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Xerox ‘Upbeat’ about Prospects in Mideast in 2009

This was stated by Dan Smith, General Manager for Integrated Marketing for the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region of Xerox’s Developing Markets Operations, in an interview with Khaleej Times here on Tuesday.

According to him the MEA region still offered wonderful business opportunities despite the fall in oil prices and the ongoing financial crisis. The Governments here have taken commendable initiatives to strengthen the non-oil economic sectors by investing in areas like infrastructure, education and health care. Xerox’s focus is on document production sector and all these areas have tremendous need for document production, which in turn would mean that we will have considerable scope to grow even in these tumultuous times, Dan Smith said.

He argued that the cost consciousness induced among the corporates and institutions by the financial crisis gave an additional opportunity for Xerox with its value added products. “Our customers are enjoying more Xerox offerings to choose from and more ways to buy them. The company is very much a partner-centric company, bringing a broader array of offerings and revenue growth opportunities to value-added resellers and independent agents.”

Over the past 2 years Xerox has expanded its presence in the region through numerous global launches across different product segments — affordable end-user printing solutions, office and production — as well as ground-breaking innovations including ‘Invisible Ink’, ‘Self-erasable paper’ and ‘EA toners.’ This was in addition to new partner signings designed to extend the company’s reach in the region to a wider target audience.

Dan Smith disclosed that Xerox has about 150 partners in MEA region. The number of channel partners has grown significantly in the Middle East over the last year. In addition to this, Xerox has made the transition from a direct sales business model to an indirect sales model for their printers.

Dan Smith is here to attend the annual partner conference of Xerox being held in Dubai.

More than 120 Xerox partners from across the MEA markets are taking part in the conference.

Xerox Corporation, considered to be the world’s leading document management technology and services enterprise, is a $17 billion company.

Asked whether the company was planning any price reduction for its products in view of the financial crisis, he said the company would concentrate on value addition and would not indulge in any price reduction in the present crisis period.

· ramavarman@khaleejtimes.ae