In today’s rapidly evolving enterprise IT landscape, pre-sales engineering plays a critical role in shaping client success right from solution design to long-term value realization. AHEAD, a leading provider of enterprise cloud and infrastructure solutions, is doubling down on this strategic function by expanding its pre-sales capabilities in India. In an exclusive conversation with Tech Achieve Media, William Huber, Senior Vice President, Specialist Solutions Engineering, and Nitin Maheshwari, India Head – Pre-Sales, share how AHEAD is building a unified, global pre-sales team that transcends geographic boundaries. They shared insights into the motivations behind the India expansion, the synergies between pre-sales and delivery, and how deep domain expertise is fueling customer innovation, co-creation, and business growth.
TAM: What gaps in traditional pre-sales models is AHEAD aiming to bridge by expanding its capabilities in India?
William Huber: I don’t think it’s about gaps. It infact is really about scale, speed, and efficiency. We see our investment in India as a true extension of our US pre-sales team. There is no distinction in how we treat the teams, they are fully integrated. Work flows seamlessly back and forth between team members, regardless of location. It is not “the US team” and “the India team”, it is one global team that operates in sync. That integration is critical to our success.
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Again, it is not about different regions covering different things. The way we have structured our pre-sales specialist organization is by technical discipline. We have sevral core teams under the specialist pre-sales engineering group:
- Data Center
- Networking
- Security
- Intelligent Operations
- DSG (our Cloud, Apps, and Data business)
- Foundry
All local team members in India report to Nitin, but they also matrix into the leadership for each of these technical domains. Each of these teams has a dedicated leader, and all team members, regardless of geography, collaborate daily as one unified group.
Nitin Maheshwari: Starting a pre-sales team was driven by a great idea, a clear need, and a strong reason, it is an essential engagement function. Pre-sales typically acts as the bridge between the customer and the delivery team, ensuring that what we promise in our contracts is actually delivered. That is how we create successful customer outcomes.
We launched this team about four months ago. Today, the average experience within the team is around 17 years. We have been very deliberate in our hiring process making sure every individual not only brings deep technical expertise but also aligns well with AHEAD’s culture. As mentioned earlier, we operate as a single, fully integrated global team. Over time, I believe this team will go beyond being seen as a cost center. Their contributions will increasingly drive revenue impact and add real value to the business.
TAM: With India’s deepening technical talent pool, how do you see the country influencing enterprise IT solutioning and innovation on a global scale?
William Huber: think that’s really what this team and the investment are about, whic is about influencing at a global scale. While most of our customers are based in the US, they have a significant global presence. Having access to a strong talent pool here gives us broader reach and enables us to better address the global needs of those clients. It is very much a scale play for us expanding our capabilities and impact.
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What has been especially encouraging is the caliber of talent we are seeing. We have already seen this quality on the delivery side and now we are seeing the same excellence in pre-sales. The people we have onboarded are truly best-in-class, and we have been consistently impressed with their skills and contributions. The US teams love working with them, and the experience so far has been very positive. We are excited to continue scaling this as we grow.
Nitin Maheshwari: Since you asked about the impact of India, I would say the teams and people here bring a high level of experience. The feedback from their US counterparts has been overwhelmingly positive. It is not just about giving the India team exposure to US customers, and they are not simply functioning as a backend team. They are working directly with customers in a client-facing role, which adds significant value for both sides. This aligns with our broader vision: to deliver quick turnarounds and effective solutions to our customers. That is the driving force behind establishing this pre-sales team.
TAM: How does AHEAD differentiate its pre-sales approach in a highly competitive global IT services landscape?
William Huber: At the end of the day, it is all about people. At AHEAD, we are in the people business. Culture is incredibly important to us. As we continue to grow, we want to build a workplace where people are genuinely excited to come to work. And that starts with the people we bring in. Talented individuals are driven to solve complex problems. They want to be intellectually challenged, to do meaningful work, and to know they are making a difference, and that is exactly the kind of environment we aim to create.
In building this team, our goal is to foster that culture to provide opportunities for growth and development. We are fortunate to have amazing customers with tough challenges, and we need smart people to help solve them. That is what we are here to do: solve real problems for our customers. And if we can do that while having some fun and building a great culture along the way, that is what it is all about. In the end, it always comes back to people and culture.
Nitin Maheshwari: If you look at it from an offerings perspective, I would say we are in the right business at the right time. The world is undergoing a wave of infrastructure transformation, which you might call an “infra-boom” happening globally. A while back, the focus was primarily on applications and getting people onto platforms and apps. However, with advancements in hardware, particularly GPUs and chips, the game has changed. As a company, we are well-positioned. Yes, we have strong delivery capabilities, but we also bring deep consulting expertise. We don’t just implement solutions but we take the time to understand our customers’ existing business and find ways to add real value.
Everything we deliver is focused on outcomes. It is not about completing a task and walking away. It is a continuous process of evaluating what we offer and how it impacts the customer. One of our key priorities is helping customers maximize the value of their existing investments while introducing new solutions that give them a competitive edge. And that is where our delivery team really shines.
TAM: What key trends in IT modernization and infrastructure are redefining enterprise priorities for 2025 and beyond?
Nitin Maheshwari: One major transformation I see today is the growing importance of security. With everything becoming connected and internet-dependent, cyberattacks are becoming more frequent and security has become absolutely critical.
Our daily lives now rely heavily on the internet. Whether it is communication, transactions, or services, we cannot function without connectivity. Add to that the fact that sensitive personal data, including biometrics, is stored and accessed online, and it is clear that security must be a top priority. At the same time, we are in a period of rapid transition. Everyone expects faster outcomes, whether it is businesses or consumers. There is a global push for innovation, with countries and companies racing to put more control in the hands of users. And all of this depends on having the right technology in place.
We have moved from an era of CPU-centric computing to one that’s driven by GPUs. This shift in computational power is enabling a new generation of applications and services. GPU advancements are empowering companies to build smarter, faster, and more scalable solutions, which, in turn help them better serve their customers and transform their businesses.
Today, every industry, whether it’s pharma, telecom, healthcare, or e-commerce, is being reshaped by technology. The goal is to put the power of the digital world directly into the hands of users. And that is only possible when the right infrastructure and compute capabilities are available.
TAM: What is your perspective on the convergence of cloud, data, and cybersecurity in shaping next-gen enterprise architecture, and how does pre-sales play into this?
William Huber: Security is one of the four core pillars of our business and a significant area of investment for us. In fact, we are seeing some of our strongest growth driven by our focus on security. As a company, we have grown 20% year-over-year as of the first half of the year, and a large portion of that growth is directly tied to our security investments.
We have recently started building a dedicated security pre-sales team in India. While we already have a well-established team in the US, we are now scaling that capability here as well and we are very bullish on the opportunities ahead. Security is top of mind for every CIO today. With the rise of modern technologies, AI, and distributed platforms and workloads, the demand for robust security solutions is only going to increase. It is a massive opportunity, and we are fully committed to leaning into it.
Nitin Maheshwari: If you look at our four key pillars, whic are data center, networking, security, and intelligent workloads, we are working to build the same foundation here by tapping into India’s strong talent pool, especially from a security perspective. Today, security is not limited to just traditional cybersecurity. It is embedded across every layer of the IT stack from data centers, servers, and compute, to storage. It extends all the way up to the application level. Security is no longer a standalone component; it is deeply interconnected across the entire technology ecosystem.
A few years ago, customers might have said, “My application is secure.” Now, the conversation has evolved. They ask, “What is your full security offering?” They’re looking for comprehensive support, and not just one layer, but a complete, end-to-end security strategy. With threats like phishing and cyberattacks occurring at multiple levels, our focus is on building robust, multi-layered security solutions that can protect our customers across the board.
TAM: How does the India team contribute beyond delivery perhaps in co-innovation, early-stage solution design, or client co-creation?
William Huber: Our pre-sales organization works closely with the solution development team. We have a structured process in place to manage solution development, one that captures ideas from across the ecosystem. These ideas could come from employees, customers, or even our OEM partners.
This process is centrally managed by our solutions development team, which is also expanding here in India. They have recently added team members on the ground to support this growth. Our pre-sales team supports this process by providing subject matter experts across various technology domains. We help evaluate new ideas by conducting vendor assessments, scorecarding, and analyzing market opportunities. We ask critical questions like: Does this solve a customer challenge? Does it fill a gap in our portfolio?
Once validated, the idea moves through our solution development process, where we build pre-sales enablement kits. These might include questionnaires, pricing calculators, sales assets like data sheets, and proposal templates. On the delivery side, our counterparts develop standardized delivery kits and templates. Both functions are supported by governance layers that guide each idea through the funnel, from concept to launch, and ultimately bring the solution to market. The pre-sales team plays a critical role in this end-to-end process. And the India team is just as integral to this effort as our team in the US. It is truly a shared responsibility across a global, collaborative team.
Nitin Maheshwari: This ties into the business innovation aspect of what we are building. As I mentioned earlier, the average experience of our India-based pre-sales team is around 17 years. These are highly skilled subject matter experts in their respective domains, bringing deep global and enterprise-level experience to the table.
When they engage in discussions, whether with customers or their US counterparts, they bring real-world insights and a solid understanding of complex solutioning. What further strengthens this model is the close proximity to our delivery teams, many of whom are also based in India.
Because the pre-sales and delivery teams are co-located, there is a natural synergy. Pre-sales can tap into the practical, ground-level insights of the delivery team, ideas, challenges, lessons learned, and incorporate those directly into their solution design. This tight feedback loop is a powerful advantage.
A key sign of success for us is repeat business. When we deliver a project and solve a real problem for the customer, it opens the door to deeper engagement identifying the next challenge and the next opportunity. Having pre-sales working closely with delivery helps foster this kind of continuity. They are in the same conversations, sharing the same context, and that often sparks new ideas that can be taken back to the account team to drive further value. Overall, building the pre-sales team here has been a big win, and not just for collaboration, but for strengthening our ability to innovate and scale customer impact.
TAM: Final thoughts
William Huber: I just want to express how enthusiastic I am about this team. We have had a great experience with our initial investment in delivery, and now expanding into pre-sales feels like a natural and exciting next step, which is the one that will be tremendously valuable for AHEAD, our customers, and our partners.
The talent we are seeing from the region has been outstanding. The individuals we have brought on board have been fantastic, and we are genuinely excited about our continued investment here.
Nitin Maheshwari: This is not just talk but the support we have received from our senior leadership and the trust they have placed in us has been incredible. Combined with the strong talent pool available here, we are confident in our ability to build a world-class pre-sales team.
This is also a new and strategic approach for us. Traditionally, pre-sales teams in offshore locations might have played more of a supporting role. But here, we are building a team that will work directly with opportunities and customers, which are truly customer-facing. With this setup, we are aiming not just for one-time success, but for ongoing, repeat business and long-term customer relationships. We believe this model will set us apart and drive lasting impact.
