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Larger the data, greater the need for its storage! And, that is where WD steps in with its range of solutions to meet the requirements of businesses of all sizes and individuals, Khwaja Saifuddin, Senior Sales Director – South Asia, Middle East & Africa, tells Nirmal Anshu Ranjan of Elets News network (ENN)

Tell us about WD, its global footprint and its relevance for India.

WD, a Western Digital company, is a leading developer and manufacturer of digital storage solutions. We develop high-performance hard disk drives that are deployed in desktops, laptops, enterprise computing systems, and embedded systems. We also offer an attractive range of portable drives, media players and personal cloud solutions.

Headquartered in Irvine, California, WD marks its presence in major markets across the globe and continues to expand into new markets and regions to facilitate growth and development.

With a boom in the ICT industry in India, there has been a significant increase in data generation in the country. This has led to an increase in the demand for reliable and secure data storage solutions. Through research and innovation, WD plays an important role in catering to the demands of individual users as well as businesses across various sectors.

What are your best selling products/ services, and how are they different from others?

We offer to our customers ‘the power of choice’. We have classified our storage into ‘easy to recognise’ colours that give customers the power to choose the right product for their needs. WD Blue for everyday use, WD Green for capacity, WD Black for performance, WD Red for network attached storage (NAS) and WD Purple for surveillance. WD offers more than a one-size-fits-all storage solutions.

Also Read: Data is the next oil in the Digital era: Khwaja Saifuddin, Western Digital

Beyond offering the largest range of really innovative and great-quality products, we stand by our products and consumers with top-notch after-sales service and warranty support across India. We believe that a user should be able to get a replacement product with the same ease as he purchased his product. WD provides ‘WD Express’, a door-to-door replacement service that ensures that in case a customer’s product has to be replaced, it is easy to do so. With WD Express, the product is collected from the user’s address and once it passes our warranty criteria, a replacement drive is then delivered to the user at the same address. A customer can also drop his product at one of our 74 drop points spread across India and then, once his product has been processed, a new product will be delivered directly to his doorstep.

Also Read: Western Digital Announces the Winners of Data Innovation Bazaar 2020

What are your offerings for start-ups and enterprises?

Start-ups require storage solutions that are reliable, easy to install and easy to use. With WD My Cloud EX2 and My Cloud EX4, users enjoy these features, and also have the freedom to store and access data from any location on any device and offer complete control to the user over the business data. Further, our NAS drives, WD Red and WD Red Pro, enable businesses to create a NAS set-up and have a safe and easy access to data within the network. These drives are available in capacities of up to 6 TB and can be used in a variety of bay combinations, thereby providing sufficient capacity to the start-ups.

Large enterprises usually require capacity, reliability and security above everything else. Our data centre drives, WD Re, WD Se and WD Ae, provide solutions to their storage requirements. While WD Re drives provide durable capacity storage for high-availability deployments, WD Se drives provide optimal storage for NAS and scale-out architectures and WD Ae drives provide cost-effective, energyefficient Hard Disk Drive (HDD) cold-storage solution.

How do you relate with the government’s ‘Digital India’ and financial inclusion programmes?

The Digital India initiative is expected to increase the amount of data we generate every day. The increased connectivity provides impetus to the adoption of gadgets like smartphones, computers, laptops, tablets etc. While all laptops and computers have internal drives that we offer, our My Cloud range of personal cloud products and My Passport wireless drives offer extended storage for smartphones and tablet users. The government’s financial inclusion programmes such as the Jan-Dhan Yojana will require the government to provide infrastructural facilities like internet connectivity, computer education etc. in rural areas. An expansion of this infrastructure for the fulfilment of financial inclusion programmes will once again lead to increase in data generation. Our data center drives will be useful for data centres that are likely to be developed as part of these initiatives.

Beyond offering the largest range of innovative and great-quality products, WD stands by our products and consumers with top-notch aftersales service and warranty support across India

Security of data is a big concern globally. How do you ensure this in case of external data storage services?

WD understands how crucial security is while handling and dealing with data, and offers personal cloud solutions, so that the control of data lies with the user who owns that data. This mitigates the threat of unauthorised access to the business-critical data. With the WD Security Utility, users are provided with the ability to set password protection and hardware encryption for their drives to avoid breaches. In addition, with WD SmartWare Pro automatic backup software, users can back up their data without any hassle and prevent data loss.

How does WD intend to increase its footprint across sectors in India?

WD is already a preferred data storage brand in metros and non-metros across India. To further expand our reach in the smaller cities, we tour these places regularly to address and understand the growing demand for our storage products in these areas and introduce solutions to cater to these needs. We spend considerable time with our local channel partners in educating, training and addressing their concerns. In addition, mall activations in cities across India enable consumers to familiarise themselves with the features and usage of our products. We also use the social media extensively to reach out to customers and address their queries, if any. Recently, we introduced an application on Facebook through which customers can avail warranty service straight from the platform.

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