Juniper: Enterprise Segment: In the Line of Fire

'Accelerate your business' was both the theme and the message at the
Juniper's Carrier Partner Summit held in Bangkok last month. The leading
networking and security solutions provider also made it clear that it would
leave no stone unturned to grab a greater share of the enterprise networking
market, and that India and China were on top of its mind.

“Enterprise is a key strategic growth area for us. Enterprise adds up to
one-third of our business. This would grow in the future,” said Eddie Minshull,
executive vice president, Worldwide Operations, Juniper. 

“India and China are strategically important pieces of our growth plan,”
he added.

“Enterprise networks have become as complex as carrier networks,”
according to Gary Kinsley, vice president, channel sales-Asia Pacific, Juniper.
“With our carrier expertise, we can apply the same knowledge to a different
space,” he said.

“The challenge for any CIO today is to keep cost down, ensure network
application delivery, security, and quality of service,” he said, and added,
“we can work with carriers and partners to deliver all this.”

The company took the opportunity to launch its Enterprise Engagement
Initiative on the occasion. “The enterprise engagement initiative would
include market coverage, optimal training (how best to drive team between
ourselves), and doing a better job of developing our partners. This is a crucial
program,” Minshull said. But to bust an impression that Juniper was
overlooking SMBs, he hastened to add “carrier partners have a crucial role to
play in helping us reach out to big and small businesses.”

The company also put on record its strategy to work with carrier partners.
“Four elements of our strategy would include growing our mutual revenue and
profitability, investing in our channel partners programs and offerings,
improving our ease of doing business, and enhancing teams between Juniper and
its partners.” 45 carriers are partnering with Juniper including BSNL, VSNL
and Bharti.

The participants at the summit took note on a recent trend among carrier
partners who are willing to offer value-added services such as managed services
to enterprises.

“Carriers are moving towards value-added services mainly because of two
reasons. One is that managed services extracts more value from their core
networks. Secondly, the more customers are enveloped in the matrix of services
of a carrier, the less likely they are to leave,” said James Wilson, director,
Carrier Partner Group-APAC, Juniper.

He said “Fast and fearless is what enterprises demand, carriers deliver and
Juniper thrives on.” According to Andrew Ma, director, Enterprise Marketing-APAC,
Juniper, “Japan, Hong Kong and China are big drivers of broadband growth in
the region.” He said broadband is spreading with great speed, and therefore
“your routers and security devices also need to catch up with the speed.”

“Managed security is the number 1 service that is strategically important.
Managed security services are growing like hot cakes,” he said.

Keith Falter, senior financial analyst, Juniper, gave carrier partners
several tips on how to make their business financially more viable and
profitable.

Vimarsh Bajpai in Bangkok

vimarshb@cybermedia.co.in