RP Infosystems eyes North India

New Delhi: RP Infosystems, the Kolkata-based company, has set up its third computer plant in Parwanoo, Himachal Pradesh. The plant is ready to roll out a range of PCs and laptops, aimed primarily at the semi urban market. The plant and processes are ISO 9001: 2000 and  14001: 2004 compliant.

Two other plants are located in Howrah, West Bengal and Shillong, Meghalaya. Currently the plants manufacture keyboards, mouse and monitors, but plan to produce motherboards and RAMs very soon. The product range, branded Chirag, is priced between Rs 14,500 and Rs 28,500 to meet the requirements of the price sensitive rural and semi urban markets.

At a press meet today, Kaustuv Ray, Chairman RP Group, said: “We realized early that the real market lies in the smaller towns and cities. When we talk about computerization, we only consider metro cities and overlook the vast potential offered by Category B and C type towns. According to recent surveys, 59 percent of all hardware sales in the country have taken place in smaller towns and it is a market which seems to be growing in leaps and bounds. As such our physical presence in this market is our USP.”

RP Infosystems plans to open up retail outlets in small towns through a franchisee network. This will include towns like Raipur, Satna and Barabanki etc. apart from Delhi and NCR and the other larger towns like Jaipur and Chandigarh. This is the model that was followed in West Bengal and the North East and helped in increasing PC penetration to semi urban areas.

The company has set up information points at strategic locations in small towns. These are not sales points. It has partnered with systems integrators for the actual selling process. This is a win-win situation where integrators are provided with branded computers and the support service from the company. The price is maintained at almost assembled computers level. And the customer has the satisfaction of interfacing with a local person for sales and after sales services.

CIOL Bureau