IBM 'Thinks' creative

CHENNAI: IBM has been expanding in the notebook market and last year it announced the think strategy bringing all its personal computing products like desktops, notebooks, monitors, accessories and services under one brand, called ‘Think’. IBM India Ltd brand manager — mobile computing, Sanjeev Menon, revealed to S Gopikrishna, IBM’s initiatives in the laptop market.

Q. What is IBM’s game plan to promote its laptops in the market?



IBM has been expanding in the notebook market in India. As per IDC India’s Q2 PC tracker, IBM gained eight percentage points in unit shipments in notebooks in 1H 2003, as against the same period last year.


We shall continue to lead the notebook marketplace in technology, innovation and brand equity. The ThinkPad brand is today considered an aspiration product and we are exploring opportunities of making it available across the country. We are increasing our focus beyond metro cities to tap the growing potential in non-metro cities and more specifically SMB customers in cities like Chandigarh, Pune, Ahmedabad, Coimbatore, Cochin among many others.

Q. What is the Think strategy?



We announced the 'Think' strategy last year - bringing all our personal computing products like desktops, notebooks, monitors, accessories and services under one brand, called ‘Think’. All of IBM PCs, now come with ThinkVantage Technology - a set of software tools that is available today, only with IBM PCs. ThinkVantage technologies like Rapid Restore PC, System Migration Assistant, Access IBM, Autonomic Computing and more, help customers drive down IT support costs, increase security and decrease the complexity of today's IT infrastructure.


Over the past few decades, IBM has simplified its PC product line and focused on 'beyond the box' technologies to better benefit its customers. With these ‘Think’ products, we have made computing a lot simpler, reliable, more secure and more resilient. It provides companies the advantage of using fewer resources to deploy, manage and support PCs.

Q. What are the market dynamics at present as far as notebooks are concerned?



We are seeing a distinct increase in the market demand for notebooks today. Customers have become more assertive and are demanding advanced technology capabilities on their systems to facilitate faster growth in their business.


We have an excellent combination of technology, sales and partner network and support to cater to the increased market demand and also increase our market share in the space. We also offer customers financing & leasing options.



Q. Which is the major focus area (segment) for your company in laptops?




All major segments viz large enterprise, small and medium businesses, government, education segment.

Q. Elaborate your retail plans for laptops. Are you planning to open exclusive retail outlets across India for laptops?



IBM does not follow a retail strategy. However, we are keenly focusing on helping our business partners take IBM’s PC technology and new offerings to customers. We are encouraging our business partner organizations (IBM's tier 2 partners) to set up specialized ThinkPad showrooms called 'Thinkworld' for customers. Through this initiative, we would like to encourage and support our business partners to sell PCs not as PCs, but as technology and business solutions.


To support its business partners, IBM has also put in place a suite of educational and joint-marketing activities. Some of these include ThinkVantage University programme; discounted products for display; joint efforts for demand generation; exchange schemes amongst others.

Q. What according to you is IBM’s strength?



IBM’s strength is to focus on creating innovative technologies to help our customers apply them to transform their businesses. The ThinkPad is a very personal product - ease of use is its most important feature.


IBM ThinkPads come with several innovative features like ThinkLight, which allows a person to work in the dark and a host of other features (ThinkVantage Technology - addressed in ans 1) that differentiate the IBM ThinkPad from other notebook brands. To summarize, technology and superior features will be the mainstay of our marketing. The ThinkPad is a product, which users aspire to buy for all these reasons.

Q. How competitive are you on technology front?



IBM features several industry-leading features, which are not available in other notebooks in the marketplace today, namely: ThinkLight — allows working in the dark, Embedded Security Chip — protects data and private information in both wired and wireless communications environments, Active Protection System — prevents hard drive crash and data loss, Dual Wireless Antenna — improves data transfer speeds, Access Connections — a ‘portal to IBM support’ that taps into a rich set of onboard resources, diagnostic tools, automated solutions, and links to updates and service on-line — all from IBM, international warranty, industry leading Manageability software bundled under the ThinkVantage technologies.

Q. With Acer starting the price war among branded notebooks by announcing sub-50K models, what's the road ahead?



The availability of sub 50K notebooks opens up a new segment, which will augment the existing notebook market. The market in general and corporates in specific will continue to demand features that offer ease of use and hassle free deployment, backed up by a sound warranty support. The mainstream market for thin and light, ultraportable notebooks will continue to see high demand. Watch this space to hear more from IBM on this.

Q. Do you think assembled/regional brands can be a threat to branded products, in future?



Regional brands are marginal players at this time.

Q. What is your opinion about BTO business and its opportunities?



The BTO/ ITES industry growth has given a fillip to desktop sales. We have experienced an increased sale of desktops across this segment. It is not a high growth segment for notebooks.

Q. What are your marketing plans as far as the channels are concerned?



Channels are an extremely critical arm of our business. We work very closely with our business partner network to provide them with skills, training and marketing support throughout the year.


We are continuously conducting training and certification programs for them across the country, besides introducing incentive and rebate programmes. Apart from this, our most recent initiative is the availability of ‘Smart Center’, which has been set up exclusively for resellers and their customers. Highly capable IBM specialists and technicians, who support partners and customers on post-sale issues, man this support centre. This service runs on a toll-Free network.


We have also invested in strong infrastructure to enable and support partners in all the non-metro towns. This infrastructure support is backed by continuous marketing and partner contact programmes such as: Toll free support, e-mail support, proposal on demand service, sales support at local level, continuous training and skill development.

Q. What are the USPs of IBM when it comes to laptop business?



ThinkPad notebook is the best — selling notebook brand ever. The 20th Million ThinkPad was sold this month. The ThinkPad product with industry leading technology and features, service and support and our channel reach are our USPs.

(CyberMedia News Service)