TP-LINK has now grown to become one of the most competitive providers of networking products with aspirations to become one of the top three networking brands in the world and striving for a larger global market share. In a discussion with Jason Xu, Sales Director of AP & MEA and Atul Jain Vice President – Channel Sales, TP-LINK India Pvt Ltd about the company initiatives and channel policy for the Indian market. Excerpts of the interview:
TP-LINK is a worldwide provider of SOHO & SMB networking products and is the World’s No.1 provider of WLAN products. Their products are available in over 120 countries. TP-LINK provides award-winning networking products in wireless, ADSL, routers, switches, IP cameras, powerline adapters, print servers, media converters and network adapters for global end-users.
Jason Xu, Sales Director of AP & MEA, TP-LINK TECHNOLOGIES CO., LTD. shares, “If you want to make good bread, you need good material. Our products are the best from inside and outside. The most important thing inside of a networking product is the chipset, the heart of the product, for which we have been working closely with Qualcomm. We have more than 18 yrs of experience and we have a good team of expert engineers. We have good knowledge as to what should be in the products. Globally, we produce and market150 million products a year. We get feedback from the customers worldwide, depending on which we develop and improve our products to be really world-class. For example, we use original plastic. We never use cheap material. In Wi Fi products, we have over 40% market share worldwide.”
TP-LINK has now grown to become one of the most competitive providers of networking products with aspirations to become one of the top three networking brands in the world and striving for a larger global market share.TP-LINK continually strives to provide their customers with products that make their lives easier.
Road Map And Channel Policy
Atul Jain Vice President – Channel Sales at TP-LINK India Pvt Ltd, regarding their road map in India, explains, “We are coming up with lots of consumer and lifestyle products soon. Also, we are coming up with more outdoor access point’s targetingtheSMB space. We will be focusing and capitalizing more on consumer products and that is our immediate goal;at the same timewe will be focusing on products for building SMB infrastructure. In India, our main focus will be on consumer and SOHO products. Then we have our traditional channel which works with corporates and other big offices. The third is the online segment. We are in the process of building up a systematic solution providing channel. We will have different and effective policies for SOHO, enterprise and online channel partners. Today, it is taking a lot of time to get the products registered. Now the new government at the centre, we are expecting that government policies will be redefined to become more acceptable to international brands. A lot of things like standardization, and WPC approval, are expected to come up shortly. Soon we will also launch powerbanks, USB chargers and so on. We want to see that in every connected home, there will be at least two TP-LINK products.”
In India, the channel is very important for the success of a brand. If a company has a strong channel, they can do good business. Furthermore, the market is shifting from boxselling to solution selling. In this scenario, regarding channel initiatives, Atul adds, “We have a very effective distribution mix. On the other hand, we have very good distributors in place. Now what we are going to do is develop good relationships with tier two partners. For that, in the future, we will be conducting many reseller programs and rebate programs. We will build strong trust among our partners and we will provide quality and cost-effective solutions. We will indentify SMB partners who can sell the solutions along with the products and encourage them. Today, a partner cannot do business just by selling a single product. They should sell aproduct mix. If you are selling bread you should also sell butter. Only then can youdo business. We are planning many training programs and roadshows for partners. Recently, we conducted a successful partner training program in Kerala.”
The government is a wide sector with lots of big projects. In this regard, Atul explains, “Government is a big sector which cannot be ignored. At present we are building infrastructure and ateam to deal with big government projects. We will have a better go-to-market strategy. We have the products. The only things we are waiting for are good government policy and for infrastructure to gear up to the scale. Then we can push the products as the products are already sitting at our back.”
In 2013, 42.6% of TP-LINK’s annual revenue was from the international markets, and they have successfully started overseas subsidiaries in several countries in order to provide quick and comprehensive services to their customers.
Worldwide Vision
Regarding their worldwide vision, Jason shares, “We are training local partnerson how to provide service. India and China are big markets with huge populations where service is very important. In China, we have 20 service centers. In India right now we have 2 service centers, but soon we will have a wider network to provide service. In the next two years, we want to establish TP-LINK as a professional leader. We have research centers in the USA and Europe. We want to accomplish things worldwide. We want to provide good value products to our customers. We want local teams to do local branding in each country. TP-LINK used to b a Chinese brand, but now it is an international brand.”
