Consistency and continuity are the two benefits: Epson!

 Ramprasad S. M.
Senior Manager - Consumer Products, 
Epson India

What kind of market trends do you see in the Indian market today?

The last financial year has come to an end, and Epson has been very fortunate to have recorded high growth trajectories. We are seeing a lot of growth drivers for the new financial year and if you ask me what they are, certain market segments and verticals are showing high growth rates and this is going to rule the roost for the coming years too. Education is one segment which is booming in India and IT penetration in vertical is increasing day by day. BFSI is another vertical which is on a growth path and is likely to go ahead really fast. The third one is the retail segment which is seeing a boom again. Taking advantage of this retail boom, Epson has opened several retail outlets in the country in this new financial year. The last segment is the consumer segment. This year has seen tremendous growth happening in the consumer or the home segment. So, the focus for Epson would be these four segments. Epson is also going to tap on the opportunities thrown by the aggressively growing B&C cities. 

What is your market size? 

We have increased our market share in the single function printer category which includes all the three printer types - inkjet, laser and dot-matrix. In the single printer category, we are touching 30-per cent market share in terms of revenue and positioned as the No. 2 leader in this segment. In the multifunction category, we are having 12-14-per cent share. For point of sale (POS) printers, we dominate 65 per cent of the market and in dot-matrix we have 60-per cent share. In the projector segment, we have close-to 14-15-per cent share. Last year, Epson introduced the innovative interactive projector for the education segment and we have received a good feedback from educational institutions and as a result of this the demand for this is steadily growing.

Epson being a channel-centric company, how do you see the contribution from your partners?

Epson shares a very strong emotional bonding with its partners. As Epson has grown in the last ten years, we took our partners along with us in this growth story and this has helped us in building a very transparent relationship with them. Those partners who had started with small retail outlets have today grown along with Epson and have grown their business to a large extent. Epson today has close-to 200 EAP (Epson Accredited Partners) and about 99 per cent of them have been with us for the last ten years. So, they act as the backbone for Epson's growth in the country.  

Can you elaborate on the categories of partners that you are having?

We have a very simple and a linear channel structure. As already mentioned, we have a category of partners called EAP which are 200 in number. They further have partners below them whom we call Epson Certified Channel (ECC). We have about 6,000 ECC partners in the country, as of now. EAP are the local distributors and ECC are more like the final tier partners who sell to the end-users. 

We have two categories of products - the consumer product group and the business product group. The consumer segment is entirely handled by the EAPs and the business product group is built through our national distributors. We have Ingram Micro and Redington as the two national distributors. 

When it comes to after-sales service, do you have a separate strategy with your distributors for that?

For after-sales support, we have the Epson Authorized Service Centres (EASC). They have their own separate set-up and they provide service on an independent basis usually so that there is no clash of interest between the partners who sell our products and the partners who offer sales service. We have more than 180 authorized service centres across India. 

Recently, you have started with Epson Demo zones concept. How is it picking up?

Yes, we have opened these demonstration zones in Mumbai and Delhi and are very soon starting these in Chennai and Bangalore. We will have it opened in another 10 cities during the 2011-12 financial year. These Epson Exclusive Experience zones are also called E3 (E cube). These zones are run by EAPs and they are meant not only for our end-users, but our ECC partners can also bring their customers here. These stores will not only offer experience of our products to our end-customers, but there will also be a scope for sale. We also have the mini version of these experience zones which are called the Star ECC zones. The number of Star ECC zones currently is 500.

How do you enable your partners to grow along with you?

Consistency and continuity are the two benefits that any partners get with Epson. We have been consistent and continuous in taking our partners with us. Secondly, we are more transparent and systematic in our dealings and the channel policies. And lastly, from the profitable or commercial angle, Epson tries to be as transparent as possible with the partners. This is how the whole relationship of Epson with its partners can be summed up. So, whether it is the consistency or transparency or profitability factor, Epson scores higher than all the other vendors in these aspects. 

Which categories of Epson products would you consider to be selling the most in the market? What kind of opportunities do they carry to your partners?

Since Epson's focus is on the digital imaging domain, any of the products that fall into this category is its core strength. It can be a printer or a scanner or a projector. So, we are doing very well in all these categories of products. 

What we try to do is in all the different categories of products, we build the technical edge for the partners. If you look at the entire product portfolio of Epson, we are either No. 1 or No. 2 leader among them. So, a partner dealing in these products will eventually get to cater to its customers with a technologically strong product range. Epson is different from the routine IT vendors and so in order to keep themselves tuned in to the latest technologies introduced by Epson in its products, the partners need to understand the superiority enjoyed by us in our selected domains and also be able to communicate this further to our end-users. There is a superiority element held by us in each of the products that we sell and partners have to understand that very well. We discourage our partners from selling our products only in terms of price but on the basis of the technological superiority that they offer. So, they need to be technical experts in order to sell our products. 

To conclude, how has been the journey of Epson in India and how do you see this going in the coming years?

We have completed 20 years of our operations in India and all these years have been rewarding for Epson. We are enhancing our presence day after day and growing from strength to strength. There is a lot of learning that we are able to take from the market and the customers and step by step we are trying to launch our products and solutions in accordance with our customer's needs. Going forward, Epson will look at increasing our stake in the Indian market. By 2015, we want to achieve our Rs.100-crore mark for Epson India and we have evolved plans to achieve this feat. The key part of this plan would be our channel engagement programmes. Two years back, we started our end dimension programme and have planned to cover 100 cities this year under this programme. We are involving 5,000-6,000 partners in it and this will also help them grow and prepare themselves for adverse situations and stiff market conditions. Similarly, we also have the End Solution programme for the System Integrators. The objective of both these programmes remains the same - it is to reach to more and more partners and eventually to more customers.

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Hemant Aggarwal, Proprietor, Intech Systems, New Delhi

Our association with Epson is now ten years old. We started as a normal reseller for them in 2001. In 2003, we graduated as their ECC (Epson Certified Channel) partner and since 2006 we are working as their EAP (Epson Accredited Partner), or the regional partners who represent Epson in tier-I towns.  

If Epson is known for their Dot-Matrix Printers in India, so are their POS printers, photo printers and projectors. We deal in almost the entire range of Epson products, viz. Inkjet printers, Photo Printers, Business Inkjets, Photo & business Scanners, POS Printers, Dot-Matrix Printers, Projectors and Consumables. 

The entire inkjet, scanners and POS range give us 4–5% of gross margin and around 3–4% on DMP range and more on the higher range of products. Though we usually make margins during selling, but Epson also offers other recreational benefits in the form of holiday trips like fabulous trips to some exotic destinations in Europe every year for their EAP. This also gives us an opportunity to meet our fellow Indian partners and spend quality time with them.   

Our association with a brand like Epson as their prime partner (EAP) is a big benefit itself. People deal with us as we offer products which already have a huge demand in the market. The people in the organization from top to down the line are like a family and their warmth and every effort make us feel as we are important members of their family. 

In Epson, it is not just a dealer relation but their strong bonding with people that makes you feel special, resulting in long-term relations.  

I think after-sales service is the backbone of success for any product. All the Epson products are covered under onsite warranty policy which they provide through their wide network of 215 service centres all across the country. To sum up, I am proud and lucky to be associated with this organization and look forward to prosper with them in the many years to come.

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Murali, Managing Director, Pelikan Office Automation Pvt Ltd

We have more than 15 years of association with Epson and we look to extending it further in the coming years. We deal with Consumables, Ink jet Printers, All-in-one Printers, Laser jet Printers, Dot Matrix Printers, Photo Printers and large Format Cartridges. Photo Printers, Ink jet Printers, Photo Cartridges and Dot Matrix Printer are the products that are very popular and are sold the most in the market. We do get a scope to make reasonable margins and benefits we make it during Product Sale.

After sales support is the backbone for any company. We do provide after sales support but till date I haven't received any complaint from my customer about the Services.

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Sanjeev Patel, Director, Excellent Informatic (P) Ltd., Mumbai

We have been associated with Epson for more than ten years now. We deal in multiple products for Epson which include consumer products like projectors, photo printers and laser printers. I think there is no other brand in the market offering such enhanced product quality and extensive product ranges other than Epson. Most importantly, Epson is carving out a niche in the photo printer market and I find it difficult to find any comparison to Epson. It is doing really well both in the Mumbai and Gujarat markets.  

Our many years of association with Epson has helped us to grow to what we are today. As a distributor for Epson, we make sure that apart from selling products, we also give free installation to our customers. And you would not find any partner doing that for any other brand. Secondly, even for the post warranty, spare parts are available for every Epson products, whether it is an inkjet or a laser printer or for that matter any other product. So, in accordance with this policy, we do keep a huge inventory of Epson spare parts. 

Epson organizes dimensional programmes from time to time for its partners and they themselves take these kinds of initiatives to engage their partners in training and keeping them abreast with all the latest happenings. We are also a part of Epson Accredited Partner (EAP) that is usually open for tier-I Epson partners all across the country.

For more contact: 
samrita@varindia.com
with inputs from beenish@varindia.com