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