Nitin Hiranandani, Director--Printing Systems, Printing & Personal System (PPS), HP India said in an exclusive interview to SME Times that they are addressing the evolving business needs of the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) by offering them five new solutions that improves their work-flow efficiency, enhance security, increase operational efficiencies, and lower the environmental impact.

                                                                                         Excerpts of the interview...

Hewlett-Packard (HP) India has developed number of products for the small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Could you give light on how SMEs are using these products for the benefit of their business?
Nitin Hiranandani: HP has the broadest and industry leading portfolio of products and solutions, including for the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). We at HP understand that SMEs want to do the right kind of technology investments that can help them secure a more level playing field.

Adoption of technology in SMEs is directly dependent on bringing down the total cost of ownership, safeguarding investments and increasing ease of use. HP offers a huge portfolio of products that can enable the Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs) to maintain their competitive edge by using their resources wisely.

HP printers come with very interesting features like ePrint feature, which gives the users an advantage to print from the ePrint enabled printer even when remotely located. The ePrint feature had added to the mobility we offer to our customers. HP Laser printers incorporate a great energy saving feature, called HP Auto-On/Auto-Off Technology that turns off the printer when you don't need it. Hence this technology ensures lower impact on environment. We have launched a range of new printers with wired and wireless networking, automatic two-sided printing and various other features.

From the solutions perspective we have recently introduced five new Imaging and Printing solutions for the SMB and Mid-Market customers which give mobility and security advantage to their Imaging and Printing environment while increasing efficiency and boosting their work productivity.

We also have the Partner MPS through which we offer the managed print services to the SMB customers. In this model we have active participation from our channel partners in offering this model to our SME customers.

What kind of solutions are you providing to the SMEs in order to increase efficiency, reduce costs and secure important information?
Nitin Hiranandani: With the recent launch, we are addressing the evolving business needs of our customers by offering them five new solutions which will improve their work-flow efficiency, enhance security and increase operational efficiencies, and lower the environmental impact. The key features of our newly launched solutions are:

HP ePrint Enterprise mobile printing solution unleashes the full potential of mobile devices. It allows you to print documents efficiently with enterprise-level security, sending print jobs from remote locations for printing on arrival.

HP EcoSMART Fleet allows you to see your energy and resource use from one intuitive and easy to use interface. It gives you the information required to effectively monitor, manage, and control the environmental impact of your fleet.

HP Imaging and Printing Security Center is industry's first fleet-level policy-based security solution that helps increase security, strengthen compliance, and reduce risk across your fleet of Imaging and printing devices.

HP Access Control Express and HP Access Control Professional combine cost-control and security features.

Do you provide any kind of training programs for SMEs? How it is helping for the growth of SMEs in adopting IT products and services?
Nitin Hiranandani: We have a direct engagement model with SMEs through our Partner Managed print services offering. HP has roped in select channel partners to offer PMPS to the Mid- Market customers. Through this initiative HP wishes to offer the PMPS offering to the SMB customers which was only limited to enterprise customers earlier.

Partners are being enabled to provide customized print strategies designed exclusively for the respective SME customer. Apart from the strength of the portfolio HP is also providing innovative print solutions to help manage the customer environment more efficiently and effectively. While HP MPS for enterprises consists of end-to-end outsourcing of hardware, supplies and consumables, and software and services, the SME MPS offering will have an option for partners to outsource specific portions of the workflow. Partners will have the option to offer MPS in various models: customer lease, customer capex and channel lease. Partners can choose a model to provide supplies and consumables while the customer owns the hardware. They may buy the hardware on the customer's behalf and offer it on lease. This way we are strengthening our engagement with partners and SME customers through a direct engagement portfolio which is substantially helping the SMEs adopt our Imaging and Printing products and solutions.

How is the Imaging and Printing demand from SMB and Mid- Market customers?
Nitin Hiranandani: We are witnessing a robust demand for Imaging and Printing products and solutions from our SMB and Mid--market customers. Especially now the SME customers are maturing and evolving to adopt innovative solutions and not just limit themselves to printers and multi-function display (MFDs).

What are the challenges with SMBs and Mid-Market customers with reference to their Imaging and Printing fleet?
Nitin Hiranandani: The key challenges with the SMBs and Mid--Market customers with reference to their Imaging and Printing fleet are:

It is a fact that SMEs are lagging behind in IT infrastructure development. How is HP positioned to meet their demands?
Nitin Hiranandani: There are various factors responsible for the slow adoption of technology by SMEs in India. Cost, low awareness of the benefits of technology, poor infrastructure and security and privacy are to name the few. However, gradually, SMEs are moving towards greater use of technology as they are fast transforming to become tomorrow's enterprises and need better productivity and efficiency. We as market leaders are best positioned to meet the growing demands of the SME customers. With our constant innovation in the printers, scanners, MFDs and Solutions space we are encouraging our SME customers to adopt our competitive and best in class products and solutions.

What is your take on the financial constraints which SMEs facing in adopting new technology?
Nitin Hiranandani: When it comes to adoption of new technology or investing in anything new, the biggest question for an organization is about return on investment. Therefore, along the years, SMEs have matured and evolved to adopt products and solutions which promise higher TCO (Total Cost of Ownership). They have long ceased to invest on low cost products as they have realized that quality investments pay in the long run. For instance although our products are competitively priced, they also have higher Total Cost of Ownership vis-a-vis competition in the market. When a customer buys a printer/MFD or an Imaging and Printing solution it's not just the initial cost of purchase which is considered but the SME customer also accounts for the running costs like cartridges, energy consumption etc.

What are your future plans? Are you in the process of developing innovative technology for SMEs? Is anything in the pipeline?
Nitin Hiranandani: HP has always laid a lot of thrust on research and innovation and coming up with solutions that meet the user requirements. Being a leader in the Imaging and Printing industry we best understand the customer pulse and their varied needs.

What kind of business growth are you witnessing as of now?
Nitin Hiranandani: We are witnessing a robust business growth. HP enjoys the clear market leadership in the Imaging and Printing industry. As per International Data Corporation (IDC) figures for Q1, 2012, HP had a 64% market share in the Inkjets and 49% market share in Lasers, which clearly indicates the market leadership and customer trust we have sustained and grown further. Below are the major factors which are fuelling the business growth for us like: