Acer India to focus on SMEs

Asim Raina & Rajitha Saleem

After emphasizing on large corporates for a significant period of time, Acer

India has devised a new strategy for the Indian market wherein it would be

focusing more on the small and medium enterprise (SME) segment. And as part of

the initiative, Acer, in association with Microsoft recently organized an event

called ‘Microsoft Overdrive,’ which consisted of an exposition featuring

customized solutions from a number of ISVs based on Acer servers.

The event also consisted of a seminar where the participants were given an

insight into the various solutions for managing the growth of the company.

"The SME segment consists of 20 per cent of the overall business of Acer.

This is expected to increase to 30-35 per cent with the new initiatives,"

said Acer India Pvt. Ltd., GM (Marketing) S Rajendran.

In the first phase, the event was conducted in Kolkata, Bhubaneswar,

Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore, Pune, Mumbai, New Delhi, Ludhiana and Lucknow.

This will later be conducted in 10 others cities, including Mysore, Cochin and

Trichy.

"The SMEs need to be educated about the various options that are

available for doing business and this channel initiative is aimed to achieve

that end," added Rajendran. The event is in addition to the channel

initiative that Acer had announced early January called 'Fire Your Aces' for its

channel partners.

The scheme not only addresses organizations but also rewards individual

marketing executives in the channel. The highlight of the initiative is a return

ticket to Singapore, which would be awarded to the organization that has earned

maximum incentives, in each region.

Almost 150 resellers had attended the event in Delhi. Acer India, which has

about 250 resellers all over the country, had recently bagged some major

contracts. In the PC segment, Acer has targeted sales of about 40,000-45,000

units in the current year, he said.

This apart, Acer intends to increase the share of ‘barebone’ PCs from the

current five to 15 per cent. The company, which currently has offices in Delhi,

Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad and Bangalore, will be opening another office in

Kolkata within the next three months, Rajendran said.