Brother India’s focus is on increasing brand visibility

Alok Nigam,
General Manager – Sales, Marketing & Service,
Brother India

With sales in over 100 countries, operations in over 30 countries, Brother is one of the printing solution companies, which is slowly earning a reputation in India as a company with a commitment to developing technologies and bringing fresh ideas to life with its user-friendly and innovative products. Recently, VARINDIA team has caught up with Alok Nigam, General Manager – Sales, Marketing & Service, Brother India, when he shares his views on the Company’s market presence, marketing strategy and expansion plans in India. Edited excerpts…

We have got sales presence in 17 cities currently. We have also invested a lot in warehouses and logistics management. Till date, we have 17 warehouses across the country. Currently, we have a strong reach into tier-II and -III geographies due to our base of 100-plus direct Channel One partners. At present, we have 400 BSPs (Brother Select Partners) and we intend to increase the number of BSPs to 600 by the end of the current fiscal. 

Delineate some of the initiatives you have taken recently to create a stronger market presence in India.

India is a key focus market in the overall growth strategy of Brother in the Asia-Pacific region. To have a stronger market presence, we have changed our distribution structure from National Distributors to Direct billing to our Channel One partners. This helps in faster fulfilment of customer requirements. We have launched global strategic products developed for emerging markets. These products cater to SOHO and SMB markets as they are affordable and yet have the quality and reliability. Our focus will be on increasing brand visibility and enhancing our logistics operations.

What is your take on 3D printing market? 

3D printer has a good potential for applications of quick modelling. It is a very interesting technology and we are working on a few ideas in the research and development stages, but we can bring in the market such a product in the next few years. 

What has been your strategy for Brother’s brand promotion?

Increasing brand visibility is key priority for Brother India, which helps our Reseller partners in selling Brother printers. We had 25 reseller meets and exhibitions this year. We do not have dedicated Brother retail stores right now, but what we are as a first step aiming is to hold multi-brand stores which sell multiple IT products. The footfall of customers in such retail stores is very high. We definitely want to expand our retail presence in such counters by providing demonstrations and demo products.  So, this way we will ensure that the customer is educated about the benefits of the Brother product in the retail counters. We also provide a lot of marketing support to IT retail outlets which help in the promotion of the Brother brand 

Talking in terms of revenue, what is the overall contribution of Indian market towards Brother’s global revenue?

As Brother India is a privately held company, hence we cannot comment on this point. Brother’s global turnover exceeds USD 5 billion. 25% of our revenue comes from Asia-Pacific. Our market share in India is little bit less than 5% and we are looking to be more than 10% by year 2015, and we would like to aim at the 25% market share by 2017.

How was the year 2013 for Brother and what your plans are for 2014?

The year 2013 has been challenging due to the steep devaluation of the Rupee. The consumer purchase also experienced slowdown in the second half. In 2014, we stay focussed on expanding our Reseller network by providing them profitable business opportunity along with marketing support. We have an attractive Brother Select Partner programme for fulfilling these needs of Reseller partners. 

satinder@varindia.com