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Hanging Out in Goa

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DQI Bureau
New Update

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.

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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

deals with AMD or VIA. The product lines are good, but marketing is not up

to the mark"

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.

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"Given the inherent

problems of cooperative banking, the ASP model



is not sufficient"

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

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