Panasonic turns aggressive for enterprise business

While for Panasonic India, consumer business continues to grow in India, but now the company is also putting more emphasis on enterprise solutions. Panasonic is trying to further grow its B2B segment since this space lots for Panasonic India. India has been one of the most important market for Panasonic in the region offering massive growth potential for Panasonic globally. In the past few years, Panasonic has changed the way of doing business in India. The company has been focusing on the growth of the brand based on three core pillars of empowerment, localization or innovation, and rich communication.

The B2B business of Panasonic India falls under System Sales Division (SSD) which is an important part of Panasonic Group and covers display panel, projectors, telephones, PBX/KTS, fax machines, security cameras, printers, panboard, scanners, toughbook, POS and broadcast products. The System Sales Division of Panasonic plays a vital role in contributing to the overall growth of Panasonic India and has seen tremendous demand over the last two years.

Speaking to The DQWeek, Toru Hasegawa, divisional MD, SSD, Panasonic India said, "We will leverage our highly diverse product portfolio within the B2B segment to gain an edge over our competitors. Panasonic is also focusing on areas related to energy and security and surveillance. Further, generation energy management solutions will be also be an important segment for Panasonic to seek growth in India. Our SSD business has seen tremendous demand over the last two years and will be contributing to 7-8% per cent of the total company turnover in FY2012. We aim to grow by 100% year on year. The B2B division witnessed sales revenue of Rs. 500 crore in FY2012 across product categories like Display Panel, Projectors, Telephones, PBX/KTS, Fax machines, Security Cameras, Printers, Panaboard, Scanners, Toughbook, POS and Broadcast equipments. We plan to double our turnover by FY 2013."

With regard to its sales and market strategy, it adopts a two pronged approach - It has specialized teams which are broadly classified into hunters and harvesters. Hunters they help in identify new businesses by directly interacting with the end-users to understand and analyse their needs and requirements and offer customized solutions and harvesters are sales ninjas from this category acquire new customers, prevents them from slipping through the cracks, cultivating them into buying newer products from the entire gourmet of offerings.

Panasonic has identified India as the focal point of growth for Panasonic globally. "We expect Panasonic India to contribute over 4% to total overseas sales by 2018 from less than 1% presently. India is a high growth market for us globally and we are making aggressive investments in this region on products, talent, marketing, service support, R&D and manufacturing. The key strategy for fuelling even more aggressive growth in India is to accelerate product developments and business promotion in order to meet the local needs," he added.

The company's go-to-market strategy primarily depends on the type product that is on offer in addition to the target consumer that it aims to reach out. For example, for product range in the security & surveillance segment, it follows enterprise driven strategy, instead of reaching out to the target market directly. For products belonging to the projector and imaging and printing segments, a consumer-oriented approach is adopted targeted at understanding the requirement of the end-consumer and then presenting to product portfolio. For product segments under the enterprise telephones, display panel, PBX/KTS, Fax machines, Panaboard, scanners, Toughbook, POS and broadcast segments, a channel partner strategy is put into place.