Aditi Karandikar, Sr Director at Arcserve, Most Inspiring WomenLeaders of 2021 Profile

Aditi Karandikar
Sr Director - Demand Generation & Marketing Ops at Arcserve


Aditi Karandikar, Sr Director at Arcserve, Most Inspiring WomenLeaders of 2021

“Mentoring Teams towards Success”

Aditi Karandikar oversees demand generation at Arcserve. She was brought in when StorageCraft Technology Corp acquired Exablox to put in place a world-class B2B growth engine that would scale pipeline creation for Sales to close in a consistent fashion quarter over quarter. Three years down the line, StorageCraft had a successful merger with Arcserve, and Aditi was again retained to bring together these two companies’ marketing operations, teams, tech stacks, and processes into a seamless organization. She has consistently delivered an average ROI of 6x and been responsible for 1/3 of the company's pipeline goals.

Aditi has personally journeyed through the various stages of the young entrant to the demanding corporate environment, graduating to wife, mom, individual contributor, mom of teens, and currently boss of a team. So, she is very aware of the challenges of juggling multiple responsibilities and the illusiveness of the work-life balance. Therefore, she has made it her mission to mentor and guide women (& men) on her team, who 5 range from millennials entering the workforce, moms and peers who are redefining priorities, especially during the pandemic. Armed with these qualities, Aditi has been taking the company to new heights.

For more than 30 years, Arcserve has been a catalyst for IT transformation by redefining how organizations worldwide protect their priceless digital data. We help our clients protect and recover from cyber-attacks, natural disasters, human error by end-to-end data protection, data management, and disaster recovery. This is especially crucial in a world seeing a tsunami of data growth as well as more & more sophisticated ransomware attacks.

Before the merger made Arcserve the 3rd largest data protection company worldwide, both StorageCraft and Arcserve were smaller players against much larger competitors with deeper pockets and larger marketing budgets. “We had to be very creative, smart and hyper-targeted in order to make a difference. This nimbleness has actually helped us to grab market share over the years,” she says. “We know most buyers research online before they ever reach out to vendors in their shortlist. We have a hybrid strategy for digital marketing – a combination of traditional demand generation and more cutting-edge Account Based Marketing (ABM).” They also have a healthy mix of inbound and outbound marketing strategies, which help engage proactively with prospects across their entire buyer journey instead of being reactive.

The company has incorporated AI and intent-based signals to drive more real-time engagement. Most of their customers benefit from data protection, data management, and disaster recovery across on-and-off premises. “We offer them backup software, backup devices, Remote Office Branch Office for today’s Covid WFH, Ransomware protection and recovery of critical data in minutes,” explains Aditi. “We have been able to be EBITDA+ and meet the rigorous expectations of not one but two Private Equity stakeholders while running on a very lean budget and resources to take on and grow revenue in a very crowded and competitive market. We are working towards offering a single-pane-of-glass for all the storage, backup and cloud DR needs of companies towards a comprehensive best-in-class business continuity solution.”

According to Aditi, modern marketing in general, and demand generation, are vastly different from traditional marketing with a slew of technology being thrown at it, a lot of scrutinies and attribution metrics to granularly measure the success of every integrated campaign. There is a ton of visibility and accountability, but on the plus side, Marketing is finally being seen as a revenue generator instead of a cost center for companies. “I thrive on this challenge and in mentoring my team to success,” she says. “Indra Nooyi is one of the most influential woman for me. Her interviews have helped crystallize the reality that we can have it all (just not at the same time). Managing to let go of expectations set by society on the traditional mothers role /employee standards and redefining them has helped reach a balance. It's essential to put a $/hr value on my time so I know which parts of my household duties I can outsource so I can channelize my time better for work, kids and me-time.” IEWL


Company

Arcserve

Management

Aditi Karandikar
Sr Director - Demand Generation & Marketing Ops at Arcserve

Description

Arcserve provides exceptional solutions to protect the priceless digital assets of organizations in need of full scale, comprehensive data and ransomware protection. Established in 1983, Arcserve is the world’s most experienced provider of business continuity solutions that safeguard multi-generational IT infrastructures with applications and systems in any location, on premises and in the cloud. Organizations in over 150 countries around the world rely on Arcserve’s highly efficient, integrated technologies and expertise to eliminate the risk of data loss and extended downtime while reducing the cost and complexity of backing up and restoring data by up to 50 percent. Arcserve is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota with locations around the world.


Inspiring WomenLeaders Special Magazine