We aim to double our India business within two years: NetApp CEO George Kurian

Global data management and storage firm NetApp is bullish on India and expects it to soon become the largest market in Asia. In an interview, chief executive George Kurian said that the company is betting big on the Indian market’s growth potential despite the macroeconomic headwinds. He also shared his views on how to solve the data complexities faced by chief information officers or chief technology officers (CIOs/CTOs), emerging technologies like Generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) and Internet of Things (IoT), and plans for the Indian market. Edited excerpts:

How do you see the global macro-economic outlook impacting tech firms? What are NetApp’s plans in such a scenario?

Compared to a year ago, the degree of uncertainty has reduced quite a bit due to falling interest rates in many regions of the world. Countries such as the US and others are resilient to interest rate changes. I wouldn’t say the business sentiments have accelerated yet, but the confidence has started getting better. India is in fact in a much more dynamic position. We would like to be where our customers are headed — the intersection of data, cloud and AI.

What challenges do CIO and CTOs face when it comes to storage and data management? How will NetApp resolve issues of technology leaders in their digital transformation journey?

CIOs and CTOs have been impacted by increasing cloud complexity, that potentially leads to poor IT performance, loss in revenues, and are barriers to business growth. This is where NetApp steps in to create harmonisation across the cloud, help enterprises automate data, and build resilience across the cloud. We have partnered with hyperscalers such as Amazon, Microsoft, and Google to increase the speed of innovation, lower costs and improve consistency, flexibility and agility across on-premises and cloud environments — thereby helping them in the digitisation journey.

What are NetApp’s plans for generative AI and other emerging technologies?

We were always strong on predictive AI. Since 2018, with Nvidia, we partnered to offer full-stack solutions that make it easy for organisations to dive into AI. Our partnership provides a comprehensive AI solution to companies across industries. Now, with the advent of ChatGPT and other Gen AI models, it becomes even easier to create data, empower decision-makers and innovate competitive advantages.

The timing has reduced anywhere between 25% and 30% and in some cases even 50%. Even if you take IoT, it generates a lot of data, and we try to reduce the complexities and increase agility. Manufacturing companies trust NetApp to drive innovation with data.

Which verticals is the company targeting for its cloud offerings?

Our key verticals include financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, and government. While the focus is on large enterprises, we are also seeing a lot of interest from mid-sized companies and digital native firms.

With 3,000-plus employees in India, do you have any expansion plans?

The number of our employees has grown significantly since we started, and scope of work we do in India has also grown in terms of breadth and complexity.

In engineering, we are leading the entire global projects from India. We have also worked with large enterprises and government in India. Our senior leaderships both technical and management are based out here, and our aim to lead global functions out of India.

What are your plans for India in the next 12-18 months?

India is one of our top four markets in Asia, which contributes 15%-18% of Netapp’s overall revenue. While we cannot breakdown on the India numbers, in the next five years, we believe it the country to be the number one contributor in the Asian region. NetApp is determined to achieve the significant milestone of doubling its business in India within the next couple of years. As I also said earlier, we have all functions and processes in India and that momentum should continue as our business continues to grow.