Ali Jaleel is Dell’s General Manager for South Asia Developing Markets Group. He heads the Growing Economies business and looks after the markets in 20 countries including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Brunei, Nepal and Mongolia. He was in Nepal recently to launch Dell Inspiron R series laptops. In an interview with New Business Age, Jaleel shared his views on Dell’s position and prospects in the Nepali market. Excerpts:

 

You have just launched your new Inspiron R series laptops in Nepal. How will this launch boost your outreach plan to penetrate Nepal’s consumer computer market?

We are very excited to launch this particular product which we also call the queen series. It is unique because you can actually change the lids and use various designs as per your liking. We are hoping that we will see very positive response for this product. The infrastructure is also quite developed with Gen Next (Generation Next Communications) as our partner and reseller here in Nepal. We now have outlets at locations that were not there before.

 

What made the Gen Next, your partner here, win the award of Dell’s most valuable partner for Nepal?

They have been very impressive and done all the right things. They focused not just on sales but also on after sales, on above the line (ATL) activities, growing the market outside Kathmandu etc. Therefore, we feel they have the right ingredients. Along the way, we are going to learn new things from them and I am sure they too are going to learn from Dell. We both feel that it is going to be a long-term relationship. Nepal is a strategic market for us and we want to be ready when the economy takes off.

 

As for the awards, our partners from South Asia and Korea join us in various locations once a year. It is usually in Malaysia or Singapore because our regional headquarter is in Singapore and factories are in Malaysia. We have started a tradition of selecting partners on the basis of extraordinary performances. This is where Gen Next was selected for their stand out performance and awarded with Dell’s most valuable partner for Nepal.

 

How is your experience in the Nepali market so far?

We have been here for many years actually but mostly in an enterprise-way and not in a direct one. We have started making investments here only about six months ago. Gen Next is relatively new for us here but our business has really taken off in the last year or so. Nepal is a good market for us where our business has been growing steadily. There are a couple of very positive signals – one is that the economy is very resilient and the other is, when exponential growth happens, it is good news for all organisations that have invested.

 

Who are your major competitors in the local market and where do you stand vis-a-vis the competition?

We would consider HP to be our closest competitor. We are competing with Acer and Lenovo in consumer base and IBM in the enterprise base. It is actually good to have competition because it keeps everyone on their toes and focuses on consumers’ interests first.

 

What gives you the confidence that the New Inspiron R Series will hold its own in the market that’s already flooded with similar products? How do you plan to position yourself in the market for this particular product and establish brand identity?

We are very confident about the product and the quality. The innovation we have put in is something very unique. We are quite confident that it will find its own niche, build a loyal customer base and do us good. When you talk about a product, it is important to have different ranges because people have different requirements. Some may like a 12-inch screen while some other prefer a 15-inch screen. Therefore, we have positioned this particular product by giving options of varied screen sizes. They also have the option of making their notebook look different according to their mood. The reception has been very positive during its launch in some other countries a few weeks prior to that of Nepal. It is now available in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia, India and China besides Nepal.

 

We are already showing our intent to grow here and you must have started seeing it already. This is just the beginning for this particular product. Technology moves very fast so we have to keep focusing on the Dell brand. And under Dell, we have to keep focusing on Inspiron as well as other products. We will continue to appear above the line to establish brand identity.

 

How do you assess the Nepali market overall? What are your expectations from the market in the foreseeable future?

Overall, I was very impressed with the sophistication of some people I spoke to. They are very well informed. In enterprise base, customers from various industries know exactly where they want to be and the technologies they want to embrace. This is very good because it means half the work is done since we don’t have to educate the customers who are already very informed. Similarly, people seem to be quite well informed about technology in consumer base as well. The young generation here is very internet savvy and has all the information. As a matter of fact, they ask questions about technologies which are not yet available in Asia which is really interesting. These technologies are either introduced or are being planned to introduce in countries like the US.

 

We do feel that we will continue to have organic growth which is fine with us because we are making the investments now. We are hoping that once the elections happen and a new government comes in, there will be more projects. A good number of projects especially on the government side are something we are eager about. That will definitely help us grow exponentially because right now, our growth is pretty organic.