Rajesh Goenka, Vice President, Sales and Marketing, Rashi Peripherals shares his views on the company’s business growth and some key trends in the market
-Ashwani Mishra
What kind of business growth do you expect this year?
We expect to grow around 30 to 40 percent overall this year. The first six months have been exceptionally good for the business. There was some correction in the OND quarter but this quarter we expect business to be normal.
We have our business spread into various regions in the country. As of today, we have 62 branch locations. Having this kind of regional spread has helped us to sustain growth. So if one territory or region drops in business volume, it is supported by an increase in other regions. This balances the overall business goals.
Our five year goal is to cover 600 cities. We are billing now to around 500 cities. To achieve this we are opening new branches or appointing representatives. We are also getting into product categories that can be offered in specific markets. In this process we are also trying to become a one stop shop for computers.
Q] What are the segments that have emerged as the primary drivers for business growth?
There are two major offerings that have shown good performance. One is the personal computing or the notebook business. The second driver has been the peripherals business.
Q] What are key trends that you see in the market for 2012?
Tablet is a rage and it will continue this year. However, another trend that we see picking momentum is in storage devices like pen drives, external hard drives, and also mass storage devices like NAS from the likes of EMC and others. This represents a high opportunity for our partners.
Another trend would be increased buying by customers in the lifestyle kind of products like laptop bags or Bluetooth devices. Take the example of Plantronics mobile Bluetooth devices; the business has grown five to seven times in a years span.
Q] You recently completed the seventh edition of Channel Business Forum (CBF). How has been the response from partners?
CBS successfully completed the 51 city program in 46 days with a tremendous turnout of 4723 partners. It has been the largest IT event ever in the country in such a short span. The attendance and participation from the partners was excellent. The feedback for us from partners has been to have two to three such events in a year.
Channel has always been high on our priority and continuous partner engagement and enhancing our partnership with them is something that we want to carry on. CBF saw partners raise their issues without fear and it provided them an ideal way to meet and reach out to partners in an effective manner. Our core objective is to be accessible to partners present in B, C and D class cities, so that we can have direct communication with them and strengthen our position in the distribution segment.
Q] How has been your focus on internal training for employees?
At Rashi we give a high focus on internal training, target setting and goal objectives. We recently concluded a training camp in Lonavla for our senior management staff. We want to invest in our resources so that they can improve their efficiency and ability, and be an asset to the organization. Soon, we will take the training sessions across the enterprise.