Epson''s aggressive initiatives

Japan's Seiko Epson has planned a series of initiatives in India in its quest to become the leader in the country's market for printers. Toshio Kimura, senior managing director, ITI and imaging products of Epson International, on his first visit to India, shared this vision of Seiko Epson.

Seiko Epson's plans in India include fresh investments, launching new products and customer care initiatives. Explaining these new initiatives to the press, Mr Kimura said, "we feel that India has more opportunities and growth potential than in the entire Asia Pacific region. Consider me as an ambassador of Seiko Epson, and we have a message -- we believe in India and we want India to believe in us."

Paramjit Singh Puri, senior country manager, Epson India, said, "We in India have all the support from the Seiko Epson Corporation and are very bullish about the Indian market. We have taken a lot of initiative to ensure that we are market leaders in all categories like printers, scanners, projectors -- before the end of the year 2000."

Stressing on Seiko Epson's excellence in technology and innovations, Mr Kimura added, "We emphasise top quality, believe in customer care and treat customers as our extended partners. This is what we are focusing on and extending to our India operations."

Epson India's new initiatives revolve around the concept of customer care through its customer relationship management programme. They include, for channels: product education for channels, quick reference guide for products, interactive computer based training, stocking support for resellers. For end users, they include: self-learning kit, web-based training, Epson help lines in New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Calcutta, more manpower for regional support, 30 regional support centres by year-end -- going up to 42 by April -- and reducing the cost of repairs by recycling the board.

As part of its promotional effort Epson India has named Sushmita Sen as the "brand ambassador" for promoting all its products in India.

New product (printers) range