Numero Uno

face="Cambria, serif">Gordon Wu, Regional Head-South
Asia, Transcend

face="Cambria, serif">

How
has been the year 2010 for Transcend? Where do you position the
Indian market in your scheme of things?

face="Cambria, serif">Of
late, href="http://www.dqweek.com/Transcend-reasserts-India-supremacy">Transcend
as a brand has been maintaining its leadership in the
memory products space in India. Though the Indian market accounts for
about 10 percent of Transcend's global revenue, the company claims to
be the number #1 player in flash cards business. With the immense
growth of mobile business, our flash cards business has taken up very
well. Every month, we ship around a million pieces of flash cards to
the Indian market. As far as pen drives are concerned, we are close
to be at the top, and on portable or external hard drives side, we
have yet to reach that level.However, u nlike our competitors
(Kingston and Sandisk), we have more product lines to offer here in
India.

face="Cambria, serif">Could
you articulate your strategies for the Indian market in terms of
remaining ahead of competition?

face="Cambria, serif">What
makes Transcend a popular brand in all the categories we operate in
is that we have put in lot of efforts in brand building and that has
certainly helped in creating brand awareness. Besides, we focus a lot
on innovation as well, which helps the company in offering quality
products to the marketplace.

face="Cambria, serif">The
company has been operating in India for the last 15 years and the
Indian market definitely finds a significant place in the company's
overall strategy. Apparently, it has been putting in special efforts
to make its presence felt locally here in India. In these 15 years,
what we have witnessed is that the Indian market has changed a lot.
Especially in the last couple of years, if you see, the mobile market
has grown dramatically. This clearly indicates that India is a
grooming market. And going forward, we will see immense role to be
played by the IT and mobile channels towards this growth. Brand
awareness is the traction for users, but it depends on how reliable
the brand is. Transcend provide lifetime warranty for RAM and memory
card and Transcend Care (service center) is to ensure that all users
experience a hassle-free services for all Transcend products.

face="Cambria, serif">What
is Transcend's strategy to connect with consumers in India?

face="Cambria, serif">We
interact with customers more and more, as we want to be in a
situation where customers here should feel that Transcend is an
Indian brand. We also make sure that all our channel partners cover
every region of India so that we don't miss out on any opportunities
coming our way and they provide all the services in the best possible
way. I believe these are the reasons that makes us leap ahead of
competitors.

face="Cambria, serif">For
example, in order to connect with consumers in India, it has been
using the social networking (Facebook) platform immensely along with
e-marketing. Through this platform, which is only for Indians, it has
been trying to be in touch with its Indian partners as well as
end-users. Today, it has around around four lakh e-members. Transcend
has been trying to bring in more and more members so that it can
touch base with them directly, taking their feedback about the
company and the areas where it can improve.

face="Cambria, serif">What
has been Transcend's channel focus here in India?

face="Cambria, serif">Channel
partners are again very important to the company's business, as it
believes that they are the face of the company here in India. It is
they who interact with the customers, take their feedback and help
the company develop products accordingly. The partners listen to
customer demands and pass on the message to the company so that it
can adjust to those demands in no matter of time. It
has three to four major partners here in India, including Beetel,
Supertron, and Mediaman. And to address the service issues, it has
Accel Frontline as its partner. The company keep its partners updated
with e-letters weekly or bi-weekly sharing all the information from
its end. And its account managers are in touch with the distributors
on a daily basis so that they are well updated.

face="Cambria, serif">What
are the challenges for operating in a vast country like India?

face="Cambria, serif">In
Indian market, parallel import is a serious issue. It makes difficult
to maintain reasonable market prices and it also increases cost in
providing after-sales service in India. Transcend puts strong focus
on every direct customer who helps us penetrate the local market. By
cooperating with these local customers we are able to provide better
services to the end consumers. However,
the parallel import and the gray markets have been heavily hit by the
favorable duty structure introduced by the government. The customer
is now ready to pay a little extra for the warranty and service. As a
result the authorized channel partners selling brands of repute have
registered impressive sales growth. However, when it comes to flash
cards, a lot of them (approximately one fourth of the market size)
are still being traded and sold through the unorganized sector
because they are generally bundled with cheap Chinese mobile phone
imports.