‘Focus on Greater Customer Support’

D-Link India’s recent joint venture with Gigabyte, called Digi Giga Systems, to manufacture motherboards has created ripples in the market. However, D-Link has taken these reactions in its stride and has gone ahead to acquire its seventh high-speed SMT line. It has also opened its call center to address the needs of D-Link products worldwide. Nancy Sudheer met up with D-Link India director–sales, Prabodh
Vyas. Excerpts…

What are D-Link’s plans on increasing its channel business?

D-Link has a strong and stable distribution set up in place. We are now strengthening our focus on customer support by adding more component-level servicing centers for high-end products. Great customer support will be the focus area this year.

Improving the channel business is an ongoing process. We would be conducting training programs for system integrators, and also are in the process of enhancing technical support in all our branches for our new products. Now technical support will also be provided at ‘B’ and ‘C’ class cities as it was earlier provided only at the metros.

Why did D-Link start component-level servicing for modems, NICs, motherboards and switches? Do
you have any plans to expand these services? 

The new service was started to give a faster response to the servicing needs of the customers. There are no plans to expand this service at this present time due to small volumes.

What are the products that Digi Giga Systems has launched till date and what are the other products scheduled for this year?

The company has introduced a whole range of motherboards and graphic cards for users in the entry, middle and high-end categories. The other new launches are the GA-8S648FX, GA-8S650GXM, the range of graphic cards which include the Radeon 7000 series, the Radeon 9200, 9600 and the 9800 series of graphic cards, which are targeted at the serious gamers to entry-level users. There are no plans of launching any more product lines under Digi Giga this year.

What are the specific plans on promoting Digi Giga in India?

Aggressive launches and marketing of Gigabyte products will propel us towards our target of achieving a 30% to 35% share in the motherboard market. In the near future, you will see more advertising, road shows and channel schemes coming up.

Gigabyte, as a brand, has established itself in the Indian market. It has made a mark for itself in the quality product segment and also with the brand conscious consumer. Our channel partners are also aware about the product line; therefore, promoting Digi Giga will not be a problem in the Indian market. And Digi Giga has the support of D-Link with 21 regional distributors, unlike other vendors who have just two to three national distributors.

NANCY SUDHEER/CNS in Mumbai