Today, consumers want more out of everything – a lot more ease of use, more value for money, more connectivity to their businesses and family – and certainly more entertainment! In a dynamic and constantly-changing world, the ability to “do more” especially while on the move is first on everyone’s growing wish list. As people have started looking out for newer, different forms and new gadgets, the lifestyle category has moved out of the realms of just apparels and fashion accessories and this would continue in 2010.
Green technologies with better cost efficiency and less of carbon deposits will be the most visible technology shift in 2010. More and more companies and customers are looking ahead towards products that consume less power and are easy to recycle. Power management and cooling efficiencies are getting increased attention from large enterprise and BPO industry top managements.
A number of firms will adopt “Cloud” computing and launch “Green Tech” or “Green initiatives” to accelerate business recovery and growth.
Today, devices have become an intrinsic part of one’s personality. They define what we are and what we stand for. The PC market will continue to witness a generational shift, notably the mini notebook PC or “netbook” as Solid State Disk (SSD) ensembles reach a new threshold of usage in mobile computing. Also, on the mobile computing front, 3D and touch technologies are going to make a big impact in the marketplace. WiFi connectivity will also be another major trendsetter.
"As consumers and enterprises demand services and solutions that allow them to ‘do more with less’, the ICT industry will focus on business model innovation, improved productivity, faster return on investment and cost savings,” said Kapil Dev Singh, Country Manager, IDC India.
e-Governance and “Economic Stimulus Spending” will continue to invigorate Government / Public Sector IT spending to new levels in 2010. Large-scale e-government and e-governance projects are witnessing increased adoption of Document Management Services (DMS) and digital imaging technologies, notably scanners this year.
But the IT majors agree that their initiatives will not come to the expectations of Indian consumers if the support from the channel community is not there. But channel is required to start focussing on Service component and technologies, i.e. build solutions around line-of-business. Not only this, the channel is also required to widen their horizons in terms of offerings and should start investing in terms of giving their customers a retail ambience. So, channels get ready to participate and enjoy the success in 2010.
VARIndia attempts to speak with industry majors across PC, Lifetsyle, Printing, Sceurity and Storage verticals on Outlook 2010. Following are the excerpts...
Ranjit Yadav
Director – Mobile & IT,
Samsung India Electronics Ltd.
We definitely expect Netbooks and Notebooks to pick up momentum in the year 2010, given the growing consumer awareness and preference for this segment and their need to stay connected with their work while being on the move. Factors like low-power consumption with LED screens, advanced processing capabilities and connectivity features and slim/lightweight form factor are the trends driving the preference towards notebooks.
We are a global leader in semiconductor, telecommunication, digital media and digital convergence technologies. We have seven independently operated business units: Visual Display, Mobile Communications, Telecommunication Systems, Digital Appliances, IT Solutions, Semiconductor and LCD. From Samsung, the market would see many new models in both the Netbook and Notebook categories that will be differentiated on account of design and performance features like enhanced connectivity and advanced processing capabilities.
We are looking at expanding our presence significantly this year and making our products available across key cities on a pan-India basis. Channel awareness on the key features of the products as well as better display/ retail experience will help in sales of both Netbooks and Notebooks. The brands, of course, will need to support channel partners with strong service support and promotions and advertising.
Our new 2010 digital camera range has models across the ES, PL, ST and WB Series, with each series having its own differentiated features. The new digital camera range includes for the first time “Made for India” models that are dust proof and moisture proof; Dual LCD models in the more affordable PL series, as well as the waterproof camera, WP10.
We have launched a revolutionary ES73 model, which is equipped with an Indian language (Hindi and Tamil) menu as well as an anti-dust and moisture-proof feature. The ST5000 series (ST5000/ST5500) is the ideal solution for consumers in search of an easy-to-use, pocket-sized digital camera. In addition, the ST5500 incorporates features like Built-in Wireless Connectivity that allows the camera to be connected to other devices via WiFi, Bluetooth and AllShare (DLNA: still & movie).
In the camcorder segment, the Company has launched new models across its K Series, H series and F series. With the addition of these new models, Samsung’s Digital Still Cameras range comprises a total of 30 models priced between Rs.7,990/- and Rs.24,990/-. And now, our Digital Camcorder range has a total of 11 models, priced between Rs.16,990/- and Rs.45,990/-.
Deepanshu Sharma
Head – Emerging Business Opportunities
AMD India
Once, computing innovation emphasized only speed and performance. But today computer manufacturers and buyers need a total solution – incorporating performance, scalability and energy-efficiency. As companies around the world look at new ways to save energy and reduce costs, virtualization, power management will continue to grow during 2010. In addition to this, Internet is increasingly becoming an alternate platform for the delivery of applications, data, and services, considering this cloud computing will gain significance. On the consumer front, customer will increasingly look for solutions that are lighter, sleeker and more powerful to suit their new mobile lifestyle.
Since its inception nearly two decades ago, mainstream X86 microprocessors have come a long way. Currently, multi-core X86 microprocessor architecture is ruling the computational markets with Dual-Triple, Quad-cores and Six-cores. While this trend of adding more and more computational cores will continue in the future, the way of programming language will change to adopt multi-threaded model. New trends like Stream computing will evolve for certain sections of applications where they use graphic processing units for executing the programs instead of using the general purpose X86 microprocessors. Applications that are serial in nature will utilize general purpose X86 CPU and applications that are parallel in nature will use GPU.
AMD’s recently announced Vision technology would look to simplify end customer’s PC buying process by offering him/her a jargon free simple way to go about choosing the right computer as per his/her needs. AMD will work closely with retailers, channel partners and PC manufactures like HP and Acer to pioneer this movement of “informed and simpler choice."
Our channel partners are an invaluable asset to us and we are committed to support and help our partners. The channel has transformed itself into a very diverse environment. Yet, one of the most basic and perennial rules for channel partners to be successful has been to understand what the customer needs. We, at AMD, realize this and therefore provide personalized program to help train and educate each of our key partners, based on their business model so they can service their customers in the best possible manner.
Rajesh Sahore
VP-Channel Operations,
D-Link (India) Ltd. 
D-Link is one of the “Most trusted Networking brands” worldwide. Recently, D-Link has aligned its strategy and has adapted a more focussed approach while addressing customers networking requirement. Our objective is to further strengthen D-Link’s position as “End-to-End Networking solution provider”. Our key agenda this year will be to reach untapped market and create more awareness at end-customer level. Hence, we, at D-Link, shall continue to work closely with channel partners and end-customers.
At D-Link, we believe “Innovation is the key” and have organized various innovative marketing campaigns in the past. Last year, we launched “bits2009” – a multicity channel education seminar for end-customers, wherein we covered 37 cities (36 cities in India and Sri-Lanka). On the end-customer front, we launched D-Link Premier League (DPL), Secure Switch Promotion (SSP), Sales Incentive Programme (SIP), etc. So, 2010 will be no exception and you can definitely look forward to more innovative marketing campaigns form D-Link. In fact, we have already launched “Global partner programme” (GPP) and “Sales Pro2010”.
GPP is aimed at improving the skill sets of partners by providing training opportunities. GPP is divided into four levels, i.e., registered partners, Elite, Silver & Gold. Whereas “SalesPro2010” is an exclusive 2-day training programme for partners, devised with the objective of giving insights to attendees on network design and helping partner understand customers networking requirement in a better way.
Customers today are highly aware of their requirement. Today, they are not only looking for quality products/ solutions, but also higher Return on Investment (ROI) while lowering their Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). So, it is important that partners invest in upgrading their skills and solution delivery capabilities. As a vendor company, we promise to offer them all the support in terms of right products/ solutions and extensive training.
Sandeep Aurora
Director - Sales and Marketing Group – South Asia
INTEL
2010 would again be the year of mobility. Secondly, we would see people getting more conscious of the style and looks of their devices and machines. The slimmer, the better. The next big thing which would drive the Indian IT market would be the emergence of the PC market in the rural India. PC penetration with the connectivity is going to bridge the digital divide this year.
The introduction of new Intel Core i7, i5 and i3 chips coincides with the arrival of our groundbreaking new 32 nanometer (nm) manufacturing process, which, for the first time in the company’s history, will be used to immediately produce and deliver processors and features at a variety of price points, and integrate high-definition graphics inside the processor.
In India, systems are likely to be available from OEMs like HCL, Wipro, Zenith, Acer, MSI, Asus, HP, Lenovo, Sony, Toshiba and Dell as well as from local channel partners. We have three sets of partnerships – global OEMs like HP, Dell, etc., Domestic OEMs like HCL, Zenith, etc. and the normal system integrators. We never differentiate the availability of our offerings for OEMs and channel because in India assembled PC market still contributes a major chunk. So, we don’t want to miss a customer on that front. For us, all the three have an important role to play, and we never neglect any of them and would continue with our focus on local system enablers, who are managed by our four national distributors.
S. Rajendran
CMO, Acer India
On the Mobile computing front, I expect 3D and touch technologies to make a big impact in the marketplace. These would become more mainstream with prices coming down, content becoming more widespread and consumers looking for newer and more efficient user interfaces. The revolutionary new processor from Intel – Core i – would be another major introduction to watch out for. Acer will be one of the first few hardware majors to introduce an entire product line-up, consisting of notebooks and desktops, based on this latest platform. We will also be the first in the market to launch Netbooks sporting the new, more powerful Pinetrail. On the desktops, we expect smaller form-factor desktops to be widely accepted as a mainstream offering in the larger cities with its promise of space saving, power optimization and its promise of “green computing”. We also foresee our Server business assuming prominence this year.
On the TFT monitor front, we may get to see LEDs becoming mainstream and consumers going in for higher form factors. The coming of Monitor-cum-TV devices is another major trend. On projectors, we expect 3D as a technology to make an impact and also the form factors to get smaller and prices to become more mainstream opening up a whole new segment to the category. The technologies to look out for this year would be highly powerful processors, high- capacity hard drives, All-day battery life, Hi- quality display resolution, extended memory options, sleek & slim form factor, ultra-light & ultra-portable, multi-gesture touchpad, Multi sensitive touch screen, 3D technology on various product categories like laptops, desktops, projectors, Wireless keyboard & mouse, LCD Monitors sized above 20” and All-In-One PCs.
Our Razor focus on bringing in the latest technologies first into the market has made Acer a pioneer in the PC market and has been the first to always come out with products launched on the latest platforms (Centrino, Santa Rosa, Intel Atom, tablet PC, uSFF, etc.). Making our product easy to use and affordable to the end-consumer and remaining true to our corporate philosophy of “breaking barriers between people and technology”. Most interesting form factors on its products (like on the Desktops, with the ultra-small form- factor desktop, which is just 3 litres in size where competition is present mostly with 10 & 30 Ltr boxes).
We believe that there exists a huge opportunity growth for Acer and its partner network, in the Commercial & SMB segments as well as emerging segments like Telco and infrastructure projects. We have many inherent strengths, which we now plan to utilize to break into Commercial accounts for ensuring accelerated growth and a strong presence in the commercial space to build on our unprecedented success in the consumer market. We will also continue to focus on our traditional segments of education, BFSI and Government.
Efficient supply chain management is at the core of a successful channel business model. It is important to ensure that there is no drop in service levels and that every customer comes out with positive experience. We advise our channel partners that eventually market conditions will be positive. The most important point to be noted here is that one also needs to start planning for the bullish period that will follow. We also suggest our channel partners that they need to engage more strongly and closely with Acer to understand the whole Acer range and position the full suite of product offerings in their customer segments (irrespective of the T2 being retail, or VAR or box mover).
Rajan Sharma
General Manager (Sales & Marketing MB BU)
GIGABYTE India
2010 will be very exciting in terms of technology and platform. We will see new processors with GPU inbuilt from Intel, which will be the biggest driver for technology in 2010. Also, SATA3 and USB3 will unleash high-speed data transfers.
For GIGABYTE India, “333” will be the theme for 2010. It means 333 USB ACCELERATION, USB3.0, SATA3.0. We would continue to be the leader in motherboard innovation and ensure proper product supply, information, hi-end product line, be close to the consumer, create new markets for above technologies and look for new opportunities at the same time.
To be the winners, channel partners should continue to keep oneself updated on the latest trends and offer customer TCO in terms of long-term products. Investment in products with high quality and branding complemented by tie-up with vendors who have excellent post-sales network, would give them an edge over others.
Naved Chaudhary
Head – Marketing
INTEX Technologies (India) Ltd.
Any contraption, which adds value to your life in the form of convenience, status, satisfaction of needs, enhancement in personality, comfort, would fall under the category of lifestyle products.
INTEX TFT monitor business vertical has recently introduced 19" LED monitor and there will be more efforts to keep the momentum alive by bringing in contemporary, value-for- money and high-quality products. The DVD player portfolio would continue to have an enhanced focus on utility and will have new models with complete profile, i.e. USB, MMC playability options, etc. The computer peripheral vertical will keep bringing in utility- centric and aesthetic value propositions in multimedia speakers, computer UPS, keyboards and mouse segments. Not only this, INTEX has many interesting plans for its mobile phone range. Up till now, the focus has been on Dual SIM phones offering a complete gamut of multimedia, convenience and web-based features. The range will soon have interesting variants in the smartphone and 3G genre.
As far as lifestyle market is concerned, we have quite a bohemian and compact offering in the pipeline for Intex desktop segment which would be shared soon. As a selling tip for channel partners that will help them in 2010, they should focus more on secondary and tertiary sales. They should also expand their offerings from IT to lifestyle products as this would help a lot in fuelling their growth. More and more companies are coming up with innovative strategies for distributors' and resellers' benefits. Hence, this would be a step in the right direction.
Ashim Mathur,
Director Marketing - E&D Division,
Microsoft India
An average customer today spends a lot more time on his computer and does a lot more with his computer and therefore it has become a part of lifestyle than just being a peripheral. Microsoft Entertainment and Devices ensures that all our products are not just purely functional but feature top-of-the-line technology and design. Each of our products are designed keeping in mind the user's desire for comfort, style and technology. Therefore, products that are part of everyday life such as laptops and PCs, and accessories like headphones, mice and webcams are now looked upon as lifestyle products that are a part of your personality and help you in simplifying your life.
With BluTrack and the best wireless range, we meet these requirements perfectly. We offer a number of products that are extremely portable, stylish and are great for lightweight computing on the go, therefore pairing perfectly with netbook computers. Some of these products include the Arc Mouse, Compact Optical Mouse 500, Explorer Mini Mouse, Wireless Notebook Optical Mouse 3000. And to add to this extensive list are the newly-launched Wireless Mobile Mouse 400 and Wireless Desktop 3000. Also, with the increasing amount of time that people spend with computers, ergonomics plays a very important role and we have products specially designed keeping your comfort and health in mind.
We see a great opportunity for computer peripherals in the Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities. Consumers and small businesses have recognized the importance of computing and the production of low-cost notebooks/PCs and a stable growth of retail in India will fuel the industry. We, at Microsoft, are closely watching the trends and have worked towards giving our consumers value for money. We recently launched a series of such products which include Wired Keyboard 200, Optical Mouse 200 and LifeChat LX 1000 to match their requirements and provide best value.
We are committed to providing better experience and accessibility to customers with its range of gaming and computer peripherals products. We will be launching a range of products this year and all of them are based on our basic principles of style and comfort which combine the best technology. In addition, we will also continue our various initiatives to inform educate and empower its dealers across the country. With the launch of our “Designed for India” range, we hope to tap the growth opportunities in the Tier-2 and Tier-3 towns
We have a network of 6,000 retailers/dealers across 110 cities in the countries. In the coming year, we plan to increase our focus on upcountry markets, keeping in mind the changes customer lifestyle and needs in these markets. Alongside this, we will also tap in the opportunity offered by the organized retail. We have exciting plans of consolidating our share of sales from these stores also. Further, we will continue to offer the best world-class products to the Indian consumer.
Channel partner will continue to play an important role in the sales and marketing of Microsoft Hardware products due to their proximity to the customer. Microsoft Hardware hopes to enlighten these dealers about its latest products, initiatives which, in turn, will equip them to be in a position to provide the consumer with the relevant information to help them in their purchase decisions. Our goal is also to ensure complete customer satisfaction through quality after-sales service and good product warranty which we will achieve through growth and development of our Channel partners.
Princy Bhatnagar
Director, Office Business Group
Xerox India Limited 
As we start the year 2010, it is important that we relook at 2009; on how had businesses shaped up and what are the key takeaways. 2009 has been a year of major changes in the IT landscape. It has redefined how business will happen in the years to come. Most of the changes are permanent and good for the health of business, customers and channel partners. The shift of Indian IT growth from equipment to services was expected to drive momentum in 2012 onwards. This cycle has come forward to 2009 and in that sense it has been a landmark year. Finally, corporate India is warming up to Green technologies for business competitiveness and cost efficiency and we have seen significant steps towards this primarily driven by cost reduction needs in all segments of companies. Vendors who have enabled genuine cost efficiency solutions to customers have gained momentum in the market.
The Indian economy will witness healthy growth trajectory in 2010 and there is no doubt that the Indian economy will grow faster than most other economies. There are clear factors that will drive the GDP in India.
The bottom of the pyramid of all IT hardware sales (PC, laptops, printers, MFP, OS, peripherals) will continue to be stagnant at best or might even decline 5–10%. IT distribution will be strengthened by the role of Telecom products, Security solutions and Digital consumer products. Overall, the revenue stream will grow 8–10% for the IT industry, but with a much higher mix of Domestic services revenue. Services revenue will grow by over 50% and will account for majority of the growth in 2010. Customers are clearly going to make buying decision on three key criteria: TCO, Business efficiency, Green technologies. This means that the hardware specification in itself will become less relevant in all purchase decisions.
Green technologies with better cost efficiency and less of carbon deposits will be the most visible technology shift in 2010. More and more companies and customers are looking ahead towards products that consume less power and are easy to recycle at the end of life. This not only adds on to their productivity but also builds on their responsibility towards the environment and sustainability. Security solutions are also likely to create a buzz in 2010 and are the single biggest opportunity in the market today. We, at Xerox India, have always shared a great rapport and relationship with our partners. The growth has been mutual; we have grown and expanded in India and have helped them grow in their businesses. However, in this process there has been one key element that has been consistent – Solutions delivered to customers need at all times. The only way partners have grown is by meeting customers and solving their business critical problems and in this process redefines the boundaries of what they will do or not do for their customers. We expect 98% of our revenues to come through partner in 2010.
With support from channel partners and three concrete growth planks, viz. a) Driving enterprise customers towards business efficiency solutions, b) Being a Technology provider for channel partners in the solution space for Mid market and Government, and c) Aligning the channel training needs to drive solution selling approach within existing partners and new partners, Xerox India is poised for a growth story in 2010.
George Paul
Executive Vice President
HCL Infosystems Ltd.
HCL has always been bringing new and innovative products in sync with the pace of technology to benefit our customers. As far as the top trends in lifestyle product offerings for 2010 are concerned, we are looking forward to bringing products with rich aesthetics and which are not power hungry with faster processing capabilities.
The HCL ME campaign has got a very good response from all the stakeholders alike and we will continue the efforts for a sustained brand building, and marking a space for the ME range amongst the youth and users that want to stay connected even on the move. Other form factors like Nettops and traditional desktops will continue to make their space amongst the large population that is still unconnected. We will further strengthen the movemen. We will come with innovative finance models or making purchase of a PC really affordable and democratized.
We plan to come with a few technological innovations in the lifestyle computing in 2010. As far as the top trends in product offerings for 2010 are concerned, we are looking forward to come with products like All-in-One PC, 3D Gaming PC, Wimax-based PC & Notebooks, Thin & Light Notebooks, Netbooks with high battery life and colour options, Multi-touch capabilities, Wimax Technology and Cloud computing. Today, computers have become a part of everyday life of consumers. Therefore, it is imperative to pass on the information based on features and benefits of the product in order to facilitate right buying decision. Moreover, the Channel partners should be the catalyst in the sale of genuine OS devices to provide optimized consumer experience.
We recently launched Enterprise Commercial Channel (ECC), a major initiative in its enterprise channel strategy. ECC provides opportunities to Channel partners to take complete bouquet of HCL’s and its alliance partner’s range of ICT Solutions to SMBs and also to end-customers. This would help the partners to grow their business by moving up in the value chain and provide complete ICT solutions.
Rengith Nair
National Marketing Manager
Belkin India Pvt. Ltd.
Lifestyle products are the ones that blur the line between your daily digital needs and your individual style statement. In today’s world, lifestyle products are more about setting your style and defining your personality. A mobile set is less seen as a complicated technological device which is a gift of science but more of a style statement and lifestyle product. Similar is the case with a Bluetooth headphone or an iPod, etc.
Of course, there will be a shift in the adaptability of new technologies. The new-age consumer is looking for solutions to make his/her life simpler. The consumers are ready to experiment with the new products and do appreciate every new innovation. We being a year old company are fully geared up to showcase our new range of digital lifestyle products. The top trends would include completely redesigned cooling solutions and other accessories for your smart homes. I feel that the Wi-Fi products will drive success in 2010 due to high broadband penetration and wireless technologies adoption. Also, Netbook sale will see a noticeable growth. Moreover, the smart devices which come up as a convergence of telecom and IT will be a highlight in 2010.
For tapping the market, we intend to continue doing what we do the best, making stylish, innovative, reliable and user-friendly products. We will provide products which give value for money and provide our consumers with solutions. Lucrative offers and consumer awareness is high on priority for us. Also, we hope that our well-motivated channel partners will also aid in achieving our targets for this year. More of impulsive buying behaviour is observed for this category as differed from the traditional IT products. Channel will definitely play a very important role but more than that it is about the touch points and awareness of consumers. Keeping this is mind, we decided to enter into non-IT retail stores and Odyssey being our first venture. The idea is simple. We thought if you were to buy a car accessory, you will turn to a car showroom and not to an IT store. Similarly, for our other products like laptop bags one would go to an accessory store rather than an IT store. With this, we do not intend to come out of the IT stores but we just want to add on to the consumer touch points. With the simple understanding of our consumer behaviour, we extended ourselves to non-IT retails keeping our IT retail completely on priority and in place. Our channel just needs to understand our consumers and their requirements better for higher sales. And, do not battle competition with price. That has been my mantra, always. Our consumers and their requirements better for higher sales. And, do not battle competition with price. That has been my mantra, always.
Austin Huang
Regional Head - Sales,
Transcend - SAARC & APAC 
As an industry trend, we would see that the overall capacity of these products will be increased. For example, our Store Jet series external hard drive will soon introduce a larger 640GB version. Also, USB3.0 will be introduced and implemented to our products with transfer rate 10 times the USB 2.0 standard. With its major feature of the SuperSpeed bus, which provides a transfer mode at 4.8 Gbit/s, this will greatly enhance the feasibility of large data transfers between memory devices. Currently, we are planning to introduce a series of USB 3.0 products including pen drives, external hard drives, external DVD/CD in the second quarter of 2010. Transcend, as an expert in memory solutions, carries a variety of product lines to service our customer’s needs and this year we are expecting more convergence among different technologies. As an example, we are very interested in the development of our own media player product. By simply connecting one of Transcend’s storage devices such as a pen drive or a portable hard drive, we may stream HD movies stored on the storage device, through the media player and display on a medium like LCD TV without the need of a DVD player or a PC. This year, we will increase our presence in LFRs with our lifestyle products and provide our service through Accel once it is ready. This will increase both the product values and offer higher service quality to our customers.
When handling lifestyle channels, innovative ways of marketing a product are heavily weighted in its success, conventional IT is more about cost performance ratio. As we observed from markets around the world, there is a trend of this borderline thinning between the two. We believe the same is happening in India and we do suggest to our partners to reach into channels they traditionally would not approach.
Manisha Sood
Country Manager
SanDisk India & SAARC Region 
In the growing devices market today – be it the computers, MP3 players, mobile phones or cameras – all are a part of lifestyle products. In a dynamic and constantly changing world, the ability to “do more” especially while on the move is first on everyone’s growing wish-list. This need of the consumers for “more” has made the digital devices, memory hungry! With the deluge of convergence digital devices, be it laptops, mobile phones, MP3 players or digital cameras in the market, what differentiates these products is their memory capacity. And, it is here that flash memory comes into play. Flash memory has been able to democratize technology over the years, and has moved from basic data storage to “lifestyle storage”. SanDisk empowers its customers to do more with their digital devices, offering them innovative ways to enjoy their content – be it the Mobile memory cards, Imaging cards and USB flash drives.
With the explosion in digital content necessitating the need for higher memory/storage, 2010 will fortunately bring new technologies to market that will enable users to meet new storage demands at a reasonable cost and SanDisk is uniquely positioned to capitalize on the storage needs of the large, fast-paced Indian market.
For 2010, our endeavour is to extend our portfolio and diversify our product offerings in India. As far as lifestyle market is concerned, we will continue to innovate and drive the need on the benefits of high storage memory cards. We will continue to roll out a host of interactive consumer initiatives across multiple cities and expand our reach and brand presence through a series of outdoor media brand initiatives.
Channels play an extremely significant role in furthering the growth of flash memory in India as they act as a bridge between SanDisk and its existing, potential and prospective customers. We work very closely with our channel partners in creating awareness and educating them. The handling for channel partners in the lifestyle segment certainly requires different treatment as educating the partners is as critical as marketing a good product.
VP Sajeevan
Assistant Director – CSP Division
Canon India
If we talk about the technology trends witnessed in the last few years, then we have seen a lot of shifts in the recent time. Today, the world is moving towards WiFi, and if we talk about India alone, it has 525 million consumers using WiFi phones. Almost every laptop sold in India comes equipped with WiFi. If we talk about the home market, any middle-class family would be seen owning a minimum of two laptops, one for the person who works and another for the family, hence adding that the number of households having WiFi broadband network is on a constant rise. So, the trend which is likely to catch up in 2010 would be WiFi. Keeping this in mind, I would say that it is high time that we establish WiFi network as this would serve as a driving factor or technology fetching us a better market share and opportunities. So, developing along this line, we at Canon have launched the world’s smallest WiFi printer in the month of November and are coming out with seven more such models offering a wide range of WiFi scope to the Indian consumers.
The positive growth that India is heading to is a good news in itself for the channel community and the Indian consumers both. 2010 is going to be a big market for all of us in the industry. SOHO and SMBs are already on the growing path and they are witnessing more growth this year. Big corporates are coming back to normalcy post recession and 2010 is going to be a promising year for them, given the huge opportunities that it is fetching. Again, heavy investment from the Government that is coming in the field of infrastructure in the states like Bihar, Orissa, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, part of Rajasthan, projects like the NREGA and the Mission Mode are going to throw great opportunities for all of us to sell IT peripherals in the country. Lastly, education which is a booming sector in India is also going to give us great space to grow our businesses, whether it be peripherals, computers or new technological devices. Hence, infrastructure and education should be the key verticals everyone should be looking at this year.
Tushad Talati
Head – Brand & Communication
Epson India
Lifestyle products encompass gadgets and gizmos that are typically used in day-to-day life to make life efficient, easier, fun and more entertaining and enjoyable. They are also often personal style statements and are reflective of a person’s personality and/or interests in life. Lifestyle products cater to both rational and emotional aspirations/benefits of the buyer. However, often the emotional benefits outweigh the rational ones.
Our printers are going to get more stylish and classy looking with each new product introduction. This trend began 2–3 years ago and already some of the current range of products in the market from us are award-winning designs. A good example is the Epson Stylus TX 700 AiO – an IF Design Award winner. Also, printers are going to go beyond to encompass and integrate utilities into one system – e.g. a photo printer with a built-in digital photo frame.
We have two fantastic new concepts to introduce in the first quarter of 2010. The first is an all-new AiO projector – the Epson DM3. This boasts a projector with integrated DVD and speakers. This product will revolutionize the home theatre market in India and the way we entertain. The second product is the latest introduction from our PictureMate series of photo printers. This stylish, portable photo printer integrates a photo frame so you can in one shot show off your pictures and print them on the spot. Both these products are set to wow audiences across the world.
Lots of new products with exciting and stylish features, backed by aggressive marketing and promotions are the key to success for Epson. Thanks to globalization of India, consumers are far more aware and are no longer looking at products simply from the utility point of view. A product must appeal to individual sensibilities and must make a statement about the person that owns it. Like I love to say, gone are the days of Bajaj Chetak and Sumeet Mixer – the take-it or leave-it products with the take-it or leave-it attitude. The same will necessarily apply to the channel involved in selling IT and lifestyle products.
Gautam Ghosh,
Country Manager,
ViewSonic India
In India, ViewSonic offers an exhaustive range of notebooks, All-in-One PCs, media players, Digital Photo Frames, netbooks, PC Mini and LCD monitors. In fact, we were the pioneers in bringing in the All-in-One PC in the Indian market. The latest trend is the small, low on budget yet high on performance products. In the notebook segment, ultra- portable category with lightweight laptops will be high on demand. Our notebook series features with extendable battery life and other high-performance features uploaded with Windows 7 Home premium operating system. Our stylish series of notebooks are perfect blends of alluring style with power-packed performance.
Recently, ViewSonic also launched two new LED monitors in the market. Promising to offer Eco friendly and GO GREEN products, the new green LED monitors offer environmentally friendly monitors with less energy consumption and promising definitive standard of viewing quality.
In India, the monitor market is already experiencing a boom time. Higher Resolutions, Full HD wider screens, multifunctional solutions and integration of other computing peripherals is revolutionizing the PC segment like never before. We expect this trend to continue. The three major technology development trends will be Full HD resolutions, eco-friendly displays that use less power and LED backlight technology. The multi- touchscreen technology will see a much larger presence in 2010. The most prominent development is the 3D technology displays in 2010. Thus, LED technology and 3D content will take the lead in the coming years.
The year will also see new technologies catching up like (HD) monitors and 3D gaming monitors which will revolutionize the gaming and home entertainment space.
At ViewSonic, we would be further consolidating our business to sustain our position as a leading expert in the display market segment. For the year 2010, ViewSonic will work on a comprehensive marketing strategy focussing on consolidation of business across various cities. We would be regionalizing our marketing plans to address the issues and concerns of each zone. Apart from the marketing strategy, we will focus on expanding the channel network by recruiting more partners from the Tier-II and Tier-III cities.
We believe that the channel forms an integral part of the entire sales process. In the year 2009, the industry witnessed a growth in PC desktop sales, chiefly driven by demand from home users, SOHO and SMBs. The overall desktop PC market in India is rapidly evolving with stronger sales coming from Tier-II and Tier-III class cities. Thus, the channel partners have to extensively work and centre on the sales strategy focussing on the diversified and specific target audience.
