Dell to effect leadership changes in India

Mahesh Bhalla to become India GM; Samir Garde to get larger role in Asia-Pacific and Japan region.

After a relatively good show in India, Dell, the world’s largest personal computer maker, is planning to reward its leadership team in India.

Dell is understood to have decided to promote Samir Garde, country general manager and GM of Dell India’s largest segment — large enterprise verticals — to a better position in the Asia Pacific (APAC) and Japan region.

Mahesh Bhalla, executive director and GM for consumer division in India, would be elevated as country general manager and head of the enterprise vertical.

Ravi Bharadwaj, who has successfully driven the relatively-newer small and medium business (SMB) segment, was expected to head the consumer division, sources close to the development said.

“We have no announcements at present about the India leadership and the respective vertical heads continue to lead their business units as formed after the global reorganisation into customer-centric units in early 2009,” a Dell India spokesperson said in an e-mail reply.

India contributes two per cent to Dell’s global revenue, and large enterprises comprise one of Dell’s key segments in India. And, the last two quarters of 2009 calendar year were quite significant for Dell in India. In the third quarter of 2009, Dell overtook HCL Infosystems to clinch the second position in the Indian PC market. In the fourth quarter, Dell crossed $1-billion revenue mark in India, with a YoY (year-on-year) revenue growth of 52 per cent. The consumer and SME segment grew over 100 per cent during the quarter.

The company’s small and medium business (SMB) market share, too, rose significantly last year, after Dell decided to launch “Take Your Own Path”, a marketing campaign, targeting the SME segment. Last year, Dell’s SMB market share went up from about 2.5 per cent to about 7.7 per cent, according to an IDC report.

In January last year, Dell rejigged its organisational structure by creating various verticals with an aim of moving from the “geographic version to customer-oriented version”. As a part of that strategy, the company’s operations in India were restructured into four segments — consumer, large enterprise, public sector, and small-and medium-businesses — from the earlier two (consumer and enterprise). Each head of these verticals works independently and report to their respective heads in the APAC and Japan region.

Prior to moving to the India sales organisation of the company in July 2005, Garde, who joined in April 2004, had many leadership roles in Dell International services as well as Dell APAC and Japan region. In June 2008, he took over as the country GM for India after the then country head, Rajan Anandan, quit to join Microsoft India as its managing director.

Dell India is planning to launch a new range of products targeting the working women. The stylist range of notebooks with features of business class computers will be launched next month, sources added. The company is also planning to take its SMB marketing campaign to the next phase by bringing in more real life heroes. Dell’s “Take Your Own Path” campaign is led by real life Indian entrepreneurs, including Raman Roy, CEO of Quattro BPO, P Rajendran, co-founder of NIIT and national award winning film maker V K Prakash.