Abacus is one of the few companies which have gained recognition from global companies such as Sony and HP. Abacus is the only Indian memory manufacturer to supply to HP. The company further plans to enhance its reach in India by taking its partner network to 4000 across 300 cities. Mr. Vipul Modi, Vice President- Marketing and Sales, Abacus Peripherals shares Company’s Plans and Channel strategies for year 2016.
Q. How would you summarize overall performance of your company in year 2015?
A. Beating all odds and despite all market and dollar challenges, Abacus as a company has managed to grow at 15% over couple of years in terms of revenue and 11% in terms of bottom-line which is a rare feat in IT manufacturing and distribution specially for an Indian organization. Our growth was mainly driven by OEM demand and addition of new brands like Hitachi HDD and Inno3D NVIDIA GPU that have given us this boost. Stakeholders of abacus have developed an upbeat mood to take on challenges. We can proudly say both market conditions and people internally and externally have contributed positively to this success over the last few years.
Q. Can you honestly tell why should consumers or partners trust your brand?
A. ZION as a brand was established in the year 1997. Since then we have been making quality products and supplying to extremely quality sensitive buyers like HP and Sony. We pride ourselves in being the only Indian memory manufacturer to supply to HP. We feel we have the right expertise to provide our consumers with high grade memory modules which will satisfy all their performance needs. No other brand has the confidence to offer a silver coin with every faulty product replacement.
Q. What's your opinion about your Government of India's 'Make-in-India' program? How do you support this program?
A. We are a very strong supporter of this program. It has created a win-win situation for the people, organizations and county as a whole. In fact, unlike other distribution companies, we are amongst a rare few who actually own a brand and actually make it here in India itself. ZION takes pride in being an Indian brand and giving stiff competition to global companies, also we almost unmatched in terms of service and quality.
Q. What kind of regulatory changes do you think should happen in order to improve the business ecosystem in the country?
A. I feel the import structure of PC components need to be looked at closely. Current import rates encourage parallel imports which directly hurt the government exchequer. Duty structure for imports also need some revision, which is been in discussion since long. In addition, government must also look at incentivizing companies manufacturing and assembling in India. This will help in fighting against the parallel imports of foreign brands.
Q. How does the channel help you to reach out to your potential customers? What's your channel strength?
A. Our channel strength lies in our reach. Currently we are catering to more than 3000 retailers and resellers across 200 cities in India. Our channel helps us to reach out to our consumers far and wide. Initially with online distribution there was a scare in the market which will be but now the channel has adopted ways to work with it and around it and this has promoted new channel for us to reach our target audience.
Q. What are your assurance for providing excellent service support to your customer?
A. With Zion, we are providing table replacement to consumers. We are also considering modules which are physically damaged and burnt. This although is an additional cost, but it gives a lot of confidence and peace of mind to our dealers and consumers that they can confidently walk into any of our 30 service locations and walk out with a replacement incase their memory modules are not working as per their expectation.
Q. What's your roadmap or strategy for the year 2016?
A. We will be focusing on 3 key areas for 2016 –
1. Reach. We target to reach atleast 4000 dealers across 300 cities.
2. Product Mix in each brand. Our idea is to achieve a minimum of 30% sale from higher end products.
3. Addition of new aligned products. We are in talks with new vendors, a lot of permutation and combination is going on to bring the best technology to the masses.
Q. What are your current revenue? What are your projection for the year 2016?
A. Currently we are well on track for Rs170 cr. But we would like to touch a landmark of Rs 200cr!
