Plustek, headquartered in Taiwan, is a prominent scanner provider with manufacturing plants in Taiwan and China. Recently, Plustek launched a series of new scanners for the Indian market.Judy Cheng, Account Manager, Plustek, said, “Our products are quite advanced & innovative and they can be integrated with file systems such as the hotel file systems. Similarly, our education scanner solution can be integrated with the library file systems. They are already in use in several universities in Taiwan. Our solutions are innovative and unique that is our strength compared to our competitors. We explain all these to our partners in channel meets and other promotion programs.
We are also increasing our team strength. By next year, we will have a full-fledged office in India. We are excited to launch these new products in India. We are getting very good response from the customers. We are expecting a big jump in our revenues starting from this year. Soon we will appoint more region-level distributors. We are very confident that our products will make it big in India. We are also providing marketing support to our partners by advertising in channel media magazines, etc.Recently, in Mumbai and Delhi we had channel meets coupled with product launches. We will be conducting more channel meets in the coming months. We are also focusing on service part as Indian customers give lot of importance to service.”
Recently Plustek appointed Innotech Digital Solutions Pvt Ltd as their North India Distributor. Plustek has 40 different scanners. For now, in India, they launched 18 models and plans to add more in the coming months.
Jayesh Kurup, Sales Manager—India Operations, Plustek, shares, “In India, we launched in 2007 in a moderate way. Due to government policy changes, we had to give a pause to our operations. Now, we are back into India market with BIS certification and better prepared. Earlier when it came to bulk purchases, customers were hesitant to order Plustek scanners we were not an established brand in India at that time, but now after seeing our service support and product quality, customers are convinced about us. We have such models, which our competitors do not have and this definitely gives us an edge over our competitors. We also have a team of expert software developers who can develop excellent software, customized to the needs of a particular customer and scanner.”
Regarding their plans for India operations for the present financial year, Jayesh Kurup clarifies, “Based on our experience of the past we have drawn a new strategy. This year we are going to appoint region-level distributors. For the West India, we appointed Option as distributor who is very strong in channel business and Scorp who has good reach of BPOs /Banking and Telecom sectors. These two distributors have been with the Plustek for the past 5 years and they have been promoting Plustek in a big way. Recently, we conducted shows at Hotel Sahara, Mumbai and at Hotel Pamposh, New Delhi, where we invited channel partners and end customers—we demonstrated our products there. This we did as part of our brand awareness exercise. This year, we will have more such brand awareness programs on regular basis at region-level and, depending upon the market and support given by our distributors. Our region-level distributors will be coordinating with the customers and service providers for proving service. In the West we have two distributors selected on basis of their experience and market reach. In North we appointed Innotech who is strong in channel business of high end scanners. For South we appointed Wep Solutions Ltd.”
The image of brand is one of the decisive factors the success in a market, but partners also play a pivotal role in the building brand image and success of any brand. In this regard, Jayesh explained, “Our partners have been with us for the past several years and they have been making good money that is why they are showing interest and are working sincerely for us. As such our margins are good compared to others in the scanner field. We also have a target-based rebate schemes for the partners.”
Every company plans its own go-to-market strategy. The market strategy depends upon the product, its present share, the type of market and the target segment. In this regard, Jayesh shares, “Now we are focusing on banking and education segments. We have also launched solutions like passport scanner which is focused at hotel industry. We do all the business only through partners. Partners are our strength. Partners should grow as much as we grow. That is our principle.”
Educating partners and customers is very important while promoting technology products. In this regard, Judy Cheng asserts, “Recently we opened a demo zone in Mumbai. After seeing the response, we are planning to open them in the four regions of India. Here partners can bring in customers and experience live scanner demos and we can also call the end customers directly so that they can have direct experience. We are planning to have regular training programs for partners. We also have online training programs. We have a special demo team for high-end customers such as banks. We will also display some new models at Computex—after seeing the customer requirements and response, we will launch them in the market. We are looking for decent growth rate of 20% to 25%, but before that our main focus will be strengthening our base in India and establishing our brand rather than simply pushing up the sales figures.”
When it comes to warranty, Jayesh Kurup states, “We have 1 year carry in warranty on all our products. If someone wants additional warranty and onsite support that is specially offered on case to case basis. All the warranties are provided through distributors.”
