Distinctively Different

In a competitive marketplace, only those firms who dare to distinguish themselves through innovative initiatives and ensures they are at the forefront of change can hope to flourish over the next decade. Janees Reghelini caught up with Ramkumar Balakrishnan, president, Redington Value, to discover how the firm aims to redefine distribution.

- Janees Reghelini

The regional distribution space has undergone several stages of changes over the years. One of the most notable differences has been the shift to solutions-based distribution model rather than a products-focused one. While this has transpired gradually, the transformation is now tangible.

Having been through this journey over the last 11 years of operations, Redington Value is determined to redefine the space and orchestrate the elements for its next phase.

Ramkumar Balakrishnan, president, Redington Value, says, a solutions’ distributor is someone who engages in an outcome based sale. The ability to actively combine three different vendors’ offering into one comprehensive solution to effectively address a customer’s requirement is what solutions distribution is all about.

“Many believe solutions distribution is like old wine in a new bottle but that’s not the case,” says Balakrishnan. “This transformation is happening; however, the industry must have people who can understand, create and go-to-market with a genuine proposition.”

Understanding the dynamics of the new era of IT distribution, the firm has worked towards building its portfolio of offerings in the regional market over the course of this year. It has grown its operations in all the territories it covers and on boarded new vendors such as Palo Alto Networks, Nokia, Seclore, StorageCraft, Gemini, Nexthink and gone mainstream with Huawei. The company has also escalated its focus in the security, cloud and hyper converged space.

“From a strategic point of view, two key initiatives stand out – one is setting up of our consulting arm, Citrus Consulting, which is now a DIC company,” he says. “The second is that our aggregation and auto provisioning platform, Cloud Solution Provider, will go on general availability by the beginning of this month, which is a big win for us.”