Lexmark has reportedly restarted its direct India operations and designated Kumar P Ranjan, Country Manager, Solutions and Services, to handle India operations after a gap of three years.
Lexmark is expected to be officially launching its operations in the first week of June 2009. The company plans to build its new direct team, and shortly expand its channel base across India.
Elaborating on the development, Ranjan said, “Lexmark has an offshore/indirect distribution model in India through Cyberstar Infocom, its Bangalore-based national distributor, since 2007. Presently, we are in the process to streamline our sales and distribution model. However, very shortly we will unveil our plans for India operations in Mumbai, as channel partners are key to our success.”
Raj Rathi, Managing Director, Cyberstar Infocom, said “We are jointly working with Mumbai-based Lexmark India team, and we will continue to grow business and channel for Lexmark.”
After the exit of P G Kamath, General Manager, Lexmark India, in March 2007, Lexmark brought in Cyberstar Infocom as its exclusive import partner, and since then adopted an offshore business model.
The reasons for closing its operations in India in 2007 were said to be the company’s reliance on word-of-mouth publicity and lack of branding among the end-users.