by admin | May 25, 2021 | Interviews
Sumeer Chandra
By Nishant Arora,
New Delhi : PC and printing major HP Inc is witnessing tremendous growth in the Indian market across product lines and, in 2019, the education sector will be the key pillar for the company, says Sumeer Chandra, Managing Director, HP Inc India.
For fiscal 2018, HP reported net revenue of $58.5 billion – up 12 per cent from the prior-year period. The net revenue for the fourth quarter was $15.4 billion – up 10 per cent – and the Asia-Pacific and Japan (APJ) region grew 17 per cent.
“In APJ, India grew faster than expected in fiscal 2018. HP’s India performance is in line with the global and regional growth. We strengthened our presence in the A3 printer space, introduced 3D printing and bet big on PC gaming in the country,” Chandra told IANS in a free-wheeling interview.
The Indian economy, he added, is going through interesting dynamics at the moment — especially on the exchange rate front — amid some uncertainties such as the general elections due next year.
“However, we have our strategy areas ready for next year and providing digital education to the masses will be a key growth engine. Technology, I believe, can truly transform fundamental education in India,” Chandra emphasised.
For him, education intersects what is good for business as well as for society.
“Education meets both the objectives. To empower students, we are driving new price points in our products. We recently launched an affordable mini desktop to help students learn and collaborate in schools and educational institutions across the country,” Chandra said.
Starting at Rs 19,990, the HP 260 G3 desktop is enabling schools and institutes set up or upgrade computers at their science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) labs at a minimal cost.
When paired with HP Integrated Work Centre and HP EliteDisplay, teachers can read and present files effortlessly. With the wide range of input display connectors, documents can also be shared across multiple monitors.
“The idea is to help schools either refresh or create digital labs for students. We also have back-to-campus programmes where we organise discounted sales for our products so more schools can afford PCs,” the HP India executive noted.
Another key HP initiative is in the form of self-contained, Internet-enabled digital inclusion and learning labs on wheels, to take digital literacy to every nook and corner of the country.
Called “HP World on Wheels” (WoW), the buses are already driving digital literacy in rural India.
“There are 20-odd PCs in one solar-powered, Internet-enabled bus with a TV at the back, helping students augment their education, driving youth to learn New-Age digital skills and providing digital literacy to rural women,” said a beaming Chandra.
People in rural India are also using the facility for Aadhaar and to access other citizen-related services.
“We have 19 such buses that have reached over 50,000 people so far. We plan to launch another 12 buses by March and will have a total of 48 buses soon. In the next six years, we plan to reach 6,500 villages and empower close to 15 million lives,” Chandra told IANS.
Next on his agenda is to reach many more students via HP’s wide network.
“Affordability and accessibility are on top of my mind. Via HP’s widest network, 600 HP World stores and tens of thousands of retailers selling HP products, we can reach many more students,” emphasised Chandra.
The company also has “Smart Learning Hubs”, in collaboration with Microsoft, at 600 HP World stores that are engaging customers and non-customers with edutainment.
HP has organised 160 programmes covering 5,000 school-going children at these stores where they take coding lessons, learn how to make a YouTube video or create a blog, etc.
“Parents and children are excited and so are we. We will take this initiative to smaller cities as well to impart digital literacy to many more children,” said Chandra.
(Nishant Arora can be contacted at nishant.a@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Corporate, Corporate Governance, Markets, Technology
By Hardev Sanotra,
Chicago : HP India has ramped up its digital team after the initial success with Pro 8 tablets when Jharkand government ordered 40,000 pieces last week, according to a top HP official.
The order had come within days of the launch of the tablet, which is aimed at providing professional capabilities to the ‘Digital India’ initiative.
“The Pro 8 tablet is made with India as its market and will help bring about digital inclusion which the government is keen on,” said Sumeer Chandra, Managing Director, HP Inc India, here.
Chandra, who was speaking to IANS on the sidelines of the HP Reinvent Partner Forum here, said that the device is compatible with the requirements of ‘Digital India’, including having a jacket where Aadhaar biometric — fingerprint and iris scans — could be verified. He said they were in the process of talking to several state governments for the product.
The tablet is priced at just over Rs 19,000, but it was not immediately known at what price the bulk order of 40,000 to the Jhrakhand government was made. Chandra, who took over as head of India operations of HP beginning in May this year, said they were confident of selling the product to many more state governments.
The Pro8 tablet range supports regional languages and comprises an 8-inch tablet, coupled with customisable features that will allow the delivery of services, including financial inclusion and benefit schemes.
Chandra also said that HP India was carrying out a pilot project in Andhra Pradesh, where it had adopted 10 schools in Guntur to bring in information and communication technology (ICT) for the young. He added that they would expand the programme once the feedback from the project came in.
Richard Bailey, President, Asia Pacific and Japan for HP Inc, said India was among the most important markets in the whole region and that’s the reason why it had the largest number of HP employees among all the countries under him.
He noted that although China was the second biggest market after the United States, India was emerging as immensely important since it was predicted to double its economy in the next few years.
Bailey told IANS that the Indian market had seen a 15 per cent growth and HP was a market leader the country in both printers and PC segments. The APJ area too had seen a market share of 50.1 per cent for printers and 33.9 per cent for PCs. It was the clear leader in printers while for PCs, it was second, behind Lenovo.
Bailey said the next big revolution coming was in 3D manufacturing where printers would print products from plastic materials, shaping them according to the client requirements.
Such outlets have already come up in the US (like printing bureaus) where they offer digital manufacturing to all clients. The technology would be reaching India by spring next year, although he conceded that there had been no major demand seen in the country at present. “Once people know the details of its capabilities, it will become more popular,” Bailey added.
Chandra said he would see the growth of HP tablet taking place in the financial areas where banking could reach remote areas. Healthcare would be another area of growth for it.
The device would work where a cell tower was present, he said, adding that the company provides an “end-to-end” service for the clients on tablets with full company support. The earlier experiment for providing people with laptops did not work (in Uttar Pradesh) because the complete solution had not been thought through.
According to Bailey, the company had emphasised strongly on the security aspects of all its devices and that’s the reason why they offer printers with the highest amount of security among all other matching products.
Asked if providing embedded security against malware was not an over-protective move, Bailey said there had been some malicious attacks against printers and they do not want to leave any product vulnerable.
Chandra said that not only can hackers take control of unprotected printers, most modern printers are also gateways to the network. “The hackers can reach the heart of any company or conglomerate through printers as they are connect to all the systems in a company,” he said, adding that secure environment had to be secure from all attacks.
(Hardev Sanotra is in Chicago at the invitation of HP Inc. He can be reached at hardev.sanotra@ians.in)
—IANS
