Intel in pact with Multiple Zones
(Our Corporate Bureau, New Delhi, 1st December, 1999)

Global infotech giant Intel has decided to join hands with Delhi-based Multiple Zones India.In the venture, according to sources, Intel will be lending financial help also apart from its technical expertise. It, however, is not clear whether Intel will also take up an equity position or not.Intel, which has made known its decision to go in for strategic investments in Indian IT companies, has picked up about 10 per cent stake in the Delhi-based Eastern Software Services (ESS) some time back.

The website, called www.pczoneindia.com, aims at sale through the catalogue and website is targeted towards corporate.

The website, which lists about 5,000 products across 24 product categories, also helps negotiate special prices for large deals and tracks the status of the shipment on-line.

MZI, the Indian arm of the US-based $600 million Multiple Zone International, is also setting up a 16 agent PC-based web-ready call center in Delhi for telemarketing and customer service. The company is investing about Rs 2 crore in setting up this centre.

The call centre will have features such as automatic call distributor, interactive voice response, predictive dialer, voice call logging, voice messaging, fax on demand and web call back.

The Internet-ready call centre is expected to help MZI in pushing its e-business using tools like voice over Internet, live call back, web chat and agent guided browsing.After the call centre in Delhi, the company will set up call centres in its other offices in Mumbai and Bangalore as well.

The company also helps in developing marketing strategies for its partners for each phase of the product cycle from product launch, product growth to product maturity.

The Rs 30-crore MZI expects to reach a turnover of Rs 55 crore by 1999-2000 and Rs 80-100 crore by 2000-2001. The company also expects that by 2001, sales through the website are expected to constitute over 50 per cent of the company's turnover.

The company also plans to open offices in Chennai and Hyderabad by the second quarter of 2000.