The $18 billion Xerox Corporation , a global fortune 500 company, has been one of the most recognised brands in the world.
The company has successfully evolved from being a company that makes photocopiers to a total solutions company that recognises the value of documents in the creation, capture and transfer of knowledge.
Xerox Modicorp Ltd, the Indian subsidiary of Xerox is an integral part of the Xerox family and has a turnover in excess of Rs 650 crores.
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Shweta Jain and Savio G Pinto met Mukund Abhyankar, deputy managing director , Xerox Modicorp Ltd about the company's business initiatives and new marketing strategy that the company plans to pursue in future.
How has the market for photocopiers changed in India and how does it impact Xerox?
The Indian photocopier market is very much evolved today. The trends in the West as well as India are fairly similar. There's not much difference.
It's not intuitively obvious but how communication occurs in India is not much different than in the US today because most of the technology that's available in the US is available in India now.
So, whatever is occurring in the US today in terms of transition from the traditional photocopying to authoring of a document, is happening in India as well. So, I don't think we are behind the time in India.
But what's not evolved, may be, is utilisation of basic photocopying technology which has now evolved to digital, networking technology.
Now that Xerox has become a total solutions company from being just a photocopier company, what percentage of revenue do you attain from photocopiers and how much from the solutions?
Fifty per cent of our total revenues in profits worldwide now comes from the high-end solutions business. In India, currently, the revenue range is between 5 and 6 per cent and our target in the next 2-3 years, is to get it to 30 per cent.
How do you plan to achieve this revenue growth?
First, we plan to bring the high end solutions to the Indian market. And we are going to make some investments in this area. The solutions in this segment have price tags ranging from Rs 50 lakh to Rs 1 crore plus.
Earlier, we hesitated in bringing these solutions because we were not sure if there was a market for them in India or not. But now, we are certain that there is one. Second, we would be investing in infrastructure and training in India.
Finally, we will be setting up solution centres across the country, which will serve as a platform to showcase these solutions. We have already opened a centre in Delhi though at present it is on a relatively smaller scale.
How has the marketing strategy evolved in India over the years?
The focus in the Indian photocopier market is gradually shifting from the traditional analogue/stand alone photocopiers to digital and network photocopiers.
This is the singlemost shift that is taking place in the Indian photocopier market. Besides this, there's a transition taking place from black & white to colour photocopiers. And that's where we are going to get an exponential growth in India from.
The prices of the colour photocopies are going to come down further. They are already lower than what they used to be earlier.
What are the major global initiatives being taken by Xerox currently?
First is the heavy investment in colour technology. The future of colour is huge for us. That would be the next exponential growth for Xerox. We are going to invest $100 million in colour technology, over a period of years.
Second, we are seriously focusing on infrastructure and training. We are very bullish on that. We want to unleash the entrepreneurial spirit of our people in India as well as in the rest of the world. We want to leverage on the diversity of people.
Third would be a continued focus on technology. We have a benchmark technology today and we would continue to maintain that leadership. And finally, our focus on the high end solutions will strengthen with time.