The company will initially provide support services for all the computer peripherals manufactured by the Rs 283-crore company that include monitors, UPS, modems, keyboards, speakers among other things. Later, it will also venture into third-party system maintenance, according to Microtek director Anil Gupta.

Microtek will make an initial investment of Rs 10 crore in setting up the new company's operations within the first year, he added.

The company will set up its own service centres all over the country. Of the initial investment of Rs 10 crore, as much as Rs 8 crore will be spent on the purchase of real estate and the remaining Rs 2 crore on equipment.According to Gupta, the long-term strategy is to double the existing number of 26 service centres in the country by the next year-end. In the first year itself, it willopen 10 new centres. Microtek has already got ISO 9002 certification for all its service centres.

"Since we have identified servicing as a growth area for the future, we will keep offering value-added servicing as a USP.

The company's service engineers based at every centre will be asked to travel to other nearby locations and service a greater number of customers. Since services will be the only offering of this company, we will achieve many firsts in this arena," said Gupta.

To re-train its employees to equip them with the best service practices, Microtek has forged an alliance with US-based Pyramid Consulting. A known player in client-server and mainframe consulting services in the US, Pyramid will train Microtek's service engineers to deliver world class service to its customers. Pyramid Consulting, based at Atlanta in the US has clients like Unisys Corporation, Equifax and Lan-Wan Technologies, he pointed out. Tying up with them will help inculcate best practices and service-industry orientationthat exists in the US, but is practically non-existent in the Indian corporate world, in spite of so many multinationals setting up base here, he added. "Pyramid has a lot of expertise in shaping diverse systems, including document image processing, inventory control, accounting and healthcare and also internet and intranet networks," according to Gupta. Microtek has an installed base of 1.5 million monitors in the country and has the largest dealer network of 2,500. The company claims to be a market leader in the field of computer monitors and manufactures over 12 models of colour monitors with a market share of more than 40 per cent in the Indian market. It recently launched a feature-rich 15-inch colour monitor which at Rs 8,500 is cheaper than multinational brands, according to Gupta.