ALPHATECH INDIA LIMITED: B2B

CUSTOMER RETENTION
 Case Background
 Alphatech India ltd., a subsidiary of Alphatech Corporation, a market
leader in providing technology for AIMS
 Alphatech had the largest market share in AIMS market globally & also
in India, but lately its market share dropped from 65% in 2009 to 60%
in 2011
 Zeta Corporation being the closest competitor was giving hard time to
Alphatech with competing technology for most of Alphatech’s offerings
 Alphatech had been providing IT support to Neptune, an Indian project
consultancy for over 5 years
 Neptune was looking for vendors to upgrade its existing Alphatech
AIMS
 After some negotiations Alphatech got the order but later on with a
new appointment of new Director, Neptune looked inclined towards
giving Zeta corporation a chance to test its offerings
Neptune – Alphatech Deal
 Neptune had been using Alphatech technology based AIMS since
2005 & awarded the deal to upgrade their AIMS to Alphatech in
2010
 Alphatech was offering to complete the job for Rs. 105 million after
giving a 30% discount on list price
 Srikant Das, Alphatech’s sales manager- north region handled the
deal
 Later due to budgetary constraints, Neptune postponed the
implementation for 2 years
 In December 2012 when Das approached the newly appointed
Director-IT at Neptune, Das got a very meek response from him &
was left confused
 Later Das found that Swami, Director-IT was considering Zeta as an
option rather than closing the deal
Neptune Management

Satish • Swami & Rajeev both joined

Gopakumar Neptune in December 2011
(Managing • Das met with both Harish Swami
Director) & Rajeev Srivastava for
following up on the deal
• While Harish Swami showed less
Venkat interest, Rajeev seemed satisfied
Ramamurthy Harish Swami with Alphatech’s proposal
(Director User (Director IT) • Rajeev’s promotion was
Dept.)
dependent upon his feedback
from Swami, so he could not go
against Swami
Rajeev • Das had good rapport with
Srivastava Venkat Ramamurthy
(General
Manger, IT)
Key Concerns
Alphatech was still offering to provide the solutions at price quoted in 2010 even
after price fluctuations

Still Swami was inclined towards testing Zeta’s offerings and was postponing
closure of the deal & Das was informed about the same by Rajeev

Although Alphatech got the deal as their offering were technologically superior
than that of Zeta, further postponement could work against Alphatech as Zeta
would get more time to advance its offerings
Swami was amongst the decision makers, so Das had to get him on board to close
the deal

Das rejecting Xion’s (its implementation partner which also worked with Zeta)
proposal might have worked against Alphatech
 Purchase Portfolio Matrix for Neptune

• AIMS
implementati High
on was a big Leverage Items Criticals
& critical (raw materials) (new technology)
project for CUSTOMER
Neptune
• They were
VALUE
looking to
minimizing Generics Bottleneck Items
cost via
getting the
Low (MRO items) (essential spare parts)

best quality
• Zeta’s
offerings
were Low CUSTOMER RISK High
competitive
Recommendations

Das should first try to understand what prompted Swami to suddenly

consider Zeta’s proposal by talking to Rajeev or other employees & then
communicate the advantages of going ahead with Alphatech to Swami

Alphatech’s products were already superior than that of Zeta & Neptune
was already using Alphatech’s Aims so the total cost of ownership would be
less if Neptune goes with Alphatech, as training & other costs would be less

Das should explain this to Neptune & try to convince them to consider T.C.O
rather than initial price

Das should leverage his rapport with Venkat to gain trust of Swami & try to
close the deal as soon as possible
Thank You