Wacom’s Intuitive Pen-input devices & solutions for Education, Conference Rooms and E-signature
M. Nanda
Managing Director, Wacom India
Founded in 1983 and headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, Wacom’s vision is to bring people and technology closer together through natural interface technologies. This vision alone has made Wacom the world’s leading manufacturer of pen tablets, interactive pen displays and digital interface solutions.
The advanced technology of Wacom’s intuitive input devices has been used to create some of the most exciting digital art, films, special effects, fashions and designs around the world and provides business and home users with the ability to explore digital content creation in a comfortable, natural way.
Wacom’s core Solutions for IT segment includes - The DTU line of interactive pen displays and the STU line of e-signature solution.
With a global market share of 90%, Wacom is today an OEM Partner to Samsung, Fujitsu, HP, Lenovo, Panasonic, ASUS, etc. It has its offices in USA, Australia, Germany, Singapore, Korea, China and Taiwan besides India.
What kind of strategy do you follow to bring out your Display & Signature solutions in the market?
Wacom has a leadership position in most verticals where we operate, upwards of 90% market shares. Our solutions are widely being used in education – for classroom teaching, distance learning classroom studios; Corporate Boardrooms – for video-conference discussions and annotations (which is making notes with digital pen) ; e-Document or paperless workflow solutions like e-Courts. Similarly our Signature solutions are being used by Banks, Retailers, Corporations, etc for variety of applications utilizing digital signatures.
Traditionally, the Display and Signature solutions were very different markets and required drastically different approaches. But today with the changing nature of the System Integrator and VAR community, these two solutions are being provided by the same partners.
Our strategy is to approach both the prospective end customers and partners (for broad-basing) simultaneously. This has been our approach globally, but we also ensure we don’t sell directly and only participate in selling through our partners.
To aid sales we have a full-fledged in-house marketing team. On the marketing side, we have taken a 360 approach -- participating in b2b channel events, organizing trainings for channel partner sales team, advertising on a regular basis to create demand and finally to generate leads and additionally rope in new partners.
How is your Channel Network structured across the country?
Wacom has a strong partner base which comprises IT System Integrators, Audio-Video Integrators and also VARs who sell our products and solutions. We work with our national distribution partner Aditya Infotech. They support our SIs and VAR partners around the country.
We also have a nationwide service availability and availability of ample back-up units for critical customers. Nevertheless, our channel partner community is growing by the day. Our sales team is constantly receiving calls from partners around the country who wish to incorporate our solutions into their offering.
How do you strive to be different from the rest in the market in terms of your solutions?
We are the pioneers of the pen display technologies and till date have led this market. Our quality and technology prowess is recognized by both customers and partners alike.
Our products are robust and conditioned for Indian markets where usage can get a little rough at times and the weather also pays tricky (high summer temperatures in some parts and humidity in others). Today Wacom is leading because of our resolve to be a ‘solution-in-the-box’ concept where a customer can quickly set-up his own solution.
On specifications level, we are always leading the market with our products getting better with every new model launch. Our partners and customers recognize the brand Wacom and its core principles. Our brand stands for quality and innovation. Customers find ease and delight in using our products whereas partners have no problems in selling them.
With Wacom brand it’s a win-win situation for both the end user and their solution partner.
Wacom ensures signature accuracy for GRT Jewellers
Founded by G Rajendran in 1964, the GRT Group runs various businesses in hospitality, agriculture, education, trading and non-conventional power. Part of the prestigious GRT Group is GRT Jewellers, a reputable retail chain in South India.GRT Jewellers represents one of the Group’s most profitable business ventures.
Their unique selling point is an innovative jewellery saving scheme, which allows customers to deposit smaller amounts of money to buy gold, thus making gold ownership accessible to the not-so-rich. The challenge was to serve the perennially heavy daily customer volume as accurately and quickly as possible. A major issue that created very long processing times and massive amounts of paperwork was the opening and closing of the individual’s gold account. Every customer had to sign on and off with every transaction. Variations in the signature voided the form, which needed one more to be filled again.
The STU-500 provided instant visualisation of a customer’s signature. The system process was simple - to accurately capture a customer’s signature when he opened and closed his gold account. Signature accuracy was of prime importance, as it was the only and surest form of individual authentication for large volumes of people.
The Benefits
• After automation, positive customer experience increased tremendously.
• The compact design also made it easier for use at smaller counters.
• An estimated 90% time was saved at backend operations.
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Digitization at SRM Campus makes Processing of Application faster
SRM University is one of the top ranking universities in India with 33,044 students and 2358 faculty across all the campus, offering a wide range of undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral programs in Engineering, Management, Medicine and Health sciences, and Science and Humanities.
Every year SRM University enrolls around 15000 students into various streams of education. More than 1lac enrollment forms are filled each year and storing them is a huge task in itself. Each form needs signature from the students applying at the university. Prior to using the e- signature solution from Wacom, the administration at the SRM University used to scan and digitize the signature on each form which was a very tedious and a time consuming process.
The IT department at the SRM University then procured STU- 500 to overcome this problem of filling signature forms. With 21 units already installed the admission application process is simplified greatly, the STU helps capture student signatures on online admission forms as well as the normal admission forms.
The Benefits
• Highly beneficial to reduce time of processing applications & help in cost savings
• Digitization of Student Application forms would help save time and help SRM process applications at a faster pace
• Digital Signature would help to avoid maintaining paper records/documents of Application Forms
• In the future, digital signatures would help to capture student signatures while issuing ID Cards to them after admission into the University
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Digital Paperless environment for Delhi & Guwahati High Court
Documentation of paper has been a major point of concern for the High Courts in the states. With new cases coming in all the time, the amount of paper work is huge. This is where Wacom stepped in and the saved the day for the mentioned High courts.
With the use of interactive pen display, the Delhi and the Guwahati High courts now maintain a paperless work environment.
Benefits for Guwahati High Court- DTU 1631
• Using it for paperless workflow. Saving huge costs on paper
• Being used by the judges to take notes digitally on the case document
• Data Security
• Faster work process and movement of files, since everything is done digitally
• Acquired 23 units of DTU 1631
Benefits for Delhi High Court- Cintiq 21
• Using it for E- courts
• Digital paperless environment
• Data Security
• Judges use software like Acrobat pro and One Note to make annotations and take notes on case history
• Acquired 22 units of Cintiq 21
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Hilton Hotel, Milan digitizes with Wacom
The Hilton Milan is one of Hilton's facilities in Italy. Located centrally in Milan, the Hilton is the venue of choice for guests that visit Milan on business or for a holiday trip. It offers 319 guest rooms, meeting rooms, a bar and restaurant and a fitness area.
Hilton Milan decided to digitalize the whole check-in process with the clear idea to focus more on its guests. Without the digital check-in, the receptionists needed to stare at their monitor, typing in guest data rather than concentrating on the visitor and interacting with him during the process.
Together with Passport Scan UK, Hilton managed to simplify the check-in procedure. The guest's passport is scanned and all necessary data to fill in the relevant forms is transferred from the passport automatically. Only additional data that is not on the passport needs to be added and typed in manually. The signatures that the guest has to supply are done on Wacom's STU-520 LCD signature tablet and directly integrated into the forms as well.
The Benefits
• The check- in process has become completely interactive between the receptionist and the guest.
• All the information is automatically digitized.
• Check-in time is reduced up to 80% as a result higher guest satisfaction
• The process cost is saved highly. Cost on paper, toner etc is saved as everything is digitally saved.
• With STU- 520 color display lot other applications such as maps and hotel promotions can be displayed.
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