We are looking at India from a strategic and long-term perspective

CommVault is launching its EDGE File Sync and Share capability that addresses data governance and security issues associated with the growing use of cloud-based sharing applications like Dropbox and OneDrive by offering a secured platform to enterprises. To gain an insight into the company’s strategy, Dataquest spoke to Ramesh Mamgain, Area Vice President–Country Manager, CommVault, who divulges the company’s plans for the India market. Excerpts

Can you update us about CommVault’s India  strategy?
We are looking at India from a strategic and long-term perspective. While CommVault has been present in India for quite some time now, we are further boosting our presence by augmenting engineering
as well as the sales organization. We are going to follow a three-pronged strategy, wherein we would leverage our channel partners for giving us the depth and spread in covering the market place. Simultaneously, we will also work closely with our alliance partners to offer a complete solution to the customers. And lastly, we would also be working closely with our enterprise customers in partnership with our channel and alliance partners. We have accordingly staffed CommVault India to cater to this. We have separate teams to handle
channels, alliances, and GSIs in addition to the field sales
force.

What’s the size of the company in India—employees, customers, etc?
We have about 200 employees in India spread across the engineering and sales organization. Sales organization consists of about 25 people covering enterprise sales, pre-sales, channels, alliances, consulting, and professional services delivery. We have more than 250 existing
customers in the country and growing.

What are the market trends you are betting big on?
We are seeing a shift towards hybrid cloud models as they allow organizations to benefit from the agility of public clouds, while maintaining the control of sensitive data on premise. The challenge most IT leaders face is to know what data makes sense in the cloud and how they can easily and securely move data across their platforms.
This is a significant opportunity for us in terms of how we can enable organizations to understand what data makes sense for the public cloud, private cloud or on-premise hosting, and from a single console with automation rules, effectively and securely managing the information across platforms.
Managed Service Providers are a key growth market for us, particularly in India. There’s a huge amount of interest in Backup-as-a-Service and DR-as-as-Service as it offers an easy entry into t he cloud for organizations of all sizes, while reducing cost and IT burden.
eDiscovery is becoming increasingly critical to businesses as legal, regulatory, compliance, and investigation requirements are becoming more stringent. And with the digital world fuelling data growth, we are
seeing a significant rise in demand for our eDiscovery capabilities, particularly within the cloud environment. APAC is also the fastest growing region in eDiscovery uptake, as per a recent report by Global Industry Analysts.
In addition, IT teams are struggling to maintain control of information and processes as data grows in volume and complexity, as well as growth in adoption of BYOD, open sharing sites like Dropbox, and remote working cultures. They are looking for better ways to track and
manage data storage, including cloud utilization as well as enable secure and easy file sharing for better collaboration among teams. This also presents a huge opportunity for us.

What are the new capabilities CommVault is launching?
Our new EDGE File Sync and Share capability addresses the growing trend for use of cloud-based sharing applications like Dropbox and OneDrive, which raise major concerns for data governance and data security. The new capability enables teams to collaborate and share files and information from anywhere in the world, on any device, without compromising security and compliance as the solution brings it into the enterprise fold.
Another key capability is the enterprise-wide search capabilities on all information, including those in Edge Drive, which previously wasn’t easily possible through the less secure and siloed cloud sharing applications.
What are the problem areas these capabilities promise to address?
These capabilities ensure that organizations are able to provide a cloud sharing platform (like Dropbox or One- Drive) with the right security assurance for the business that their files are backed-up and governance for data retention. CIOs, compliance and risk officers, and general counsels are increasingly concerned about meeting legal
and compliance requirements as users share data in and out of the enterprise. These capabilities address these legal and compliance concerns.

 You recently got Tech Mahindra as your customer. Can you share details about the solution Tech Mahindra is using?
As its cloud based-business solutions continue to evolve, Tech Mahindra decided to work with CommVault’s Cloud Solutions Group (CSG) and the Simpana 10 platform based on the effectiveness of CommVault’s cloud backup and capabilities to make additional functionality easily available. These elements support Tech Mahindra’s global alliances as its partners expand into provisioning of a
variety of managed service offerings.

What are your investment plans for India?
We have invested heavily in resourcing the sales organization in the last one year and as the business grows we will be putting in more headcounts. From an engineering perspective also, we are investing heavily and are moving to a bigger facility in Bengaluru which can seat more engineers