“We need to focus more on corporates with our NAS”

How has Buffalo journey been in India so far?

We are one of the leading brands in Indian storage market with the precedence to provide innovative and best solution through our NAS and external storage product range. Continuing to concentrate on storage and Wi-Fi market in India we would come up with evolving technologies for increasing needs of Indian consumers. The company has launched several products in storage, networking and NAS verticals. Listed below are some of

• Buffalo's achievements. 
• Introduced CloudStation Storage products for smartphones
• Successfully conducted the new NAS product training program for partners
• Increased premier partners strength for all the products line up
• Opened two Buffalo brand stores (New Delhi and Kolkata)
• Introduced our SMS service for enhancing the support services
• Installed Buffalo Showcase across India at all major outlets and stores of our partners

Tell us about the latest developments in Buffalo.

The market is really diligent and as far as the coming years are concerned it will be more tech savvy and Indian customers will be on a verge of using more and more technology based products. Buffalo plans to come up with the new innovations in the smart phone segment, wireless routers and a well diversified NAS range and also latest storage upgradations. Buffalo plans to come up with new products as per the market scenario. As of now Buffalo is working upon adding more technical specifications to the latest range of hard drives that can compete easily with other

major brands in the market.

Recently Buffalo launched the compact yet powerful AirStation Wireless-N router WCR-G300 router and WCR-HP-G300. Also soon we will be launching our new series of NAS devices that can be used specifically for surveillance storage. Henceforth, more and more additions will soon be seen coming under the Buffalo umbrella.

What are the channel strategies that you follow, specially pertaining to the India market?

Our major strategy for taking Buffalo further in the market space is to provide our complete support to distributors and dealers. We are launching different schemes soon and assuring the channel community appreciates it. We are planning to give maximum support to our channel partners. Recently we have started our Buffalo showcase installation across India at the outlets of our premiere partners. We are also distributing the Buffalo merchandise to all our partners. Also we are now interacting with them on our social media platform like Facebook etc. There are near about 40 authorized partners and 250-300 resellers we are working with for our Indian distribution. And in this quarter or in this new financial year we are planning to add more partners for our different categories.

For partners we are providing every possible support to them. Also we have organized a number of training sessions for all the SI partners during launch of our new products. And time to time we also educate them about the new technology so that they can really understand about our products and in turn educate their customers also.

How was Buffalo performance in the last fiscal and what are your expectations in this financial year?

Buffalo, being among the fastest growing brands in the Indian market has been tremendous throughout the years. As an established brand that has main-tained its position as a worldwide market leader and international provider of efficient and innovative technology and quality products for more than a decade. If we talk about last fiscal year, so despite of having the Thailand crisis which affected the whole HDD product category, we have been able to get good response. Also we started business with LFRs like Croma and Reliance Digital and that has helped us to grow and put us in front of the end consumers.

As far as growth is concerned we are growing in the Indian market and getting good response from all our target audiences but still we have to focus more on the corporate section especially in terms of NAS products with new products and services apart from our regular storage and wireless products. We are sure of getting good jump in terms of market share in this financial year.

What are your future plans for the India market and globally?

We focus on branding activities to increase our brand visibility. We also connect to our end consumers through social media marketing and provide utmost support to our channel partners so that they can work more efficiently. We are also participating in major IT fests and exhibitions so that we can reach out to the maximum number of people. Our target to reach customers in tier 2 and tier 3 cities through adding dedicated partners, channel and end user magazine ads and attending IT shows and exhibitions. Our future plans also include our new and innovative products that we will be launching in India keeping Indian consumers mindset in our mind.