World’s largest aftermarket services iQor to invest $200 million in India

The world's largest aftermarket services provider iQor plans to invest $200 million in building an expanded, pan-India service network in the next 3-5 years.

"India is the world's fastest-growing major economy and is projected to be the second largest smartphone market by 2016," Hartmut Liebel, iQor's CEO said. "With infrastructure and staff already in place throughout the country, iQor is perfectly positioned to meet India's increasing demands for skilled, immediate product support."

The plan

The plan is to build India’s largest After Services network with direct presence in more than 300 cities in 29 states. They are not going for a franchise model.

iQor plans to provide full portfolio of its services including contact center, premium/exclusive OEM branded walk-in-service centers, on-site support, complex component-level Repair, spare part management across multitude of industry segments including mobility, IT, Telecom, Consumer Electronics, Consumer Durables, Lighting and Industrial Electronics.

What’s in it for us?

The expansion will create 20,000 new jobs in all of India's 29 states. Part of the growth will come from the opening of two new repair depot hubs in Chennai and Hyderabad as well as new walk-in service centers along with on-site services.

So why did iQor chose India despite India’s respective market being one of the most unorganised markets in the world? Hartmut reveals this and more in a chat with Business Insider India.

How is the Indian market different from the local market?

It is the most competitive market in the world in the industry we play in. It is also challenging because of its diversity.

There are also significant logistics challenges. That’s why our local walk-in centres are so important to address the regional differences.

Another important challenge is the price points. That’s why we think scale matters and India can give us that.

The fact that the Indian market is at the inflection point, we believe the time (to invest in India) is right now.

What is your target for the next one year?

“I can see a 50 percent plus growth number in next 12 months,” said Steve Deacon, regional vice president- Asia, iQor.

What sectors are you planning to capture in India?

“We are doing a lot of things in the telecom market. We would like to move into the medical sector. In terms of ecommerce, it is a stringent market in India. Let’s see how this spans out,” said Deacon.

Hartmut said that they have partnered with one of the largest ecommerce platforms in India today. the name was not revealed.

What is that one thing that makes you better than your competitors?

Brand loyalty

What was the greatest mistake that iQor has committed so far?

The greatest mistake was we did not expand fast enough internationally in our initial days. We started as a US company in 2 or 3 cities in US. We could have grown faster.

What was your first big success?

The first big success was in 2002 when we took over the entire operation of Seagate technology. Overnight we added about 1.5 k Seagate employees.

Currently iQor, operates depot repair/refurbishment services at state-of-the-art facilities in Manesar (Gurgaon), Mumbai, Kolkata and Bangalore. It also operates company owned and operated premium customer-branded walk-in centers and on-site services in 82 cities and 17 states.

(Image credits: iQor)