XTOUCH’s Tim Chen (TC), founder and managing director and Sandeep Agrawal (SA), executive director, share insights to the firm’s business objective at the launch event of XTOUCH X smartphone and its new e-commerce platform.
Which smartphone competitor are you trying to take on?
SA: Until 2016, the brand was growing phenomenally. Over the last two years, we noticed that we had lost focus as we had begun to compete with other brands and sidelined our top priority – the customer. Today, the change we are trying to drive is to focus back on the customer. We are not worried about what other brands are doing. Our priorities are to keep track of the technologies available, how we can improve it and what we can bring to our customers. Our objective is to bring affordable technology to customers. There are two parts to this – one is simple vanilla technology with specification and features and the other is the overall experience. This is where our recently launched e-commerce platform fits in. Two years down the line we will be talking about smart homes. We are not here to win laurels for inventing a new technology, our only focus is to make people’s lives simpler.
Can you elaborate on your customer-centric approach?
SA: Our new website does not have a payment gateway. This is because we want customers to come on our site and be able to purchase their items in the easiest way possible – browse, select and order. Customers don’t require a credit card to buy our products online as we have cash on delivery. Understanding our target consumers well, we have made this conscious decision in order to make life easier for customers. Also in the UAE, only 40 percent amounts to card transactions.
TC: Being customer friendly is key and the core value for our company. We ensure their experience is fantastic right from the first step. We are trying to make sure that in just two or three clicks, customers can finalise their order and get their delivery to their door step. Our recently unveiled financial service for select groups of our target audience is also an effort towards being customer-centric.
How do you integrate technologies such as Big Data and IoT in the vision of becoming an Internet company?
SA: Big Data and IoT are tools, which we are not promoting or selling. However, to do our job, which is making our customers’ lives simpler, we must use all these tools. We are using these tools because it helps us to achieve our overall roadmap. We are focusing on Middle East and Africa, which are huge markets with large populations. These are emerging markets and our focus is to upgrade their buying experience with us. If we don’t use scientific tools such as Big Data or IoT, we will be unable to go beyond a point. If we can use these tools at the beginning, as a foundation of our business, tomorrow it will be easier for us to expand. That’s the growth story we are after.
