APC outlines its expansion plans

Satya Mithra Ashok

BANGALORE: APC, the global provider of power management systems, has

ambitious plans to expand on its existing channel base in the country for the

year 2004. According to the company, it hopes to double its SI strength from the

present 100 to 200 by the end of the year.

"This year will also see APC involving itself aggressively in training

its partners. This training will be four fold - product training, customer

identification, sizing of requirements and the standard sales training. We want

our channels to be equipped not only on the product front but to understand the

type and needs of customers in order to open their eyes to more

opportunities," said marketing manager of APC India Subodh Tagare.

According to him, apart from increasing the current channel base of over

2,000 partners, the company will be adding partners in smaller cities. The

company hopes to expand its partner base to 350 cities from the current 250 in a

year's time.

Replying to a question on the Indian market, Tagare said, "In terms of

absolute revenue considerations, the lower end of the market consisting of the

SOHO and SMB sectors will continue to fetch in the rewards. In percentage growth

terms, the enterprise segment will notch a larger growth. This is because the

enterprise base is small and any growth will make a big difference." He

added that the APC's enterprise data center product Infrastructure, which was

introduced in the last months of 2003, already has three customers on the Indian

front.

The company also said that it will be bringing out close to ten new products

at least during the course of this year. Two products will hit the market within

the next two weeks and one more on the UPS front will be brought out within the

month.

(CyberMedia News Service)