Indiantelevision.com Team

(22 April 2008 6:30 pm)

BANGALORE: Reliance Retail Limited (RRL) and Office Depot (OD), a provider of office products and services, today announced that they have entered into a joint venture to provide office products and services to business customers in India. With this partnership, Office Depot marks its entry in India.

To accelerate the rollout of their joint venture, RRL and OD also announced the acquisition of eOfficePlanet®, a dealer of office products and provider of services to corporate customers in India.

An official release from RRL says that the Indian market is one of the top 15 office product markets in the world.

The joint venture will combine the global resources of Office Depot with the local market knowledge and resources of Reliance Retail Limited to establish a sophisticated supply chain network and enhance eOfficePlanet's merchandizing and sourcing capabilities.

eOfficePlanet provides a full range of national and private brand office products and solutions to its customers, serving India's many blue chip and multinational corporations.

The Company offers a broad array of business consumables including office stationery and supplies; office technology; printing solutions; corporate gifting and promotional products; break room, canteen, pantry and janitorial supplies; and other items across India's largest cities.

Said RRL President of Lifestyle Bijou Kurien,"Reliance Retail has embarked on an ambitious plan to transform the retail market in India. To provide a range of options for business customers, we have partnered with Office Depot. This partnership reflects a powerful combination of category leading expertise and global sourcing capabilities of Office Depot with the immense distribution reach and deep customer understanding that Reliance Retail has achieved."

Added OD President Charles Brown: "The joint venture with Reliance and strategic acquisition of eOfficePlanet will put Office Depot in a leadership position in India. eOfficePlanet is the market leader in the fast-growing Indian office supplies industry, with high brand recognition among the procurement decision makers in large corporate organizations. Our new relationship will provide Office Depot with a platform to both serve our existing global customers who have operations in India and to expand our offering to all business customers in India."

Sreenivas Nagappa, Country Manager for OD India, will be based in eOfficePlanet's Mumbai headquarters and Shyam Barilits Gupta, who currently serves as CEO of eOfficePlanet, will continue as part of the management team within eOfficePlanet.

OD provides products and services to its customers through more than 1,600 worldwide retail stores, a dedicated sales force top-rated catalogs and a $4.9 billion e-commerce operation. OD has annual sales of approximately $15.5 billion, and employs about 49,000 associates around the world. The Company provides office products and services to customers directly or through affiliates in 43 countries.

eOfficePlanet is headquartered in Mumbai and has its operations hub in Navi Mumbai. It operates sales offices and distribution centers across the country, with principal operations in Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Gurgaon, Noida, Pune and Kolkata.