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AOC: The Display Specialist

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Sandhya
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AOC entered Indian market in 2005 with a mission to provide best-in-class display solution to the Indian customers. With a pleasing success in the monitor business the company came up with an excellent range of televisions in the Indian market. Seeing a great opportunity in the telecom industry in India, AOC recently launched its range of ‘Breeze' tablets in India. Breeze tablets come in two sizes to fit the requirements of the Indian consumers.

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Key heads

Saurabh Grover heads the monitor and tablet business In India, wherein Seema Bhatnagar is the director for AOC TVs for India and Saarc. Grover, director of AOC India monitor business takes all the responsibilities to look after the channel strategy, furnishing the sales targets, distribution: distribution system and appointing new distributors.

AOC has an even mix of national and regional distributors. "AOC has excellent sales structure to support AOC channel partners. We have regional managers in every 4 regions. Under them we have area sales managers and in every nook and corner of the state we have executives. The main target of the national sales manager is to boost the sales of the products, guiding and motivating the team for principal success," explains Grover.

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Regional sales managers' primary responsibilities include, but are not limited to, planning AOC's sales campaigns, developing skills of the sales team, smoothly implementing technological changes in monitor industry, consulting and collaborating with AOC's and distributor's sales executives' and proactively reviewing the outcomes of the AOC's sales efforts.

Grover adds, "Another important role could be fixing and meeting up the targets in their territories and spreading the business in the core places of the region. Our regional managers also engage tier-2 and tier-3 partners for sales as these are one of the underlined focuses of our business."

Marketing Strategies

Business marketing is important for the company's growth and stability. Marketing works on bringing company brand image into the spotlight, as well as acquiring new customers. "At AOC, we are committed to keeping existing markets and aggressively expanding into new markets. This is achieved through regular and consistent communication of product updates and launches, use of promotional material such as, brochures, cards, inserts which are made available to partners for use in their own communications," says Grover. Participation in events and IT exhibitions ensures visibility to the masses. Online communication via email, social media marketing; efficient use of internet marketing tools like website, Google ad words, videos on You-tube, is done to target the end consumer. 

AOC invested heavily in IT channel marketing with participation in IIT Kharagpur and IIT Delhi festivals, organization of AOC Premier Channel partners meets in different locations, a widespread channel ad campaign and investment in massive in-shop and on-shop branding with glow-sign boards, shop displays, print collaterals, etc. AOC plans to lay more focus on end consumer marketing since its position in the channel has remained strong consistently over the last few years.

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Channel structure and training

The company has established its presence all over India covering both established and emerging markets with fair penetration in C-class cities and is focused on an aggressive strategy to expand into the constantly growing market. At present AOC has a network of about 4,500 dealers, SIs and resellers which they plan to increase to 5,500 in 2013-14. "Since the monitor market is expected to primarily grow in B&C-class cities, we are investing heavily in these regions. We are trying to expand our channel partners in every possible cities of India," says Grover.

Right now AOC does not have any online training. AOC has the widest and the most comprehensive range of monitors. The contact point between customer and brand is the sales staff (AOC's and distributors') - they are the ones who sell. To keep them updated about range, strategy and plan of action, AOC conducts regular training - workshops and get together especially for the staff of theiur channel partners. These training revolve around product updates, product knowledge - latest features, pricing, schemes etc. "Since monitor is a touch and feel product, we as well as our partners prefer a ‘physical' training over ‘online'. However, we do have a toll-free help line, where our partners can call for any assistance," mentions Grover.

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AOC's focus is on encouraging partners to do AOC business. AOC has always been very keen on encouraging the channel fraternity with new schemes for every new season. It has incentive-based partner programs all over India on a quarterly basis. In 2013-14, it will have plans to engage regional partners in different incentive-based programs as per the sales volume and revenue.

Road ahead

AOC has been a leading vendor in monitor sales and aims to maintain its position in 2013-14. AOC tablets were introduced in the market in 2013 on a decent scale. This year, it aims to increase customer base for tablets. The key focus area will be making AOC a household name and a recognized brand for monitor and tablets in the Indian market. AOC sells a wide variety of innovative LCD/LED monitor models in global market with unique features. This year, AOC will continue to develop new products, with more of its world-beating ‘lightest', ‘thinnest' and ‘eco-friendly' concept models.

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In order to create consumer interest and meet broader demand, AOC introduced different products beside its traditional LED monitor and TV ranges, including 3D displays, unique frameless design, IPS and 3D features in one monitor and many award winning monitors.

AOC looks forward to 2013, wherein it will bring high featured monitors and tablets in the 2nd half of the year. "We will launch a lower cost 7 inch tablet and also a 3G SIM calling version of the 7 inch tablet that we have launched. We will also launch an 8 inch tablet with IPS display. Apart from that we will also launch three smart monitors with Android operating system with 20, 22 and 24 inch display sizes. So we are working in different parts of Indian markets to strengthen our channel base for tablet business. We always require support of our partners to help achieve the targets and market share for AOC. We will announce channel schemes to channel partners which will be for monitors and tablets both," signs off Grover.

Sandhya Malhotra

(sandhyam@cybermedia.co.in)

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