GURGAON, INDIA: The ongoing global financial crunch is being considered as one of the worst phases for investors and there is hue and cry across the industries.

However, Princy Bhatnagar, Director-New Office Group, Xerox India is an exception who is not perturbed by the downtrend in the industry. He sees opportunities galore for Xerox even in such a situation.

"Big financial crunch can mean bigger business opportunities. The idea is how you look at the situation. What we all need to realize is that no company will scrap its IT needs, if they need new machines or new solutions they will still buy, but in such time every penny spent will be questioned. Everyone will demand a higher return on investment and that is where we see the opportunity. This is the best time for the vendors and solution providers to showcase cost effective solutions that could meet the varied requirements of end-customers in a limited budget," remarked Bhatnagar.

"Considering the fact that financial melting is happening across the globe and every industry has to be efficient in utilizing the resources, Xerox will be promoting rental model of printing solution in the next quarter and will attract customers for pay-on-per-click printing solution. This way, customers can save their expenses and the strategy will promote the new printing concept in the market," Bhatnagar elaborated.

Bhatnagar is also gung-ho about the options and growth that the upcountry markets offers. With the objective to build a strong ground with channel in SMB market Xerox recently concluded trade shows in 16 tier-2 cities like Chandigarh, Indore, Meerut, Jodhpur, Siliguri, Ludhiana, Karnal, Rohtak, Shillong and others in first half of the year.

Focusing on color printing, Xerox will be conducting roadshows in 15 new cities and towns by the end of this year.

 "Upcountry market has got immense potential in printing business and we are exploring those areas now. We train our channel to promote high-end printing solution for B and C class cities and we have our own staff to handle service related issues," he said.

Discussing the opportunities why Xerox was enthused with upcountry market he said, "But what is amazing is the options that upcountry partners are coming up with.

They will come up with such printing requests that we are also sometimes amazed at the type of work that is happening in such locations.

When you operate in major cities you know that the market is set and you know what are the products and solutions that will sell. But when such innovative ideas come up from upcountry locations then you are really enthused."

Talking about the challenges that Xerox faced while doing business in upcountry locations he elaborated that, "The biggest challenge is the turn around time for complaint handling, when we get a complaint from metro cities, the complaint is closed within two hours, but that is difficult to achieve with upcountry locations especially in case of a defective part. As a rule Xerox send the part directly to the customer, our partners do not need to take stock up our parts. What we do is that we will train engineers from our partner's firm who can handle a normal complaint and close it. But if the part is defective, then sending it from one region to another is what becomes a hassle. With many different tax regimes and entry and exit barriers in every state, our customers sometimes suffer downtime, which is a bother for us since we set very high standards. But we are working to resolve these issues."

Making their foray into system integration space, this year Xerox also started working with 25 system integrators who are promoting Xerox Office Group products in tier-2 and 3 cities. "Working with SIs has been good so far. We have spent considerable time seeing where the overlaps are and assessing each other's strengths so that the work is mutually beneficially."

Are any expansion plans for channel partners in the offing? "We are very happy working with the set of people that we have chosen. We are not the kind of company that will announce massive expansion in channel and go on adding everyone. We work with a select group but ensure that the partnership is long and fruitful for both," he commented.