resellers concentrating purely on hardware. But this drop has been adjusted by a rise in the proportion of partners in other areas such as system / network integration, ISVs, IT consultants, etc. A key reason is that partners feel the need to offer several product lines and increase their portfolio to include upcoming and innovative solutions, such as SaaS to cater to customer demand. This also enables greater options to cross-sell and up-sell solutions and hence to gain greater revenues. This is emphasized by the fact that SaaS-focused India SMB CPs account for more than 10% of the revenues of all India SMB CPs-in spite of constituting a much smaller share by volume.

As they become gradually aware of its potential benefits, SaaS growth among India SMBs is on the rise. SaaS spending among India SMBs is anticipated to grow at a healthy rate of almost 25% annually over the next 2 years-thus accentuating the role of SaaS channel partners who are responsible for meeting end-user demand.

"SaaS channel partners play a vital role within the overall ecosystem," said Dev Chakravarty, Assistant Manager for Research at AMI-India, "especially for SMBs since the latter have a mostly unmanaged setup. Partners have a major role in all major activities-including acquisition, installation & setup, maintenance & also customization, if the need occurs. Ideally," Chakravarty continued, "SaaS channel partners should also work in tandem with major SaaS vendors in India for greater awareness among SMBs. This is the cornerstone for success for SaaS among SMBs in India." Partners also have a vital advisory role to play in managing the relationship between the cloud service provider and end user.

To succeed in the SaaS domain in India, it is imperative that vendors meet the expectations of their SaaS channel partners. The AMI survey finds that SaaS partners are keen to work with vendors who offer competitive pricing, post-sale technical support and lead generation/ referral. "AMI has also investigated the preferred modes of communication by SaaS vendors that channel partners appreciate most," noted Chakravarty. "These are email campaigns, promotional support and advertising." SaaS vendors should ideally keep these aspects in mind while designing their partner interaction and contact models. Another key success-factor is a clear "services demarcation" that articulates a clear understanding of who should provide which services and where those services interface. In order to reduce any potential conflict in this area, it is important to draw a "service map" that shows the service flow and the interfaces between the parties. Related Study AMI-Partners' 2010 - 11 India SMB SaaS Channel Partners Study highlight these and other major trends about the SMB-focused Channel Partners in India who offer SaaS capability. Some of the key areas this study highlights are - an overview of the evolution of SaaS and its Channel partners in India, analysis of the SaaS channel partner universe and the role of partners within the overall SaaS ecosystem. The study provides various levels of details about SaaS-based Channel Partners, including firmographic profile, revenue model, analysis of Customers/Verticals catered to and the Challenges partners face. Some other important data points this study reveals are - key products/solutions offered by SaaS Channel Partners, and preferred SaaS delivery model. The report also provides some essential information about the overall SaaS SMB market in India - including current India SMB penetrations, market spending and forecast, etc. This data points to key opportunities and messaging hot buttons for SaaS vendors seeking to formulate an ideal Channel Partner Engagement Model.

For more information about this study, AMI-Partners, or our global SMB research, call 212-944-5100, e-mail ask_ami@ami-partners.com or visit www.ami-partners.com. About Access Markets International (AMI) Partners, Inc. AMI-Partners specializes in IT, Internet, telecommunications and business services strategy, venture capital, and actionable market intelligence - with a strong focus on global small and medium businesses (SMBs), and extending into large enterprises and home-based businesses. The AMI-Partners mission is to empower clients for success with the highest quality data, business strategy perspectives and "go-to-market" solutions. AMI was founded in 1996. Since its inception, the firm has built a world-class management team, each with ten to fifteen years' experience in IT, telecom, online communications or multimedia.

AMI-Partners has helped shape the go-to-market SMB strategies of more than 150 leading IT, internet, telecommunications and business services companies. The firm is well known for its IT and internet adoption-based segmentation of the SMB markets; its annual retainership services based on global SMB tracking surveys in more than 30 countries; and its proprietary database of SMBs, Cloud services studies and SMB channel partners in the Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific. The firm invests significantly in collecting survey-based information from several thousand SMBs annually, and is considered the premier source for global SMB trends and analysis.

Keywords: AMI-Partners, Advertising, Asia, China, Finance, India, Internet Adoption, Investing, Investment, Software, Telecommunications, Venture Capital, World Wide Web.

This article was prepared by Telecommunications Weekly editors from staff and other reports. Copyright 2011, Telecommunications Weekly via VerticalNews.com.