Zebra Technologies focused on creating a unified partner strategy in APAC

Christanto Suryadarma has stepped into the newly formed role of Head of Partnerships for APAC at Zebra Technologies and will be focused on developing a unified partner strategy for the vendor in the region.

Zebra Technologies recently announced that Christanto Suryadarma has stepped into the newly formed role of Head of Partnerships for APAC. This means Suryadarma will now be overseeing all partnerships for the vendor and will be strengthening their partner ecosystem in the region.

CRN Asia caught up with Suryadarma and discussed with him about his new role and what he is hoping to achieve more this year for both partners and the vendor as well. Suryadama shared that his new role will see him focus on working with the leader to create a unified strategy for Asia Pacific.

“The APAC region is heavily channel-based, and more than 90% of our business is done through the channel. Zebra is a very channel-centric company besides a customer-centric company. First, we want to create a strategy on how we can deliver growth with the channel. Second, we want to go and also develop the ecosystems for Zebra that is not just hardware itself but also deliver the end-to-end solutions. This requires connectivity like with telcos, including SingTel, for example. And we also want to work with more system integrators,” Suryadama shared.

He explained that when it comes to working with customers in the healthcare industry, for example, they are looking for complete solutions. Hence, Zebra is looking to develop more partnerships with the system integrators, especially since their solutions portfolio is getting bigger following several acquisitions the vendor has made over the past few years.

“We acquired a couple of software companies, and we also got into what we call multi-modality data capture, and asset visibility. We are a very big proponent of the RFID and all this gives us the vision. So, with this, our portfolio is much more complex. And we require more partners that can integrate this portfolio. So, the system integrators are a very good example of being able to do that,” he added.

At the same time, Suryadama also highlighted a big focus for Zebra right now is to develop the ISV ecosystems. He explained that as Zebra goes into the enterprise and the mid-tier customers, they need solutions as Zebra is quite heavily on use case centric.

“We do not just sell the device, but the device is used to capture the data. And then we have software from Zebra and also from the partner to go and do the analytics. And then after that, the customer can take action based on what we call sensing, analyzing, and then action. So, we want to get more software that can deliver more of this analytics or intelligence, and then we can take action,” he said.

Goals in the channel ecosystem

“What we want to achieve is to grow together with our partners. So, we want to have richer ecosystems. We want to invite the ISPs that have solutions for the relevant customers that we have in retail, transport logistics, and manufacturing and healthcare, to come and partner with us more. With that, we can deliver more end-to-end solutions to the customer,” Suryadama said.

For Suryadama, at the end of the day, it's all about customer satisfaction. This is why Zebra is also looking for a better customer set. Last year, he said Zebra witnessed a tremendous improvement in customer satisfaction, as measured by NPS score and he would like that to continue this year as well.

“We want to make inter-regional operations happen. In many customers, not just large enterprises, but also the mid-tier, and then the small business. So, there's still a lot of room for us to grow together with our partners to make it happen. There's still a lot of warehouses with pens and papers, especially among the mid-market and smaller businesses,” he added.

With a portfolio of connected frontline, asset visibility and automation solutions powered by AI, Zebra continues to provide the foundation for intelligent operations. As such, Suryadama will be focused on ensuring the vendor will be able to deliver continued outcomes to their customers by ensuring their partners are well enabled to deliver through a unified partner strategy.