Finishing & Screen Printing
Pitney Bowes Signs Distribution Agreement for India With Kilburn Office Automation
Wednesday 09. December 2009 - Alliance Establishes Presence in more than Thirty Cities Across India in 2010
Pitney Bowes Inc. (NYSE:PBI) today announced that it has appointed Kilburn Office Automation as its official channel distribution partner in India, supplementing the efforts of its direct sales company, Pitney Bowes India.
The formal agreement was recently signed between K.M. Nanaiah, managing director of Pitney Bowes India, and V. Vanchi, managing director of Kilburn Office Automation.
“Pitney Bowes invented postage metering technology nearly ninety years ago, and today we are a global leader in postage and stamp duty evidencing solutions,” noted Eric Yves Mahe, President of Pitney Bowes Africa, Asia, Pacific and Middle East Operations. “Our association with Kilburn will further strengthen our position in the Indian market with improved coverage. India is a strategic market for Pitney Bowes and we are committed to grow here.”
Pitney Bowes India is the leading provider of mailstream technologies to the Indian market, and has nearly 12,000 postage meters installed across the country, Mahe said.
“With Kilburn coming on board as our distributor, we will be able to penetrate this market more effectively and expand our reach,” said Nanaiah. “With the launch of digital postage meter technology in India, customers will soon experience and enjoy the benefits of a desktop post office at their own place of work.”
“We are delighted to be a part of a global company that is the leader in postage and tax evidencing technology,” said Vanchi, Managing Director of Kilburn Office Automation. “We have a strong understanding of this market and with better technology coming in we will be able to expand this market soon.”
Kilburn Office Automation, with headquarters in Kolkata, is a major distributor of business systems across India. The company began as the local reprographics distributor of a multi-national corporation, but was spun off as a separate company in 1987. Today, with offices in more than thirty locations throughout India, Kilburn Office Automation provides a broad range of business systems to thousands of customers. In addition to postal technologies, the company is a leading distributor of copiers and printers, banking technologies, and other office systems.
Pitney Bowes has recently adapted its business model in India, and sees the independent channel as one of its key growth opportunities. The company expects the new independent distribution channel to contribute more than one-fourth of its revenue for the next year.
The new agreement with Kilburn is similar to distribution agreements that Pitney Bowes unveiled earlier this year in two other major Asian markets: one with Digital China in the Peoples Republic of China, and one with Canon Marketing Japan Inc. for that country. Pitney Bowes has a direct selling presence in both of these markets, and is using the new distribution deals to expand its reach and scope more quickly.