The laidback town of Goa was suddenly home to more than 769 dealers and a few
partners of Zenith Computers, gathered there for the Annual Dealers’ Meet 2002
in late August. Also present were a few members of sister concern Zenith
Infotech, headed by CEO Akash Saraf. Surrounded by greenery and water on all
sides both companies were reworking their strategies for the current fiscal with
new products and alliances up their sleeve.
Though the market has been harsh to the assembled segment, Zenith has managed
to stay afloat with competitive pricing, lower than those offered by assembled
players and thereby rules a certain part of that segment too. Also figures show
that Zenith has managed to raise brand awareness during the two halves of
2001-02 with a growth of 50-57% in the establishments segment along with
established players like Wipro and Compaq holding the top two positions in these
slots.
"We are not exploring |
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Raj Saraf CMD, Zenith Computers |
Having received negligible favors from the government, Raj Saraf, CMD, Zenith
Computers outlined his plans to tap into the education and SOHO segments with
products like Infotainer. Saraf also unveiled a slew of new products, which
included three new notebooks and two new server series. The compelling feature
of the Zenith Potable Desktop, which is hitting the market soon and is slated to
be the hot seller, is that it works without a battery and only on mains or a car
battery. They have also come out with a few new desktop ranges. With a strong
outlet force of 130 showrooms across 125 cities, Saraf plans to open 100 more
showrooms across the country during the fiscal. He also contemplates a possible
tie up with APC whereby they might offer some sort of bundling of Zenith and APC
products, though it will make resellers lose out on their small profits. Zenith
plans a 100% focus on in-house hardware and they expect 50% unit growth this
fiscal.
"Given the inherent |
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Akash Saraf CEO, Zenith Infotech |
While this is one end of the spectrum, Zenith Infotech plans an all out
attack on the cooperative banking sector. Cooperative banks rule rural India and
now face a slow death given the spread of IT among private and foreign banks.
They are witnesses to a depleting customer base, who are slowly adopting the
faster method of meeting their monetary needs. With almost 3,800 cooperative
banks having more than 65,000 branches and another 92,000 primary agricultural
banks we are looking at a huge financial base. Their hands being tied due to
monetary constraints, these traditional operators are being cut out of business
due to their illiteracy in IT.
There are too many bottlenecks involved in the case of cooperative banks
adopting IT. The bottomline is the fear of IT that is prevalent among these
small operators who have stuck to time tested methods of dealing in money and
people. The initial costs involved in setting up an IT infrastructure are
staggering given their small budgets and sums like Rs 25-30 lakh per branch is
unimaginable for them. The lack of expertise in any form of technology in these
out of the way places also makes them IT shy and the dearth of complete banking
solutions from a single provider makes them take a relook at implementation.
With grandiose plans in the offing, both the arms of Zenith expect to rake in
the money and keep customers and resellers happy. Not too tough a call if they
stay on course and still find the time to chill out. Avtar Saini, Director South
Asia, Intel and a partner of Zenith Computer sums up this organization’s
"Work Hard, Play Harder" strategy when he says, "When the going
gets tough, then Zenith comes to Goa."
Dhanya Krishnakumar in Goa