The Slowdown Will Not Dampen Growth... India Is a Huge Market

He is currently regional director for Asia-Pacific, responsible

for sales and marketing in India, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Korea. Prior to joining

APC, Griffith had a distinctive career with IBM Canada for 25 years in sales,

marketing, and sales management. In an exclusive interview with Dataquest,

Griffith outlines the company’s initiatives in the APAC market, with emphasis

on his key focus–marketing

On APC’s set-up in India...

We have a got a team on channel (the transactional model) and

another team which focuses on the large corporates segment (direct-relational

model). Besides this, there is the service team. The team reflects the strategy.

The relational model is a tier touch model–in that model, we work with our

partners to deliver different solutions that we offer. The APC team very often

goes in with our business partner to deliver solutions. The savings that are

made by investing in UPS systems ultimately pay for the investments made, apart

from the great ease of use and the productivity benefits that comes from

continuous flow of work.

On APC’s broad marketing strategy for the

Asia-Pacific region...

Our strategy has not changed for years and if you look at why

we are such a successful company, it is because our mission is to delight

customers by ensuring the availability of data right from the time it is

created, transmitted and stored. I would say, therefore, that it is this whole

spectrum of protecting data, making sure that it is not lost due to power

outages and spikes. We make sure that uptime is maintained. Maintaining uptime

is a major concern for a lot of MIS and IT managers. Among other prime concerns

are the availability of data and productivity of resources. Power problems can

affect those two concerns. We have a strategy to win over customers by offering

complete and total solutions in the availability of power systems.

On the uniqueness of the APAC region, as compared to

North America and Europe...

The growth potential in this region is the single-most

important feature. We have been in North America for quite a while and have

established a good brand... over time, customers have come to realize that the

two things that we stand out for are reliability and innovation in solutions. In

India, where we have been growing, there are some fantastic numbers on this

front. Also, the power problems here represent a significant growth opportunity

for us. Power-related problems are pretty broad-based. In any country, the power

situation is not getting better. Even when you look at the US, and see the

recent California power crisis, even in well developed countries with well

developed infrastructure, the power situation is not getting better. In the

Asia-Pacific, there are some countries with poorer power availability than

others. I think it is probably more awareness on the need for power protection

and sustainability. The productivity loss due to power outages is immense.

On the most profitable segments in APAC...

All segments hold great opportunity. We are well positioned

in terms of products across the whole spectrum. From a consumer point of view,

the home market, SOHO, SME, large businesses–you are looking at different

kinds of models. Right now, we have a very good transactional model, this is to

do with those that have invested in terms of our channel structure, in terms of

our ability to deliver through our business partners, the various kind of

solutions that we have, etc.

We are in the process of shifting a bit from the

transactional part to the relationship and selling part. This is, of course,

required especially in the large UPS’ segment. I am talking about data

centers, with large requirements. Our focus, therefore, is on increasing the

head-count in terms of selling and supporting. If you look at the mobile phone

market and telecom companies–all these firms need DC solutions. We are doing

well in terms of the small market, home and SOHO segments and we are probably

the second in that respect. Large corporates acquire a lot of equipment. We have

a strong alliance with them–an important point for the large number of

end-users is that the integration of our solutions is tight with a lot of IT

solution providers. For example, IBM’s network management, Tivoli–we are the

only UPS company that is integrated with Tivoli. Taking care of integration is

one of our major strengths and people can feel confident when they are buying

that we already have the platform, the solution and the network management

solution capability. When there are problems with the network, ideally you

should get alert ahead of time–to get lead-time–to fix the problem before

the end-user is affected. That’s the kind of product that is useful to

corporates who manage large networks.

On the channel models...

We follow the channel-transactional model, where we work with

business partners and make sure that we have a broad coverage of the market. A

reseller will not like it if a company sells direct since it is a matter of

trust. APC is very good in a two-tier distribution model where we don’t sell

direct–this gives confidence to our business partners and helps in

disseminating information to our end-users.

On the slowdown...

Worldwide, APC is not immune to any kind of slowdown in the

information technology industry and we have been affected to an extent, but due

to our strong brand awareness, we have been protected in a way. While on

cost-cutting–we are trying to solve availability problems–though one may

look at cutting costs, one will focus on increased availability and

productivity. We add to the profits to the companies we work with. Worldwide,

this is the case. In India, due to the poor power situation, there is a market.

Also, the number of PC shipments here is large. As per IDC projections, the PC

market is about one-third of China–this represents a huge market.

So if I am asked whether I am concerned about the effect of

slowdown in India, the answer has to be ‘No’. This is because we see

significant opportunities ahead, because of the business we are in. Last year,

with 1.7 million shipments and an ever-growing market, we were excited about our

potential here. The market here has been one of the fastest-growing, with

infrastructure being one of the only major bottlenecks in some sections.

However, with most governments working towards that, I see faster implementation

of IT programs as the norm here, rather than the exception.

Amit Sarkar in New Delhi