"The mantra to a successful business is continuously upgrading ones business and services portfolio to serve clients better" -Chetan Shah

Most of the successful men have a humble start, this is also

true in the case of Mumbai based system integrator Chetan Shah, MD of Xpress

Computers. Setting out with a bag selling consumables in the 1980’s to

becoming one of the top system integrators in the country today, Xpress

Compu-ters has come a long way,

The start



"Traditionally, our family has been in the textile business but in the

80’s when I was studying it was not doing too well. I had started working

during my graduation days by selling consumables, floppies and PC parts. In

1988, I ventured out with a bag containing the price list to around 100 offices.

Later, Computech Systems was formed; it was still a one man team operating from

home. I completely learnt on the job, as I was not from the IT industry.

The brand Xpress was created in 1996 and the company Xpress

Computers formed in 2000. Under the brand Xpress, computers like the PCXT, 286

and 486 were being sold. Computech Sys-tems was dissolved, as there were other

companies with the same name causing confusion. Right from the time Xpress

Computers was formed we have dealt with Intel as solution providers by selling

products like servers. Xpress was also dealing with other products like

networking and structured cabling from 3com and also Microsoft among the others.

By 1998 we attained training under Intel to become its IASP and

today we are Intel’s premier providers. From the beginning we were dealing

directly with the user therefore were familiar with verticals and other

industries. Therefore, over the years we have consoli-dated our businesses like

wire-less, networking and also build-ing mobile networks especially for segments

like the SME, which is almost 40 percent and more of our business. Xpress also

caters to education, ren-tals, maintenance, Web hos-ting, and data recovery

among others. Infact we have even streamlined our internal and external

processes to an extent that all our work is done online.

Hardships faced



One of the biggest problems faced at that time was the ex-cise to be paid

but that impro-ved over a period of time. In the initial stages of business

technology was new therefore, consumers from all different segments were

completely unaware. A lot of explanation had to be done from scratch on all the

pro-ducts. Technology was getting accepted more among the government and

corporates. Investments were also not high as competition was also less.

Getting back to the present



Now consumers are looking for new technology and solu-tions, most of all

users are up-dated on all hardware and software tools. There are also customers

also from different categories and new ones open-ing up to adopt technology into

their environment. Even organi-zation wise we have expanded from the one-man

team to almost 60 people and more in the organisation.

Plans


Xpress has no plans of expanding its product and services portfolio, but would

like to work and excel in the present scenario.

Message to other SIs



"Its time now system inte-grators have the required ex-pertise in

provided value added services to their clients. The mantra to a successful

business is continuously upgrading ones business and services portfolio to serve

clients better."





Nancy Sudheer