As India strengthens its position as a global hub for AI and digital transformation, Snowflake is expanding its partner ecosystem in the region to support innovation across local and global markets. In this exclusive conversation, Dhiraj Narang, Director and Head of Partnerships- India, Snowflake, shares with Anannya Saraswat, Reporter (Public Sector & Leadership) at APAC Media and CXO Media, how the company’s growing partner ecosystem is helping Indian enterprises scale AI securely, deliver measurable business outcomes, and shape the future of data-driven transformation.
India is increasingly seen as a hub for AI, data, and global services. How does Snowflake leverage its partner ecosystem here to build solutions for both local and global markets?
India is central to Snowflake’s global strategy. The country is indeed an innovation hub for AI, data, and global services. We are making significant investments in talent, technology, and a robust partner ecosystem to help Indian organizations accelerate their digital transformation by bringing AI directly to their data.
Our partner ecosystem is a critical growth engine directly contributing to our customers’ business outcomes. We have built a robust Snowflake Partner Network comprising system integrators, cloud providers, advisory firms, ISVs, and resellers. These partners help accelerate data-driven transformation for enterprises, unlocking faster time-to-value and scaling customer success.
Snowflake programs are designed to align partner goals with our core business objectives: driving platform consumption, acquiring new customers, and delivering industry-specific solutions. With continuous enablement and co-innovation, we empower our partners to deliver tangible value to our joint customers while ensuring they are equipped to address evolving customer needs such as GenAI adoption, data sharing, and regulatory compliance.
Our success in India is closely tied to a rapidly growing partner network, which plays a critical role in helping organizations in industries such as BFSI, retail, and CPG, manufacturing, logistics, and aviation deploy the Snowflake AI Data Cloud. The fact that 50% of Snowflake’s APJ partner ecosystem is rooted in India reflects the vast opportunity the region offers and highlights India’s vital role in Snowflake’s global success.
Can you elaborate on Snowflake’s channel structure in India? Specifically, who are the key national distributors (NDs), regional distributors (RDs), system integrators (SIs), and independent software vendors (ISVs), and how do they each contribute to the overall partner ecosystem?
Our ecosystem includes advisory leaders like Deloitte, EY, Accenture, and KPMG, global system integrators such as LTIMindtree and TCS, highly specialized resellers, and regional players like Quantiphi, Lumiq, Hoonartek, Kasmo, Rapyder, SaasWorx, AionTech Solutions, and BluePi, who have enabled major enterprises to adopt Snowflake successfully.
We also value our partnerships with cloud providers like AWS and Microsoft and with NVIDIA to strengthen our AI capabilities. These collaborations drive customer success, fuel ecosystem growth, and empower partners to build leading applications and accelerate AI adoption.
We are also investing significantly in the Data Cloud Partnerships ecosystem and working closely with SaaS and ISV companies to build on Snowflake, unlocking new revenue streams through data sharing and the Snowflake marketplace. We have partners like FirstHive, a leading data activation and AI-powered Customer Data Platform (CDP) solutions provider, which has launched a CDP+AI solution on Snowflake’s AI Data Cloud platform.
Through these partnerships, we also address key customer requirements across critical areas such as regulatory reporting, data observability, and customer analytics. We are also focused on building technical capabilities among partners, fostering innovation through app ecosystem development, and collaborating with resellers and cloud providers.
What kinds of incentive programs does Snowflake offer to motivate and reward partners?
We offer a range of incentive programs designed to motivate and reward partners, recognizing that our success is deeply connected to the growth of our partner ecosystem. We focus on structured enablement programs, technical certifications, and co-building opportunities through initiatives like Snowflake Native Apps.
Additionally, we also invest in partner-specific funding programs to accelerate the discovery of new workloads and demonstrate the value of Snowflake’s platform in real-world customer environments. This ensures our partners are equipped to unlock new use cases and deliver scalable, secure, and cost-effective solutions to customers navigating next-gen data architectures.
Some of our key initiatives include SPN Learn, an on-demand training and certification platform that equips partners with the latest Snowflake features and best practices, all free of charge. This helps partners quickly upskill and stay current, supporting their ability to deliver value to customers. We enhanced this program with a new tiering structure for clearer pathways to advancement and recognition. We also introduced the Service Registration Incentive (SRI), a new way for partners to earn incentives for successful customer engagements.
We recently revamped our SPN Resale Program, which authorizes qualified partners to resell Snowflake to end customers as a part of the solutions they build. The highest performing resellers are typically those who have strong technical and business expertise to showcase the power of Snowflake’s AI Data Cloud and manage the entire customer lifecycle from procurement all the way to deployment, customer success, and renewals. A key element of this program is our commitment to strengthening collaboration with the field, ensuring a smooth and collaborative process. We’ve aligned the objectives of our sales teams with those of our partners so that both Snowflake and our partners work together to deliver the maximum value to our joint customers. The true power of the SPN Resale Program lies in the Snowflake platform itself. Snowflake resellers are not just selling a product; they’re offering customers a platform that redefines what’s possible with data. The Snowflake platform stands out because it’s easy, connected, and trusted, making it a highly compelling solution for any business.
Beyond training and financial incentives, we invest in community-building events like SPN Pulse webinars and Snowflake partner awards, fostering collaboration, knowledge sharing, and celebrating partner achievements. Recently, we recognised many of our partners for their contribution to Snowflake’s growth in the region, that included – Industry Solution Partner of the Year to EY, Innovation Partner of the Year to FirstHive, Rising Start Partner of the Year to Kasmo, Partner of the Year to Quantiphi and Partner Champion of the Year to Chamikara Perera, Director Sales at Altria Consulting (Pvt) Ltd.
What unique challenges do Indian enterprises face when it comes to scaling AI, and how are Snowflake’s partners helping to address these?
Indian enterprises face unique challenges when scaling AI, including managing massive and diverse datasets, ensuring data governance and security, and overcoming integration bottlenecks between structured and unstructured data. Enterprises need easy, connected, and trusted solutions that allow them to deploy AI across business functions without compromising security or operational rigor. The key lies in adopting a modern data platform and having a robust data strategy.
Snowflake’s partners play a critical role in addressing these challenges. System integrators (SIs) help organizations integrate Snowflake AI Data Cloud into existing workflows and optimize operations, while independent software vendors (ISVs) extend platform capabilities for specialized use cases. National and regional distributors (NDs and RDs) ensure enterprises of all sizes can access and adopt Snowflake solutions efficiently.
For example, partners such as Quantiphi leverage Snowflake’s platform to deliver customised solutions in areas like generative AI, document processing, and machine learning. Quantiphi’s Baioniq platform, for instance, uses Snowflake’s infrastructure to integrate AI capabilities securely, allowing businesses to fine-tune AI models and apply them in industry-specific contexts. Similarly, Kasmo Digital has built a robust data solution on Snowflake, helping clients unlock predictive analytics and optimise AI/ML workloads to enhance operational efficiency. They have also established a dedicated Snowflake COE focused on creating deep competency in Snowflake solutions/assets to accelerate data migration, analytics implementation, and Generative AI initiatives for our global customers. The COE helps customers to adopt Snowflake for their business-critical challenges by offering a 2-week proof of concept to showcase the value of the Snowflake AI Data Cloud.
Recent collaborations with Edelweiss and Cosmo Films demonstrate how enterprises overcome these challenges by leveraging Snowflake technology and our partner ecosystem to accelerate digital transformation and drive enterprise-wide AI adoption.
Snowflake recently launched initiatives like the AI Specialty program. How are such programs enabling partners with the skills and tools to build advanced AI solutions on Cortex AI and beyond? Could you highlight any success stories where these initiatives have accelerated customer outcomes or created new opportunities for partners?
Snowflake is committed to empowering partners with the skills and tools needed to build advanced AI solutions and serve as trusted advisors to customers. Through initiatives like the AI Speciality initiative, we offer a 5-month deep dive program to build AI/ML specialization. This initiative blends hands-on learning with Cortex AI, ML, Horizon, Studio, and Document AI across real-world use cases. The program follows structured sessions, hands-on labs, and collaborative milestones with partner experts. This initiative aims to equip partners to deliver governed, production-grade AI solutions to our customers and earn Snowflake-certified Advanced credentials.
A great example of success is our collaboration with Kasmo, a regional implementation partner, and Grow Indigo, a company focused on empowering smallholder farmers. Prior to Snowflake, Grow Indigo faced slow BI reporting, taking up to 100 hours per month, and lacked real-time analytics. With Snowflake and Kasmo’s expertise, Grow Indigo achieved near-instant BI reporting, a projected 30% reduction in farmer enrollment time, centralized data management, AI-powered document processing, and a scalable architecture to support their carbon program expansion. They are now leveraging Document AI to automate farm boundary validation and using AI-powered data bots for real-time queries.
How do you see AI transforming traditional industries like BFSI, manufacturing, and logistics in India? Could you share specific use cases where partners have delivered measurable impact?
AI is revolutionizing traditional sectors in India by enabling enterprises to leverage data for enhanced decision-making, operational efficiency, and customer personalization. At Snowflake, we are working closely with our partners to deliver measurable impact
In BFSI, Snowflake, in partnership with Lumiq, has helped Bajaj Allianz General Insurance implement a modern data platform that offers near real-time reporting, delivering actionable insights to power business growth. Access to data on a single platform is helping develop predictive and prescriptive use cases such as price optimization, fraud detection, and policy engine improvements. This is helping Bajaj Allianz to explore the future potential of AI-powered solutions and drive sustained innovation.
In manufacturing, Cosmo First Limited, in collaboration with Snowflake and Kasmo Digital, has modernized its data landscape by consolidating legacy systems into a unified, cloud-native platform. Cosmo First now enjoys near real-time, secure access to enterprise-wide data. This transformation has led to a 75% reduction in infrastructure and maintenance costs and an 80% decrease in data preparation effort, empowering faster insights, improved reporting, and more efficient data-driven decision-making across the organization. Cosmo First plans to leverage Snowflake’s AI and ML-ready architecture to power its next phase of intelligent automation and innovation. This includes rolling out AI-powered recommendation engines for customer insights, predictive maintenance models for manufacturing equipment, and AI-driven personalization in marketing campaigns
In logistics, Chalo, India’s leading bus transport technology company, partnered with Quantiphi and Snowflake to unify app usage, ticketing, and GPS data into a single platform. This enables accurate prediction of bus ETAs by accounting for multiple factors, while simplifying data analysis with tools like Streamlit and Cortex AI. As a result, Chalo has significantly improved report generation speed, optimized bus routes, and enhanced passenger experience.
For CIOs, building a secure, governed, and scalable data foundation is often the starting point for AI. How is Snowflake and your partners helping enterprises in India achieve this balance between innovation and compliance?
In a landscape where data privacy regulations are increasingly stringent and AI models demand access to vast, diverse datasets, traditional security frameworks fall short. As Indian enterprises accelerate digital transformation and AI adoption, they are navigating a fast-evolving security environment shaped by rising threats, stricter regulations, and growing complexity. From multinational collaboration to internal data silos, the need for a new, data-centric approach to AI governance is paramount. Traditional patchwork frameworks not only create governance gaps but also slow innovation, forcing businesses to choose between protection and progress.
Snowflake eliminates this trade-off by making security and governance foundational to the platform. Snowflake delivers end-to-end encryption, private networking, cross-cloud policy enforcement, and continuous monitoring, all built in, not bolted on. Features like dynamic masking, role-based access controls, and audit-ready lineage enable Snowflake to empower secure AI collaboration while helping meet the most stringent compliance standards.
For AI workloads, Snowflake brings governance by design. By running models directly within Snowflake’s secure environment, organizations reduce exposure risks and avoid costly data movement, creating a trusted foundation for AI at scale. With capabilities like automated data discovery, classification, and tagging, governance becomes frictionless and scalable, allowing CIOs to focus on innovation without compromising trust.
Our partners play a crucial role in this ecosystem, building advanced applications that deliver AI-driven insights while adhering to strict data privacy and governance principles. Together, we help enterprises unlock the power of AI in a secure, transparent, and responsible way.
How do you see Snowflake’s partner ecosystem in India evolving over the next three to five years?
Data and AI are creating new opportunities for partners to grow and innovate. Over the next three to five years, Snowflake’s partner ecosystem in India is set to evolve into an even more agile, empowered, and innovative community that drives the adoption of AI-driven transformation across industries.
Our long-term vision is to create a future where our partners can capitalize on unprecedented opportunities created by Snowflake’s easy, connected, and trusted platform. We want to lay the groundwork for them to build and deliver innovative solutions and thrive in a connected ecosystem. Our partners are the engine behind customer successes, bringing the Snowflake AI Data Cloud to life with their deep expertise and innovative solutions.
