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'We depend on our distributors for support and will back them all the way'

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DQC News Bureau
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With the help of distributors, Yogesh Kamath, Sales Manager, Maxtor

International, wants to create direct programs for resellers and end-users.

Yogesh has already made a headstart in the OEM segment by targeting companies

like HCL, Wipro, Vintron, Zenith and PCS. He is currently focusing on smaller

cities to increase the Maxtor brand awareness. Yogesh started his career at

Onida, before moving on to ACI Infocom.

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An MBA by qualification, he tells DQCI exactly how he plans to go about

increasing the marketshare for Maxtor in the country.

Maxtor HDDs have not been very visible in the Indian market and you have

stiff competition in Seagate and Samsung. How do you plan to face the market

situation?



It has only been a year since we began our Indian operations. Prior to this,

Quantum HDDs were sold here. But as you know, Maxtor took over Quantum last

year. But somehow we were not very focussed on the Indian market.

Yogesh

Kamath, Sales Manager, Maxtor International

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However this year, we are re-entering the Indian market. Our major focus will

be on channel partners, importers and A and B-class cities. Once we get the

mindshare of these people, we will get the marketshare too.

How do you propose to get the mindshare?



We have formulated three stages for our re-entry into the Indian market. In

the first phase we have targeted OEMs like HCL, Wipro, PCS, Vintron and Zenith.

We have been very successful in this endeavor so far.

Next we targeted A-class cities. We had dealer events in Mumbai, Delhi and

Bangalore and the response was very good. Most of the importers have started

buying material from us.

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Now we are planning to go to the B-class cities. IDC reports confirm our

theory that we need to tap business potential of small cities to push our way

up. We will also be focusing on the high-end products, which are technologically

superior.

What initiatives has the company taken towards bettering its focus on the

Indian market?



We recently conducted a series of roadshows in Chennai, Hyderabad and Pune.

This was in line with our strategy to expand in B and C-class cities and to

reach out to more resellers. Roadshows have been an excellent platform for us to

showcase our products, communicate with our prospective business partners and

understand the market well. We received a phenomenal response to these roadshows

and hope to conduct more in other cities soon.

For end-users, we recently announced a promotional program ‘Find the

Diamond in the DiamondMax’. Every end-user buying a PC from Maxtor’s OEM

partners–namely Wipro, PCS, Vintron and Cerbera – with a built-in Maxtor HDD,

stands the chance to be one of the three lucky winners of a brilliant and

exquisite diamond each.

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Do you have direct reseller programs or do your distributors create their

own individual programs?



Though we have three national distributors, we do get involved in channel

activities. We are planning to create direct programs for our resellers and

end-users. But all these will be done through our distributors.

Each of our distributors has his unique strength. Some of them are very

strong with importers, while some are strong with their partner network

nationwide. Using these strengths we can uniquely position ourselves to make

Maxtor products available throughout India.

What is the service and support model that you plan to establish in India?



It is a common knowledge in India that Maxtor is a technologically superior

product. So we are going to leverage this knowledge to our advantage. We will

also be working with our distributors to offer service to customers. Every

distributor has his own way of going about this. So we will be depending more on

them and will be backing them all the way.

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For instance, Cyberstar has its own service centers for Maxtor in Bangladesh

and Sri Lanka. This is like Cyberstar warranty and is largely sought after in

Bangladesh. This is also another reason why we have a terrific market share in

these two countries.

This is the kind of success we would like to replicate in India. Ingram Micro

has started offering end-user warranty, so that the resellers job is made

easier. So whatever it takes for us to support this initiative, we will go one

step ahead in helping them.

Do you have any plans to set up your own independent service center?



At the moment, no. We will not do this. We feel that a sale is a package of

pre-sale, post-sale and warranty package. There will be people who might be

willing to pay less for the post-sale warranty, others might be willing to pay

more as long as they get complete warranty. So this varies from distributor to

distributor. So we ask the distributor to make the sale and offer service that

is of internationally accepted standards and we will continue to support them.

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Why does Maxtor still not have a direct presence in India?



A lot of debate has taken place about this within Maxtor. Today we feel that

all the three distributors we have, Ingram Micro, Karma (or Esys) and Cyberstar,

are based out of Singapore. The head office of Maxtor India is in Singapore. It

is easier to get the co-ordination done if the decision-makers in distribution

companies are in the same area. Moreover, we think of our distributors as our

extended arm in India. I make frequent visits in India and am close to all the

resellers in India. So we feel that it is not very important to have an office

in India.

Has the rebate center on Maxtor International’s web site been extended

to the Indian partners yet?



We have not officially launched that web function for our partners in

Asia-Pacific.

What is Maxtor’s marketshare in India?



As Maxtor is relatively new to the Indian market, official local statistics

on our marketshare in the region is not yet available.

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However, according to Gartner Dataquest, Maxtor has a worldwide marketshare

of over 30 percent in the desktop HDD market.

What is Maxtor’s marketshare in the OEM space?



Maxtor has a significant share in the Indian OEM PC segment. Though I cannot

give you figures, currently we are happy with the progress made and are

relatively successful in meeting our targets. In India we have partnered with

leading local OEMs like HCL, Vintron, PCS, Wipro and Cerbera. But now we want to

widen the base through our involvement with assemblers. In 2002, our focus will

be on three areas, namely resellers, systems integrators and OEMs.

VINITA BHATIA in Mumbai

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