‘Our strategy is to focus on consumer needs and expand distribution’

Lloyd Mathias, head, Marketing, PPS, HP India, talks exclusively to DQ Channels about his Go-To-Market strategy

Tell us about the recent developments at the company.

We continue our market leadership of 25.5%. The way we measure market share is the real market share of business. We stay really focused, in terms of the end market, of the consumer and the commercial market, so we will stay focused on that.

Mobility is becoming a prime vertical, so we are in mobility enterprise space. Even within our mainstream consumer PC space, Notebooks we are getting lighter. With the launch of tablets, voice tab—the 7 inch and 6 inch we have penetrated a sizeable market of the telecom channel. We can say that we have a reasonable presence now.

How do you ensure you remain #1 in the market?

On the consumer end, the entire focus is on matching and meeting consumer expectations and that will continue to be. Today we have the widest distribution among the IT sector in the country. In terms of reach we have over 350 HP World stores in 1,200 cities and we also sell through multi-brand outlets.

We consistently focus on building our brick and mortar business recognizing fully well that online is growing tremendously. As a company that has been focused on building strong channel partnerships, we want to stay focused.

We consistently invest and build the channel; increase and expand our distribution; and at a primary level there is focus on getting products to match every consumer needs. So we are truly an end-to-end player. So whether a consumer wants a very low cost PC, or a high-end gaming device, we have an offering across all segments. And that is the reason why in many quarters we have consistently kept our market share leadership across the PC circles.

In terms of PC business, how are you competing with Dell and other PC players?

We are not focused on being #2 or #3. It is a large IT market and we are being watchful of the latest launches. But our strategy is to keep the consumer at the center of what we do and how do we meet consumer needs. Our focus has always been consumer needs. If mobility, cloud are the big things then our focus is on our offerings to cater to that part of the segment. Our endeavor is that we have to stay with the curve; we have to ensure that we meet all consumer needs. We need to keep building our distribution, and to be the #1 in terms of channel. Our belief is that if you get these platforms right, the market share and consumer expectations handle themselves.

What is your Go-To-Market strategy?

Go-to-market for commercial side includes SOHOs and SMBs and is different from enterprise side. In enterprise space, we always had a very dominant position reason being we have globally recognized accounts, HP’s global presence, width of operation right from server, networking, storage, PC business which gives us a huge advantage. Second is that we have been reasonably active in large deals be it the UP deal, Elcot, etc,. The third GTM, where we are really focusing our energy is the whole small and medium businesses. We are focusing on SOHO front, knowing that it’s a great growth opportunity. On the more traditional SMB, there are two big thrust areas. One thrust area is developing the whole partner ecosystem. A lot of small enterprises buy through partners. Other is consumer channel sales. What we have done in the last two years is to consolidate and grow the consumer channel. We have a very well entrenched distribution structure.

How is the GTM of printing different from computing side?

First, computing is more visible and secondly the competitive intensity on the PCs is much higher. But in printing we have a relatively comfortable share. But we are clearly focused on growing the printing market for two reasons. One is the relevance of printing and second it is a very critical margin driver and is more profitable. We are focusing on HP World stores since a large number of printers are sold through these stores.

How do you get new customers in enterprise space?

The challenge for the enterprise is how do we go after acquisition accounts. We do a great job in retaining accounts and developing our existing accounts to ensure that our share of wallet doesn’t go down. But we also have a fairly aggressive and active plan around acquiring new enterprise accounts and very often on this front, we look at developing customized solutions. On one level it is the width of HP’s operations and two is they require a lot of customized solutions. So large organizations do not usually fix the product you have so. What we are leveraging very actively in our enterprise is also our mobility play. Enterprise definitely has a huge portfolio sell.

What is your plan on geo-expansion programs?

We are doing two interesting things for SMBs which are working. We are doing a geo-expansion program which is done in smaller towns, especially towns which are known for special industry verticals. So three months back we did a program in Rajkot. Rajkot is a big centre for gems; similarly we did a program in the Tirupur with the hosiery industry. We have tied up with other e-commerce players as well to ensure reach in smaller towns.

What is your approach to reach out to SMBs?

Yes, SMB is one of our biggest focus and in that we have identified 2 pillars—one is geography and another is vertical. So we have realized that our ability to break through the industry verticals happens when we have the solutions approach. So the needs are almost the same, they might be the competitors but the needs are same.

What is your online strategy?

We have a strong HP online store. So we believe that HP provides the best in class experience throughout the width of the product. We may not be as price competitive as some of the online players. We are actively engaging in online activities. We sell on HP online store through Savex.

Rachna Garga

(rachag@cybermedia.co.in)