Genuine Money Spinners

border="0" hspace="2" vspace="2" align="right">HCL

tried, and failed. Compaq tried...failed. Zenith tried...did not succeed. The big names

and the big bucks could finally never really capture this segment. The small users and the

home users stayed resolutely away from buying machines in the face of marketing

blitzkriegs by the big names. The market was there. The market needed these machines. But

the market was just not responding. That was till a year ago. That was the time when a

chip manufacturer decided to lend its name to the informal sector. Gray market suddenly

became the Genuine Intel Dealers (GIDs) market. And the SME and SOHO sectors realized the

importance of automation. The home market suddenly came out of its slumber. And these

segments spearheaded the growth of the domestic PC market. That in a year when corporates

were not buying. When the government was also not spending and the rupee was on a major

tailspin, heading straight down.

Stroke of marketing genius on the part of Intel? Or did the

SME/SOHO/home markets finally lose patience and decide to lap up everything on offer?

Neither, actually. Timing and a bit of marketing astuteness on the part of Intel. Yes, the

market was restless, but what was also important was the re-creation of the gray market.

Under the new avatar of the GIDs this market had something

it never had before-credibility. Credibility of quality and credibility of options.

And what did we have! The informal sector grew by 72

percent in terms of units sold, thus hiking its share of the desktop market by a good

percentage-from 20 percent in 1996-97 to 26 percent in 1997-98. This 72 percent compared

to 31 percent growth of the total desktop market and 15 percent growth of the formal

sector. At this rate, the informal sector is pretty much on the road to crossing the

50-percent share mark by the year 2000.

GIDdy Growth



The Genuine Intel Dealer (GID) scheme of Intel solved one very critical issue-the issue of
availability. The non-availability of the PC microprocessor was not only a big deterrent

to the growth of the informal sector, but it also used to encourage smuggling. Similar

strategies by some of the other vendors also aided in legalizing many of the operations of

this sector. But it was Intel all the way and other vendors just went along with the

drift.

The vendors broke open a market, by appointing dealers at

the right places at the right time. Local players in the Nehru Places and Lamington Roads

of the country were identified and cajoled to use and resell the branded PC components at

a time when the Custom duties on import of components were coming down. But what took the

cake was the marketing support from Intel. The chip major came out with the concepts of

joint advertising and joint exhibitions targeting the home and SOHO segments.

This helped the informal sector gain recognition from

the vendors as a formidable segment, and respectability in the eyes of the customer

because of the association with the Intel brand. Initially considered to be of little

significance by the IT industry, the ripple gained momentum, and the sector gained

attributes that were, till now, the prerogative of the large branded vendors alone.

The GID scheme is considered to be the single most

important factor in galloping the rate of PC adoption among the price-sensitive, yet

brand-conscious, space of the market spectrum. Intel currently has about 1,000 dealers in

the country, who approximately sold an average of about 100 systems in 1997-98 each. While

Intel was accused of propagating the gray market by the Indian manufacturers, for the

now-respectable small vendors, the chip major was like a messiah of salvation.

Small And Medium Challenge



Remember Economist JB Say's theory, 'Supply creates its own demand'? Or, rather, supply
stimulates the demand, as Philip Kotler would say? In the current context, if the GID

scheme was a boon from the supply side, then the profile of buyers for this segment was

the blessing from the demand side. The buyers for the informal sector mainly consist of

the small and medium enterprises and the SOHO segment. These segments have proved to be

virtually Attila the Hun for the branded vendors for a long time. The informal sector,

consisting of the GIDs and the assemblers, clearly outran the biggies to capture the SME

segment and the near-virgin SOHO segment.

The SME segment has the characteristic of cash 'n carry.

This goes well with the requirement of immediate cash by the small vendors. Not obsessed

with brands, but operating on a shoestring budget, the SMEs fulfill their various needs

from the informal sector. This was coupled with the realization of the fact that IT is

critical in the business process of their organizations last year. The low end needs of

the SME sector are taken care of by the informal sector in totality. Now the SME sector is

completely in the hands of the informal sector, as far as the desktops are concerned.

One might argue that the needs of the SME segment are going

to increase as a result of the growth experienced by them. But the players in the informal

sector are also expected to grow in tandem and will come out with offerings which will

take care of those needs at that instant. Hence, the brand vendors have already lost the

battle as regards the SME sector.

The small office/home office is one market which is always

in the throes of price fixation. Last year, SOHO segment was completely straddled by the

GIDs. The informal sector has one big advantage. While the large vendors partner amongst

themselves and are selling bundled products, the informal sector has been into the

bundling paradigm for eons. And this bundling was given the much-needed push in the

carnivals and exhibitions. One saw the offerings of a printer free with the purchase of a

computer from a GID. These obviously attracted the price-conscious SOHO buyer.

Home And the GID



Remember the bunny people dancing to the tune of Stayin' Alive by Bee Gees? Well, the
Intel ad definitely captured the imagination of the home market. The most finicky of all

market segments, the SOHO/home market grew by an estimated 65 percent last year. And most

of the growth went to the informal sector. If one saw the GID ads last year, it was the

multimedia PC which was being offered with freebies like CD titles, software, and

peripheral devices, bundled with them. It was as if the complete package was the computer.

This was a landmark achievement on the part of the informal sector, which takes the credit

for transforming the PC into an edutainment device from being a technology product. The

main drivers of this segment were multimedia and Internet.

The

New Informal Paradigm: Eight Steps To GIDdy Success

Price has been the main driver of the informal sector in

any industry. Not any more, at least in the IT space. Now the dynamics have changed with

the character taking the shape of an industry by itself. One interesting thing that

happened last year was the gaining importance of the drivers other than price. In fact,

the other factors not just qualify the price, but also provide the complete character to

the PCs from the informal sector.

PRICE-LOW, SO LOW IT SELLS: As

anybody would know price is the crux of the business paradigm of the informal sector. And

as such, the informal sector prices its products considerably lower than the branded

products. Playing upon the price-conscious nature of the buyer, the players, backed by

Intel, launched a Genuine Intel chip-based PC at price points 10-15 percent lower than the

Indian brands (Zenith, HCL, Wipro), and about 15-20 percent lower than the MNC brands.

Hence, the initial hurdle of having to shell out enough money for a PC purchase is

crossed.

MODEL AVAILABILITY-ABSOLUTELY THE

NEXT GENERATION: One of the main reasons for the success of the small vendors is

the availability of the systems. In the US, Dell and Gateway make their money during the

time lag between the launch of the latest microprocessor from Intel and the launch of

systems based on it by Compaq and IBM. Similarly, here the small local players get the

systems ready, as soon as Intel ships the microprocessor, courtesy the chip major. Thus

the availability of the latest configuration is one of the main factors influencing buyer

decision in favor of the small and local players forming the informal sector.

FLEXIBILITY-BUILD YOUR OWN PC:

The configuration of the PC is virtually the prerogative of the buyer, when the informal

sector is involved. More importantly, the choice of the components of the bundle of

software and accessories with the system is again with the customer. In the case of an

Indian brand, the choice is limited to a couple of options, while in the case of the MNC

brand, the choice is virtually not there, with a particular bundle being inflexible.

DELIVERY TIME-CASH 'N CARRY:

Even now, the average time a system is delivered by a vendor is around seven days, while a

GID promises to supply a PC to the customer in an average of three days. Delivery time is

a critical factor in keeping the customer hooked onto the bargain.

SERVICE AND SUPPORT-JUST A WALK AWAY:

Talk to a large vendor and one would get a pep talk about after-sales service and future

support to the system given by them and the small vendor not focusing on it. But if one

closely inspects, the small vendor is quick on response time and thus service. As one GID

put it, for the large vendor, large corporate/government accounts are important.

Similarly, for the GID, it is the small buyer who is important. As elucidated in the DQ

Customer Satisfaction Audit '98, 50 percent of the SME users prefer a neighborhood TPM

guy, who is accessible any time.

BUSINESS VIABILITY-LOW IN OVERHEADS

AND LOGISTICS: One would think that with margins plummeting at each level of the

component and product supply cycle, how does a vendor manage to sell at the price that is

quoted by the GID. This becomes possible as the small vendor has low overheads, manages

with less people, and has less logistics costs. This is primarily because of

localized operation of the vendor, which makes his business

much more viable than a large company servicing many small clients spread over a big

geographic area.

BRAND-INTEL INSIDE 'N OUTSIDE:

With the 'Intel Inside' and GID brands firmly behind him, a small vendor is much more

confident in displaying his wares. This further augments the vendor in captivating his

market in a particular geographical spread. If anything, the Intel brand worked more for

the small vendors than the large vendors, who anyway had problems regarding the confusion

between the chip maker's brand, the corporate brand, and the product brand.

BUNDLING-BUY A PC, GET GOODIES:

Bundling has been pretty central to the GID paradigm. In computer carnivals and

exhibitions held locally, one saw the offerings of various goodies with the PC. For

example, for the SOHO buyer, it is a printer, for the home buyer, it is multimedia titles.

Last year, DQ had stated that the PC was still in the

category of a technology market and will take time to become mass market. Going by the

results of 1997-98, the PC is clearly galloping in that direction to become mass-market

product. Though still not on top of the buyer shopping list, it is certainly going to be

more of a need than a luxury by the turn of the century. And India might witness the US

phenomenon of PCs selling more than TVs by the beginning of the next century. The enabler

of this change is the informal sector. And the benefactor of this change will be the

informal sector. Obviously, much to the chagrin of the big IT companies-whether MNC or

Indian.