Electronics Era: Cloud adoption has accelerated significantly across enterprises, government organizations, and SMBs over the last few years. How do you assess the current maturity of the cloud market in India and the broader APJ region? Which customer segments are driving the strongest demand today?
Sunil Golani: Accepting cloud technologies in India and other parts of Asia-Pacific has entered a new phase. Nowadays, businesses do not treat the cloud as an alternative to traditional IT tools; instead, they see it as a platform that gives them a chance to adapt their organizations for future requirements. Big companies spend a lot of time and effort developing their multi-cloud strategy, while other companies are also making progress at their own pace.
According to the International Data Corporation (IDC), the public cloud services market in the region is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19.8% from 2025 to 2029, expanding from $53 billion in 2024 to $131 billion by 2029. A positive development is that cloud discussions continue, but the focus has changed from building infrastructure to achieving outstanding results. Companies are interested in implementing solutions in AI, improving their services, and achieving the maximum benefit from data.
Electronics Era: What are the primary technology and business factors encouraging organizations to migrate to the cloud? Are AI, data analytics, cybersecurity, and digital workplace initiatives becoming the biggest catalysts for cloud investments?
Sunil Golani: Indeed. The emergence of AI has been one of the most significant factors leading to the acceptance of cloud computing technology, which supports the demanding features necessary for both the computation and management of AI applications. It is also true that organizations pay more attention to advanced analytics to make data-oriented managerial decisions, with cybersecurity remaining on a high level of priority for modern management systems, owing to the rapid evolution of environments in the digital space.
According to a report from Gartner, end-user spending on public cloud services in India is forecast to grow 28.1% to total $17.5 billion in 2026, up from $13.7 billion in 2025. The report also suggests that PaaS is the largest spending category for Indian organizations in 2026, and is forecast to reach $6.4 billion, as enterprises rebuild their technology foundations to support AI-driven initiatives.
Moreover, organizations invest significantly in modern workplace solutions for secure collaboration, hybrid working, and enhanced employee productivity. Besides technology, companies are enticed by the fact that cloud enhances operational agility, speeds up product delivery, optimizes IT expenditures, and scales resources in accordance with demand.
Electronics Era: Historically, large enterprises have led cloud adoption. How are India’s mid-market companies and SMBs embracing cloud technologies today, and what unique challenges do they face during this transition?
Sunil Golani: The mid-market and small and medium businesses are more than passionate about embracing the cloud. Many companies have opted to begin with the implementation of SaaS applications first, before venturing into the field of infrastructure, cybersecurity, backup, AI applications, and business applications step by step.
However, we must not forget that businesses face quite a number of challenges, such as a lack of in-house IT knowledge, working with old systems, preparing for cybersecurity, cost-saving efforts, and coming up with a proper cloud strategy. Businesses are seeking out partners that will help them deal with those challenges rather than sell the product, which opens terrific opportunities for channel partners who combine consulting and technical skills.
Electronics Era: The role of technology distributors has evolved well beyond logistics. How is Ingram Micro helping channel partners transform into trusted cloud advisors capable of delivering comprehensive digital transformation solutions?
Sunil Golani: Numerous organizations now recognize that distribution serves the vital purpose of facilitating the success of partners through the entirety of the technology life cycle. Ingram Micro applies a keen focus on empowering our partners and providing them with all the necessary skills, know-how, platforms, and services for meeting customer needs. We encourage our partners to develop skills and act as strategic consultants for customers, helping them build solutions and leverage the best-in-class cloud platforms to harness the true potential of cloud computing, cybersecurity, and AI.
Our AI-powered Xvantage platform simplifies this transition with useful features for users. Xvantage provides our partners with intelligent insights, smart recommendations, workflow automation, and aggregation of subscription and customer opportunities. This simplifies the management of the cloud business and helps users enhance their productivity and provide their clients with a comprehensive range of services. As a result, partners are able to boost their excellence in developing revenues based on the subscription model and build their businesses in the cloud effectively.
Electronics Era: What strategies and programs has Ingram Micro implemented to enable partners to develop sustainable cloud-first business models based on recurring revenue rather than traditional product sales?
Sunil Golani: The change to the recurring revenue model is one of the most notable changes in the channel ecosystem. We help partners with cloud marketplace features, subscription procedures, automated billing systems, lifecycle services, customer support programs, and sales and technical training. Our aim is to help partners create predictable, scalable businesses focused on services and developing long-lasting relationships with customers instead of conducting one-off transactions. By streamlining the process of subscription management, we provide partners with the necessary business insights, automation, and vendor support, enabling them to shift to successful business models based on cloud services.
Electronics Era: How important is the channel ecosystem in accelerating digital transformation across industries? What qualities distinguish successful cloud partners in today’s highly competitive marketplace?
Sunil Golani: The ecosystem of channel partners is vital because they often represent the initial contact point for a customer looking for a transformation in their business processes. This means that being able to work together with hundreds of partners across the entire network is crucial. And the most productive partners will be the one with in-depth technological experience who can provide business consulting services and have a good understanding of cybersecurity.
Electronics Era: Many enterprises are adopting hybrid and multi-cloud strategies to balance performance, security, compliance, and cost optimization. What major opportunities do you see for partners in designing, deploying, and managing these environments?
Sunil Golani: The use of hybrid and multi-cloud settings is now prevalent among companies in light of regulations, operations, and their need to continue functioning during any eventuality. However, the associated difficulties of using and managing this infrastructure remain. This complexity opens the door to numerous opportunities for partners to offer architecture consulting, cloud migration, workload optimization, security, governance, compliance, monitoring, automation, disaster recovery, and other managed services. Our AI-powered digital experience Xvantage platform supports this journey as it serves as the digital nerve centre for partners by bringing together cloud marketplaces, intelligent recommendations, business insights, and workflow automation in a single platform. This marketplace-led approach simplifies the management of hybrid and multi-cloud environments, helping partners deliver integrated solutions more efficiently while unlocking new growth opportunities. Moreover, partners will be able to capitalize on the growing demand for integrated solutions in the future.
Electronics Era: Cloud marketplaces have become an important route for technology procurement. How are these platforms simplifying software purchasing, subscription management, billing, and lifecycle management for partners and end customers?
Sunil Golani: Cloud applications have made purchasing and managing technology much easier. Instead of having to deal with various types of vendors and licensing models, partners can access a variety of cloud services through one central account. With Ingram Micro, partners can streamline their processes and gain visibility into their customers’ subscriptions and usage through Xvantage. This allows our partners more time to concentrate on more strategic business priorities and drive customer interactions with utmost competence.
Electronics Era: Modern digital transformation extends beyond infrastructure. How does Ingram Micro support partners in delivering integrated solutions across cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity, collaboration platforms, AI, automation, analytics, and other emerging technologies?
Sunil Golani: The use of technology in digital transformation initiatives today requires a holistic approach. Customers now require a blend of various technologies and services to come up with cohesive business strategies that work well. Our duty as partners is to create a complete technology ecosystem that covers a wide range of technological expertise, specialized services, program implementation, and digital tools that can help our partners create their solutions seamlessly.
Electronics Era: Generative AI and intelligent automation are creating unprecedented demand for scalable cloud infrastructure. How do you see AI reshaping cloud consumption models over the next three to five years?
Sunil Golani: The use of artificial intelligence is likely to revolutionize how organizations consume cloud technology. Companies will rely on AI workloads, data processing needs, and automated solutions rather than relying solely on traditional computation and storage criteria. Demand will grow for infrastructures built specifically for AI purposes, extensive processing power used in making AI possible, applications employed in various industries, and AI-enhanced managed services. During this technological change, the need for cloud platforms will further increase as they allow businesses to scale production and operate safely and flexibly.
Electronics Era: Cloud computing can contribute significantly to sustainability by improving resource utilization and energy efficiency. Are sustainability objectives becoming an important consideration in cloud transformation discussions with customers?
Sunil Golani: Yes, sustainability is gradually becoming a crucial part of the discussions taking place regarding digital transformation. Organizations are aware that cloud adoption enhances resource usage, optimizes infrastructure, and decreases energy consumption. However, while the performance of the business and the element of security still remain the most important priorities, customers now pay more attention to their technological choices in light of long-term environmental responsibility. Due to evolving requirements of regulators and ESG obligations, it can be predicted that sustainability practices in IT will be necessary in the cloud transformation process.
Electronics Era: How do you envision the role of cloud distributors evolving over the next five years as technologies such as AI, edge computing, IoT, and sovereign cloud become more mainstream?
Sunil Golani: The future distributor will be one focused on orchestration, intelligence, and ecosystem facilitation, with product delivery being something of the past. As the worlds of artificial intelligence, edge computing, IOT, sovereign cloud, and cybersecurity blend into one another, the requirement for assistance related to solution integration, technical proficiency, business transformation, and lifecycle services for partners will grow in importance. As we evolve into a platform company, we envision that the future will be more about platform-driven distribution with the ability to ensure technology aggregation, automation, data analytics, professional services, enablement, and ecosystem collaboration as the main features.
