ALKHOBAR, 17 April 2007 — HP Middle East has launched “Dial A Cartridge,” an innovative program for its Inkjet and LaserJet printer users in the GCC. The initiative is part of HP’s strategy to make genuine supplies easy to obtain for small and medium businesses (SMB) and home users across the region. The project has been launched in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates with plans for a complete roll out across the GCC over the next six months.
“With the tremendous growth of SMB’s across the region, there is an increasing adoption of technology and an ever-growing demand for easy availability of printers and printer supplies. ‘Dial A Cartridge’ is another step by HP Middle East toward providing our customers with the best after-sales service and making the sourcing process for HP products simple convenient,” said Alya Azar, Supplies Business Manager, Imaging and Printing Group (IPG), HP Middle East.
HP believes that increasing competition in the market means companies are having to rely more and more on vendors to manage their IT systems without them worrying much about it and this project aims to do exactly that — provide customers with their supplies needs so they can get the best out of their printers. Additionally HP has received customer feedback that counterfeit cartridges are a continuing issue. SMB customers often do not realize that they have installed a counterfeit cartridge in a printer until the printer’s performance decreases. In some cases, printers have been damaged by counterfeit cartridges.
Obtaining cartridges directly from HP ensures that a genuine product has been purchased.
With HP “Dial A Cartridge” SMB and home customers can call the HP Toll free number and order original HP Supplies — Inkjet & LaserJet Cartridges and Printing Media — delivered at their doorstep within 24 to 48 hours. The delivery of the supplies will be made by one of HP’s partners — and payment will be made on delivery.
“We have already completed our product training and provided sales tools to our call center staff. A database system is in place to collect and report customer calls and queries in order to help us improve the customer experience and enhance our overall delivery,” added Azar. “Our partner for the project will ensure optimum stock levels are maintained and delivery orders are met within the 48 hours time frame to provide the customer with maximum value and service.”
Customers in UAE can call 800-4910 to order their supplies or dial 800-897-1444 in Saudi Arabia to obtain HP’s “Dial A Cartridge” services.
“The whole idea behind this is to create a touch point with the SMB customers,” said Amr Hassan, GM, Imaging and Printing Group (IPG), HP Middle East. “We understand and we are working to ensure that a small business is not going to place just one order. It’s a run rate business that’s going to happen throughout the year. We always mention the fact that our hardware margins are very thin. So unless there is a certain constant demand on the supply side, no IT vendor will be able to sustain the acceptable level of profitability to reinject the money into R&D and then go back to the market with new products. So supplies are an important part of the business cycle.”
Hassan commented that HP gets excellent local market feedback on the performance of its printers. The company now wants to ensure that it matches that level of customer satisfaction in the area of supplies.
“Our goal is to keep the printers of Gulf SMBs up and running in a cost effective manner,” he explained. “With time we will be able to analyze the usage trends of each company that we are serving and perhaps suggest to them that they have just one toner cartridge in the printer and another cartridge waiting on the shelf. That way, the moment they install a new cartridge, they can simply place a call to us and we’ll send over another one.”
He continued, “We have seen that some companies buy large amounts of consumables that they store at the office, sometimes in less than ideal conditions, which leads to less than ideal performance. With a lot of supplies lying around, there is also the chance that the printing media and cartridges could be stolen. Some companies don’t monitor usage levels and they purchase too much stock which then expires. Small companies in other parts of the world no longer feel compelled to tie up a lot of operating income in supplies, so we believe that the time has come for SMBs in the Gulf to feel comfortable allowing HP to be responsible for maintaining adequate supplies to meet their needs.”
With cartridge delivery comes the possibility that HP can collect and recycle HP-branded printer cartridges.
“There is no pressure from the customers yet asking us to do cartridge recycling but perhaps it is good for us to be the leaders in this area,” remarked Hassan. “This is a way for us to help the customers increase their ceiling of expectation from us.”
The “Dial A Cartridge” program will probably not become an instant success and HP understands that there will be a period of market education before the program finds general acceptance. HP is quite aware however, that the number of Saudi women in the workplace and the number of businesses owned by Saudi women are increasing and the company believes that they will be early and enthusiastic adopters of this service. The number of small businesses and even home offices in the Kingdom are rapidly rising too. HP is certain that once they have confidence in the service, the individuals who run these operations will be relieved not to have to spend valuable time and resources searching out and stocking printing supplies. They’ll just reach for the telephone to keep their printers running.
In the future, once the “Dial A Cartridge” database has been optimized, and with the permission of its customers, HP hopes to begin direct marketing activities with Saudi SMBs. HP’s account managers already visit enterprise customers, ensuring that they are getting the most out of their printers and supplies, and making them aware of new products and improved technologies.
“With Saudi enterprises it is already a one to one customer relationship, but with SMBs it’s one to many,” said Hassan. “We’d like to use technology to reach out in a more proactive manner to the Kingdom’s SMBs and bring to them personalized offerings.”
