The IT distribution company has chalked aggressive plans to and aims to become a billion dollar organisation by 2017-18
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“We want to offer a spectrum of products and services to our resellers so that they get attached and associate with us.”
Atul Mehta,
Compuage
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The only thing that is Constant is Change so goes the saying. Yet the fear of failure makes most of us resist it but neither can we deny or ignore its importance; and this doesn’t ring much truer than for the constantly changing technology industry which changes more constant than any other industry.
For IT distribution company, Compuage Infocom, had it not adopted change and moulded itself according to the changing market demands it would have been a sitting duck and out of business a long time back. But it did not bury its head in the sand like an Ostrich rather it embraced change; evolving itself time and again.
“By adopting change not only we survived but became profitable and we continue to grow,” says Atul Mehta, Chairman and MD, Compuage Infocom.
“Smartphones are growing in both retail and online. With the coming of technologies like Cloud, Analytics, IoT people need to evolve otherwise they will not survive. It rings true for partners too; if they fail to adopt change they will find their existence at stake. Maybe they have to move from products to services. We all need to evolve,” he adds.
As of march 2015 the revenue touched approximately Rs. 2400 crores and Compuage wants to grow almost three times and become a billion dollar organisation by 2017-18. “We have aggressive plans and are talking about 30-35% y-o-y growth. And from Rs. 2400 crores we will be able to move to Rs. 6500 crores of revenue, and of course profit is paramount,” he adds.
The product portfolio of Compuage is divided into segments: component, PC, peripherals, enterprise. Each segment is further separated: PCs, peripherals, software, networking, power protection, smartphones and tablets.
Evolution is evident as from a only component company 10 years back, where 100% business came out of PC components, its contribution now stands at less than 25%. Moving forward Mehta says the enterprise portfolio will become stronger because of the changing dynamics, the way the trend operates, and the way industry is evolving.
Providing technical support services is another separate segment for Compuage, which provides services combined with the products as a solution apart from having pre-sales (which is 5% of its sales team) and post sales team.
“This is how we keep on Changing and adding to the solutions we provide to resellers,” Mehta adds.
The entire business of Compuage is done through resellers and none of its products is sold directly.
Cloud is another segment that is on the cards. Mehta says they are evaluating the options as the India market is still not mature enough; though the transition is taking place slowly but it is happening.
The business strategy of Compuage consists of an annual plan and three year plan (till 2017). While in the current year plan there is nothing planned for cloud but features in the three-year plan.
While he says the Mid-east and Africa markets are exciting and have huge opportunities but Mehta says they are being very realistic and the goal is to first fulfil the existing opportunities in India subcontinent before they expand further.
Value segment is of importance to Compuage and has customers like Microsoft, Cisco, Checkpoint, and K7 in the consumer space, Tyco and ADC in passive networking; and plans to add more in this segment.
It was three years back that Compuage entered the enterprise space and Mehta says it has been a good learning experience: have put in place a developing team within sales, pre-sales, post-sales, making partners aware that they are in that space. With the job well done now Mehta says they are moving in to the second part — strengthening its portfolio.
Other segment where Compuage has its eyes on is the burgeoning physical security and safety market, followed by cloud computing apart from data analytics or data storage along networking and power.
“We want to offer a spectrum of products and services to our resellers so that they get attached and associate with us,” Mehta signs off.
