Hitachi expects SMEs to push India growth

Hitachi Data Systems, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi Ltd, has identified small and medium enterprise (SME) segment as its growth driver in India.

According to Bruce Symes, vice-president sales, Asia, Hitachi Data Systems Pte, the segment was three times larger than its top-end customers.

"The goal would be to provide solutions to this segment in a cost-effective way because the revenues will come from the small and medium business segment" he said.

At present, Hitachi's customers in India are at the top-end. The company has relationships with Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd, ONGC, Punjab National Bank, Bharat Petroleum, Infosys, Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd, Hughes Software Systems, Infosys, Idea Cellular, Bharti and many other large multinationals.

According to IDC data, storage spend in India was around $147 million. Globally, 50 per cent of Hitachi's revenues come from small and medium business segment.

Symes however said, the aim was to grow it to 80 per cent. The company has five channel partners""Sun Microsystems, Wipro, Apara, Acer, Ingram Micro""in India. With Hewlett Packard, Hitachi has an OEM relationship partnership.

Patrick Lim, vice-president, solutions sales, Asia-Pacific, Hitachi Data Systems, the key message is that there is a logical thread between top-line business issues and storage.

"Our goal is to demonstrate to customers that what we does with storage can have a material impact on our customers' top line business issues" he said.

(Travel for this article was sponsored by Hitachi Ltd).