Convergence of Physical mail and Digital channel to be a big growth enabler

Pitney Bowes is a 98-year-old global technology company. Its competence lies in helping clients navigate the complex and always evolving world of commerce. 

“For us, getting it right matters,” says Venkat Rao, Country Director, Pitney Bowes India. “We deliver accuracy and precision across the connected and borderless world of commerce to help our clients create meaningful impact.

A lot of development is today happening on the customer communication management. The trend that the industry is witnessing is actually a synergy of physical and digital. While physical mailing is declining, Pitney Bowes sees a huge growth opportunity around the synergy of both physical and digital channels. To leverage this opportunity, the company has big thrust on verticals like Government, Banking, Financial Services, Insurance, Publishing Houses, NGOs/Religious Institutes and E-commerce. 

“Customer communication management enables efficiently managed communications to customers, partners and external agencies through omni-channel (Physical letters, emails, SMS, web publishing on social platforms, etc), delivery of batch, interactive, and on-demand communications. We are observing an omni-channel route being taken on the part of our customers to meet their client’s needs. For instance, the BFSI is looking at meeting the needs of their clients on an omni-channel platform today by combining both physical and digital communication. A major disruptive growth for us is also happening in the e-commerce space, both in the hardware and software side. In the government vertical too, initiatives like Smart innovations in smart cities and Digital India are driving our growth. While new-age verticals like e-commerce are bringing us new growth options, our sustainable growth, however, still comes from traditional verticals – government and BFSI,” Venkat observes.

Go-to-market strategy for 2018...

In 2018, Pitney Bowes is redefining its Channel strategy that would enable Pitney Bowes reach broader markets, grow revenue, and embrace new business models. In India, it is serving some of the largest government organizations – Central and State Governments, banks, insurance companies and financial services companies. 90 per cent of the Fortune 500 and more than 1.5 million small and medium-sized businesses in approximately 100 countries around the world rely on products, solutions and services from Pitney Bowes. In India, the company wants to expand its footprint in small and medium businesses and seamlessly across states. 
“We are going to reach the customers through web, channel partners and even direct sales. Though we will try to become a 100% channel company in 2018, however, to a large degree, customer connect will rest with Pitney Bowes. For the traditional verticals, channel is more like a fulfilment agent, but for new-age verticals channel is going to play a much bigger role. I believe that this journey needs to be travelled together because neither the principal nor the channel has evolved to a stage to understand this segment so well,” says Venkat.

Pitney Bowes has a robust Services and Supplies partner network as part of its 2018 strategy, and has reinvented its Partner program to strengthen Channel value proposition. The company has signed up 35 partners in cities like Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata (covering East).

“The newly-introduced Channel Value Proposition (CVP) program will try to create a monetary win-win proposition for both us and the channel. We are also opening up a huge market through our brand for the partners to leverage. Take for instance, in the smart city initiative, each smart centre in a smart city has our products. And, that is an opportunity that is coming up predominantly in the tier-1 and -2 cities and partners are looking at new avenues for business. We also have sortation and automation products catering to e-commerce companies. Brands like Amazon and Flipkart use the volume metric devices of Pitney Bowes. Because of the e-commerce revolution, India Post is also seeing a big growth. Franking machines that are used in post offices are from Pitney Bowes. So if India is processing 1.5 billion direct mail pieces in a month, 75 per cent of these mails will be franked on Pitney Bowes machines,” asserts Venkat.

The Channel Partner Program of Pitney Bowes consists of Registered and three membership tiers – Silver, Gold and Platinum.  Their rewards grow along with the growth of their PB rewards. Partners gain benefits and rewards as they develop advanced sales expertise, engage in joint business planning and proactively market Pitney Bowes solutions.

The brand recognition and integrity of Pitney Bowes, established through more than 98 years of innovation and success, is believed to add credibility to the partners, allowing them to reach broader markets and achieve high-value revenue by embracing new business models. With the rollout of the CVP program, India revenue from the partner community is expected to be doubled. “We are making the right investments to enable our partner community,” Venkat says.