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What are your plans for scaling business in India?
The first thing we have done is put India as a part of APAC headquarters and
not under Europe. This proximity will help us take quicker decisions. My vision
for Zebra India is that it should constitute 10 percent to APAC revenues within
two years.
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Andrew Tay
'President-APAC
Zebra Technologies |
| Zebra Technologies has several
plans for its business in India. This includes introducing a partner
program, getting into the supplies business, increasing internal headcount
and opening new offices |
In India, we currently have only one office in Mumbai. We plan to expand our
headcount and open offices in Delhi and Bengaluru soon. To increase our channel
network, we will be launching the PartnerFirst program in India by July, 2009.
We have also traditionally been focusing on electronic manufacturing customer
vertical. Now we have diversified into five new customer verticals-transport
logistics, healthcare, government, retail and mobility.
Why have you introduced the PartnerFirst channel partner program in India
now though you have been in the country for some years now?
The objective of the PartnerFirst program is to drive profitability through
channel. With this program, we drive discipline in terms of channel management,
which in turn will ensure that our customers will be very satisfied.
Your have hardware and software products around thermal printers and asset
tracking. Do you think that the concept of these technologies is something
Indian customers are familiar with?
In India, the awareness is not as high as we want, unlike countries like
China, where barcode technology has ubiquitous usage. Here, a lot of asset
tracking, though it is an important business, is still done manually. But
companies are already realizing the value of automating asset tracking and
management. And to encourage these companies to take to the technology, we will
come up with Asia-specific products. We have moved our manufacturing from
Chicago to China. The local R&D team in Asia will try to understand the needs of
the Asian customers and develop products that will cater to their needs.
Globally Zebra has two divisions-Specialty Printing Group (SPG) for
thermal printers and the Enterprise Solutions Group (ESG) for card printers.
Isn't it true that since these product lines were sold through separate
channels, there was a plan to integrate the channel?
Traditionally our business has been centered about barcode. We acquired
Altron 10 years ago for the card business and we created the SPG division. We
also acquired some companies which had enterprise solutions and created the
Zebra Enterprise Solutions (ZES) group.
The latter's business model is very different from that of SPG. So we have
now decided to keep it independent for the next three years. Besides, ZES has a
lot of direct contact with customers, given that it's a complex business. So
integration of the channel right now is not on the cards.
VINITA BHATIA /
vinitavs@cybermedia.co.in Page(s) 1
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