HCL Infosystems : The Midas Touch

Touching a distribution agency revenue of an estimated Rs 1,517 crore in
2007-08 from the previous year's revenue of Rs 558 crore, HCL Infosystems
recorded a growth rate of 172 percent this year-the highest in this year's
Silver Club. 30 percent of the total revenue of HCL Infosystems' overall
revenues of Rs 5,058 crore came from its distribution business.

The year marked the visibility of HCL's effort to ramp up channel business
and in the IDC-DQ Channels survey this year, it climbed up the rankings in the
overall channel satisfaction index.  This shows that the company tried hard
to become a very channel-friendly organization, which was far removed from its
earlier stance. In a bid to achieve this, it announced HCL Premier League
Retailer Program under which retailers categorized under platinum, gold, silver
and falcon, based on pre-defined parameters, were entitled to special benefits
and incentives on sale of its 'Leaptops'.

The company lost out on its exclusive distribution tie-up with Toshiba, which
was reminiscent of a similar instance with Nokia as well in 2006-07. But it made
up for this loss by picking up a partnership with Kodak to distribute its
digital cameras in India. It also joined hands with Princeton for nationwide
distribution of their products.

HCL claims to have an extensive network of over 3,000 resellers across 900
locations. Last fiscal it opened 73 DigiLife stores operational across 54 cities
in the country.HCL will be looking at establishing close to 100 HCL Digilife
stores over next six months focusing on metros and state capitals. The revenue
from Apple and DTH business also contributed to the accelerated growth rate of
HCL. Last fiscal HCL entered into a non-exclusive strategic agreement with Apple
Computers to distribute its desktop computers and its iPod in India.

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Profile
CEO: Ajay Chowdhary Start-up year: 1976 Employees: 5,753 Collaborations: Intel, AMD, Sun, HP, Lexmark, Apple, D-Link, Citrix, Samsung, EMC, 3Com, Western Digital, Maxtor, Kingston, Casio, Kodak, Princeton Address: E-4, Sector-XI, Noida Tel: 0120-2555219, 2526518 Website: www.hclinfosystems.in SILVER CLUB RANK (2006-07): 6

HCL's focus on system integration as well as on affordable computing was
visible in the year 2007-08. The company launched MiLeap series of HCL Leaptops
and unveiled its next generation of 'HCL-Data Center in a Box' for the emerging
business in India along with a new line up of HCL eSafe desktop PCs. The launch
was to address the demand from small and medium enterprises for simplified and
functional IT solutions.

HCL also unveiled its HCL Infiniti Orbital K Series range of desktops based
on Triple Core AMD Phenom X3 8000 processor, providing gamers and digital media
users a good performance at mainstream price points.

The distribution giant has aligned HR initiatives to support the
transformation and growth of the business through strong and innovative people
practices, policies, systems and processes that empower and engage people.