 "This market has the potential to leapfrog much faster: Jonathan Chadwick")
India has been the fastest growing investment region for Vmware, the global cloud and virtualisation software and services major, over the past 12 months. It increased its headcount in the country by 17 per cent in 2013, now employing 2,200 people here. On his first visit to India with VMware, Chief Financial Officer Jonathan Chadwick talks to Itika Sharma Punit about the opportunities this country has to offer as a market and as a talent base for the NYSE-listed company. Edited excerpts:
What opportunities does VMware see in India?
India offers a massive opportunity. We have been here for almost 10 years and the country has been an inevitable source of great talent. We have a centre of over 2,200 people and have invested very heavily here. We are also looking at expansion into a new 450,000 sq ft office building in Bangalore that would be coming up within the next 12 months. Also, India has a phenomenal market opportunity. I see India just the cusp of some of the journeys that other countries have been on.
How has your India presence grown? Can you also give an idea about the kind of works you do out of here?
India was the fastest growing investment we made over the past 12 months. We increased our headcount by 17 per cent last year, a significant signal on our part because the overall headcount of VMware rose by only about 500 persons.
We have a large support team here, we have innovation teams working on storage technologies and networking; we also have some other core teams. We recently acquired a company called AirWatch, which also has a couple of hundred people here. We also have a finance team here, dealing with support and global finance opportunities. So, basically, we have got the whole nine yards here.
How do you see India vis-à-vis other geographies you operate in?
Look at the amount of overseas investment into the country. There’s got to be reasons why companies are investing very heavily into India. They all see very interesting opportunities to innovate here.
But when I look at the adoption of some technologies —for example, networking technologies — and there’s a lot more that can be done in India. Virtualisation is another example, happening in India but a lot more can be done.
Just in the first phase of our journey, we did a study with IDC, which showed that so far, we have saved over $1billion for our customers in India only by avoiding buying servers, reducing electricity cost, etc.
Why do you think India lags some of its global peers in adoption of newer technologies?
About five years ago, the discussions were around whether it was safe to virtualise. Three years earlier, that conversation was gone. People are now asking when they should virtualise and what portions should be virtualised. Across the Asia Pacific-Japan region, there are a huge number of people that have awareness about network virtualisation. As we are still at the compute virtualisation stage in this region, it is impressive how many people know about network virtualisation. That tells me this market has the potential to leapfrog much faster than waiting for 10 years for the adoption to catch up.
Are you looking at any products particularly for this country?
I don’t think we need to develop any specifically for the Indian market. The products we have are directly applicable to the Indian market. Despite the feeling of caution among customers culturally, there are some who have gone to a high level of virtualisation and there are others who are on way to it. Sometimes, when we talk about ‘Indianising’ a product, we probably mean the price point.
What opportunities does VMware see in India?
India offers a massive opportunity. We have been here for almost 10 years and the country has been an inevitable source of great talent. We have a centre of over 2,200 people and have invested very heavily here. We are also looking at expansion into a new 450,000 sq ft office building in Bangalore that would be coming up within the next 12 months. Also, India has a phenomenal market opportunity. I see India just the cusp of some of the journeys that other countries have been on.
How has your India presence grown? Can you also give an idea about the kind of works you do out of here?
India was the fastest growing investment we made over the past 12 months. We increased our headcount by 17 per cent last year, a significant signal on our part because the overall headcount of VMware rose by only about 500 persons.
We have a large support team here, we have innovation teams working on storage technologies and networking; we also have some other core teams. We recently acquired a company called AirWatch, which also has a couple of hundred people here. We also have a finance team here, dealing with support and global finance opportunities. So, basically, we have got the whole nine yards here.
How do you see India vis-à-vis other geographies you operate in?
Look at the amount of overseas investment into the country. There’s got to be reasons why companies are investing very heavily into India. They all see very interesting opportunities to innovate here.
But when I look at the adoption of some technologies —for example, networking technologies — and there’s a lot more that can be done in India. Virtualisation is another example, happening in India but a lot more can be done.
Just in the first phase of our journey, we did a study with IDC, which showed that so far, we have saved over $1billion for our customers in India only by avoiding buying servers, reducing electricity cost, etc.
Why do you think India lags some of its global peers in adoption of newer technologies?
About five years ago, the discussions were around whether it was safe to virtualise. Three years earlier, that conversation was gone. People are now asking when they should virtualise and what portions should be virtualised. Across the Asia Pacific-Japan region, there are a huge number of people that have awareness about network virtualisation. As we are still at the compute virtualisation stage in this region, it is impressive how many people know about network virtualisation. That tells me this market has the potential to leapfrog much faster than waiting for 10 years for the adoption to catch up.
Are you looking at any products particularly for this country?
I don’t think we need to develop any specifically for the Indian market. The products we have are directly applicable to the Indian market. Despite the feeling of caution among customers culturally, there are some who have gone to a high level of virtualisation and there are others who are on way to it. Sometimes, when we talk about ‘Indianising’ a product, we probably mean the price point.