Sudhir Goel, Chief Business Officer, Acer India: Making use of the opportunities the tough times bring
The work-from-home and learn-from-home culture has added momentum to buying of PCs especially notebooks in India. In an interaction with Digital Edge, Sudhir Goel, Chief Business Officer, Acer India, narrates the opportunities and challenges hurled at by COVID-19 pandemic. Excerpts!
Do you believe that WORK-FROM-HOME and LEARN-FROM-HOME is operationally a sustainable model?
The lockdown in many countries due to COVID-19 has forced everyone to function from home. Organizations have allowed their employees to work-from-home (WFH) and schools have introduced a new format to teach students learn-from-home (LFH). We believe the pandemic has not only changed people’s lifestyles, but also changed their perspectives on digital communication. There is also a greater realization that WFHs and LFHs might become a normal practice for many that can leverage communication and digital tools.
At Acer, we see technology as a key path to economic recovery, and organizations have to pivot quickly to adapt and evolve to not just survive, but also come out stronger. We’re driving further innovation to redefine the future of work, business, and education. We’re ensuring our customers’ readiness to handle WFH by having right devices, and services that they need regardless of their work locations.
Do you think the WFH & LFH model can buoy the market of PCs especially those of notebooks in India?
Yes, the first COVID-hit quarter of 2020, which is bad news for most segments and categories, has brought some good news for laptop brands in India. There is a sudden shift to the WORK-FROM-HOME model, which is triggered by the COVID-induced lockdown. Another major shift that took place is the transformation of educational institutions from offline to online, almost overnight. These sudden moves led to pent-up demand for work-related tools, especially laptops and PCs. Also, along with enterprise and education sector laptop demand, gaming is the area where we see a surge in demand across the entry to high-end laptops as people start to take gaming more seriously and for some gaming is now a career choice. What was before a shared device now laptops are becoming a personal device with each household needing to have two or more laptops as mobile phones hit the ceiling in terms of capability.
What are the notebooks & desktops, you offer, which are more appropriate for students for engaging in online classes?
Our laptops Aspire Series, Swift 3, and Swift 5 are ideal for students as they’ve large screens for long hours of studying. Comfortable keyboards, BlueLightFilter that block harmful blue light to help reduce the negative health effects of computer device screens. The ComfyView Display in these models reduces reflection from the light source for the comfortable viewing experience, less eyestrain after watching for long hours. Our latest technologies and innovations enable students and teachers to optimize their time with the latest devices that offer the best performance and features at the best affordable price.
What are the commercial notebooks, which are sold more for the present working paradigm from homes?
We’ve Travelmate P2, Acer One 14, and Veriton N affordable laptops aimed at enterprises. I believe, when you’re working from home on PCs (laptops or desktops), the systemic versatility wins. These are the features that anyone should keep in mind before purchasing a laptop in the present working from home.
What are the distribution and channel strategies of your company in terms of feeding the WFH & LFH markets with PC products?
With changing consumer behavior and offering innovative shopping experience during this period, we’ve introduced the omni-channel experience for our customers to provide a seamless path to purchase and serve better across channels. Acer omni-channel experience is specially designed to cater to the needs of our Acer exclusive retail partners in the current COVID-19 scenario. It is Acer’s first step towards a longer-term Omni-channel strategy. This special initiative is built to ensure ease of purchase, keep partners and customers safe, and promote business continuity. Along with our ecosystem of partners, we invest in the future of education to provide a better tomorrow for the next generation.
Along with this, we’ve instituted our e-store platform that is well equipped to procure and provide customers’ favorable devices at their doorstep on time. With our strong logistical strength, we serve up to 20K plus pin codes and even those who are not able to access physical stores. Through this service, we also have introduced contactless home delivery solutions from partners to our customers. We’re also catering to a lot of business customers to get them critical IT infrastructure to keep the business running. Our e-store services feature a wide range of portfolio on products right from laptops, desktops, monitors, projectors, and other accessories.
How assured is the service support you render around your PCs deployed in the WFH & LFH conditions?
Whether it’s technology or helping those most in need, Acer is dedicated to working together to fight this pandemic on every front. With the ongoing pandemic causing public restrictions and health concerns, Acer is offering support to its customers especially WFH and LFH community at large.
We’ve always been a customer-centric organization and our agenda is to be nimble and optimistic. Upholding these values, we had come up with the Acer Care campaign for our consumers whereby we maintained sensitivity towards the situation and spoke to them during the lockdown in ways where we could together look at tackling the situation. We covered various facets that were going to be part of the new normal and how we felt our consumers could cope with various new scenarios such as work hacks and maintaining social distancing.
During these testing times, we had come up with innovative buying options on our e-store to ensure that the consumers rising demand for PCs is met at the earliest. Customers were also given a choice to “Book now and Pay later” once the shipment was ready for their location. Deep diving further, we identified various categories such as WFH, LFH, GFH (GAME-FROM-HOME) & GFH (CREATE-FOR-HOME) and had created customized bundles for them.
We had also extended all the expiring warranties by 60 days during the lockdown period so that customers did not face any inconvenience. We had also enabled remote servicing capabilities as part of our customer care services. We believe in innovations, and have continually been looking at new and progressive ways that will help us stay pertinent amongst our consumers.
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