2. Introduction A Taiwan Based MNC & Electronics Corporation that specializes in manufacturing Desktop & Laptop PC’s, servers, PDA’s & other computer peripherals. The company has its headquarters in Xizhei, Taipei County The Company was started by Stan Stih & his wife Caron Yeh
3. Timeline of Acer’s Indian Operations 1994- Acer starts off as the No. 8 player in the global PC market 1999 – Acer after having a brief partnership with Wipro InfoTech Ltd. opened its own full – fledged Indian subsidiary 2000- Splits its PC manufacturing unit & turns it into a new company 2001- Acer changes its name to BenQ and starts operations as an independent brand dealing in Desktop PC’s, Mobile Pc’s, Servers while also catering to the digital lifestyle products such as Cell Phones, LCD monitors, projectors etc. 2003- Entered the consumer Business by introducing consumer desktops & laptops. 2006- Split ways with BenQ in order to avoid conflicts. 2007- Acer establishes itself as the third largest computer company in terms of world – wide PC shipments. 2008- Establishes market share of 9.5%
4. Growth Strategies adopted Partnering with Wipro in order to gain knowledge & experience about the Indian markets. Initially focusing its attention & resources selling to the govt. organizations & corporate customersin order to build a strong consumer chain Starting operations with a changed name BenQ in order to create variety in the products that they could offer. Entering into acquisitions with Gateway & Packard in order to consolidate its hold on the market.
5. Marketing Strategies Refocusing its efforts from direct sales to indirect channel driven sales Building strong relationships with its dealers Offering higher incentives to its channel distributors for promoting its sales As an effort towards building a strong bond with the Indian Customers & the youth on a larger scale they signed Hrithik Roshan as their brand ambassador.
6. Apart from having Hrithik as the brand ambassador , Acer also had focussed on retailing to increase its horizon . . BY 2006, it had a whopping 225 retail outlets & 179 retail partners. Using slogans like Life is busy, Acer makes it easy helped the consumers to relate better with the consumers..
7. Key Points That Facilitated Growth Acer’s growth in the IT segment was due to the following factors. An increase in the consumer demand for notebooks Providing new & innovative technologies at competitive prices The Indian Govt’s push towards automation and the increase in the usage of computers in education The increase in wages of the people of India helped in increasing PC sales Building a strong relationship by having its presence in 40 customer verticals in sectors like Banking, Education, Telecom etc..
8. Challenges Faced Some of the challenges faced by Acer were as follows: Dealing with the growing affluence of consumers in Small cities & Towns Providing proper Sales Support & After Sales service in remote locations of the country.
9. Future Prospects Acer plans to increase its growth to 20% by 2012. On the education front Acer wants to build solutions that fits the needs & budget of the students . On the Retail front , the company intends to tie up with large format retail stores like Croma, Next & Metro to reach out to the masses.
10. Conclusions According to me, I feel that the restructuring of its operations allowed Acer to grow in a positive way as it lowered its operating expenses and also allowed it to provide the dual advantages of pricing & promoting its products. For the 2nd question I would like to state that Acer needs to further improve its already strong network in order to fully utilize the opportunities presented by the Indian market. This would allow them to also venture into the Rural areas and thus increase its market share.
11. Unlike western countries where the mindset of the people is tuned with the concept of “Use n Throw”, Average Indian is likely to use a product as long as it is viable, hence Acer could explore the demand of spares & focus on providing a good after sales service support in order to maximize revenues from the sales of spares.
