MANILA, Philippines — The newly installed country manager for Dell Philippines vowed to build on the stepping stones prepared by his predecessors as he kicks into high gear the local unit’s foray into the small and medium businesses (SMB) and business process outsourcing (BPO) markets.
Christopher Papa, erstwhile Dell country manager for its consumer business, has been promoted to the overall country manager post following the departure of Ricky Lopez, the country manager for Dell’s commercial business.
InterAksyon.com learned on Tuesday that Lopez had assumed his new role as the Channels Group Director at Microsoft Philippines on February 6.
In an interview at the sidelines of the Dell 12th-generation servers launch on Wednesday, Papa said two of his key growth areas for the Philippines are the SMB and BPO sectors.
“Based on IDC’s outlook, we still have a lot of legroom on the [SMB sector],” Papa said. “Our growth targets are going to be a combination of various sectors, but SMB will definitely be part of our expansion.”
The Dell executive, meanwhile, deferred to the growth prospects of the local BPO industry from the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP), which is seeing a steep 20 percent growth rate this year.
“BPO has always been a major market for Dell, so with that, we are going to see growth in that area,” Papa added.
On the consumer side, Papa said they would continue to focus on delivering on the medium- and high-price band ranges, which in recent months saw the launching of the Dell XPS 14z and XPS 15z, two high-end units that the company is eyeing for profit.
The executive, however, refused to divulge the specific revenue shares of each of its business units, although he pointed out that the enterprise business comprises 30 percent of its global business.
Just recently, Dell announced a global shift away from merely providing desktop and laptop units to businesses and end-users, suggesting a strategic move toward providing IT services to customers.
Before assuming his current post, Papa oversaw the local unit’s consumer business in the country, bringing a host of notebook releases to the Philippines as well as Dell’s initial foray into consumer-grade tablets and smartphones.
Papa was part of Dell Philippines’ segmentation strategy in 2010, which saw three core business units–the commercial, SMB and consumer segments–being handled by three different top executives. He initially handled the SMB segment for that year.
This year, however, saw the consolidation of those three management roles back into a single leadership position, which Papa has recently been appointed to.
Papa was promoted to the overall country manager position at the end of January.
source: interaksyon.com
