Intel to focus on tier-four, five markets  

Bangalore: Some economists would have us believe there

are two Indias: the under-tapped, rural Bharat, and the urban and modern India.

Chip major Intel is now targeting deeper in-roads into Bharat. This new mission

has also come about with a change of guard at Intel India.

The post of director (marketing) has passed on from

Amar Babu who served in the position for the last three years, to Ramamurthy

Sivakumar. Sivakumar who until recently was the head of business development for

Intel's mobility division relocated to India to take up the new position.

Sivakumar was instrumental in setting up the company's

operations - both sales and the development center in India in the mid-90s. He

took over from Babu from the 1st of July. In an exclusive interview with Priya

Padmanabhan of CyberMedia news, he shares his plans for India.

What would your new responsibilities involve?

I am responsible for the overall sales and marketing

team in India, which has around 150 people strong. The mandate is to drive the

business, ensure growth, expand Intel's reach into the market, to manage product

introductions and customers. In addition, I will also look at other strategic

programs that would contribute to the development of the ecosystem —software

community and universities; and Intel Capital's investment into the ecosystem.

My responsibility will be to make sure these contribute to our overall presence.

It is not just in terms of business growth and also social responsibility to the

country and the government.

Was the move to relocate you from the US a

deliberate decision on the management's part?

No. What happened at the management level is that they

do rotation every three years. I have been with Intel for the last 18-19 years.

I have changed jobs within the company every three-four years. I think that it

takes three years to learn the new job and when you think you know the job, its

time to move on. The thing is never get into the comfort zone since it becomes

stale.

With Intel rapidly expanding its presence in India,

what is your goal in the next few years?

On the business side, we are into the third phase of

expansion in India. The early phase focused on the six metros in the 1990s. In

the last ten years, the focus was on expansion in tier-two and three cities

through the Genuine Intel Dealer (GID) channel, Intel premium partners.

The charter over the next several years is the overall

corporate mandate of taking computing to the next billion. Currently, there are

roughly a billion people who use computers. We are looking to get to the next

billion before we can address the four billion after that. A major chunk of this

market is going to come from the two Asian giants - India and China.

My responsibility is to grow that in India. We have to

expand out to tier-four and five markets. That doesn't mean that we stop looking

at tier-one, two and three. By no means are we done in these markets.

We expect tier-four and five markets to be different.

It is unlikely that GIDs would want to go there. We need to provide reliable and

better products and this is something we are working on. We also have to provide

good service and support.

Are you considering new business model for these

untapped markets?

It will take a very different approach. The strategy

will not be just about scaling up the channel. It is going to happen in many

ways. Perhaps, we have to learn from what Fast Moving Consumable Goods (FMCG)

companies have done in these markets. These companies have built tier-four and

five channels, which are selling different kinds of products.

Building a channel model that can help our OEMs sell is

a challenge. Usage models are going to be different and unique. Today in

tier-three markets, the buyers are individual buyers. As you go down the market,

it evolves into community ownership and involvement from local government and

state government. There will also be service component.

We won't do this by adding headcount at Intel. We would

strengthen our existing channels and downstream they have to figure how to

expand it to rural markets. There is so much to learn in this area.

Intel recently announced some low-cost affordable

computing models. Would these be targeted at these new markets?

The community PC and affordable PC will have a role to

play. However, it is premature to assume that a guy in tier-four and five city

does not have the need or aspiration for advanced technology. There is a common

wisdom in the technology industry that “waterfall technology” does not work.

Selling the latest technology only in the advanced markets rarely works.

Take the example of Intel's Pentium IV. The country

that ramped up the fastest in Pentium IV was not the USA or Western Europe but

China. So the lesson here is that people have no interest in yesterday's

technology no matter where they are.

An average cell phone in India is more advanced today

than the average cell phone in the US.






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