HP to set up 20 biz solution centres
Hewlet Packard India, computer and printer maker, plans to set up 20 business solution centres across the country in the next six to nine months, to reach out to small and medium businesses, a segment that accounts for half the total IT hardware spend in India.
The company set up its first such centre in Chennai, partnering with Precision Informatic, a computer hardware and networking company with a focus on this segment.
The director of commercial accounts, SMB and enterprise partners, Hewlet Packard India, Mr.Ashok Pamidi said that the IT spend if small and medium businesses in India is growing 24% a year, the highest anywhere in Asia. He said spend on personal computers and servers growing at 45% and 50% CAGR. An HP official said the total IT spend in India was estimated to be about $11 billion a year, half of them by SMBs.
Hewlet Packard India hopes business solution centres, showcasing all its products in a single location, would help the company reach out to this segment as, according to a survey done by HP, small and medium businesses prefer procuring all products from a single source. Similarly, they prefer to deal with local companies, a reason why HP has decided to take a partnership route.
Precision Infomatic director Mathew Chako said that the solution centre would seek to offer specific solutions to SMBs, rather than sell products in the portfolio. HP director Sameer Mathur said the company was also looking at tier II cities such as Coimbatore and Madurai to set up its business solution centres as industrial activities have spread well beyond the bigger centres.
