US based Pitney Bowes, founded in 1920, clocked $6.1 billion in revenue for the 2007. The company has currently has more than 35,000 employees in 130 countries.

"We are open to an acquisition if the company business is complementary to our business needs, helps us get talent on board and has substantial customer base " said,  Eric-Yves Mahe President, Asia Pacific and Middle East, Pitney Bowes in an exclusive interaction with CIOL.

Pitney Bowes has been on acquisition trail in the last six years acquiring close to 70 companies in the last six years. The company is branching beyond the postage meter business and has invested $2.5 billion in acquisitions since 2000 to make inroads into the document services market.

Among the high profile acquisition for the company has been location intelligence provider MapInfo, which the company acquired for an undisclosed amount in 2004.

Pitney Bowes made its direct presence in India in 2004, though the company had an indirect presence in country through its distributors from 1970.

More than 10,000 of its two million customers worldwide are from India and half of 2007 revenues came from the sale and operation of postage meters.

On opportunity in Indian Market

Speaking about company business in India, Eric-Yves Mahe, said Pitney Bowes is hugely excited about its prospects in India.

"We are very excited about our growth prospect in India. Out of 6 billion mail pieces sent today in India, Pitney Bowes processes only 600 million pieces. The rest of the mail pieces are not touched at all by us. The fast growing banking and telecom verticals present huge opportunities for us"

Eric added that company looked to leverage its existing relation ship with its 10,000 customers in India.

The company also has recently signed an MOU with India Post.  Under the MOU, Pitney Bowes will set up its network infrastructure to enable Indian postal franking meter users to remotely recharge franking machines without having to physically carry them to a post office.

Threat to company's core business by direct mail by email, Internet Advertising

Responding to the threat posed by Internet advertising to the direct mailing, which forms core of Pitney Bowes business , Eric-Yves Mahe, said the rather than a threat, Internet advertising was acting as massive enabler for direct mailing in India and globally.

"Though business to business communication mailing may have seen a slight dip due to advent of email or Internet advertising, the business to consumers business is showing tremendous growth", says Eric.

Eric added that company has a partnership with eBay in India and globally and majority of this communication is done using Pitney Bowes solutions.

In Indian context, K.M.Nanaiah, MD India, Pitney Bowes, said the growth in telecom and banking sectors has perked growth for direct mailing in India.

"The number of subscribers in India who require their bills in print has witnessed tremendous growth. Be it credit card bills or mobile bills" said Naniah.

Naniah adds Pitney Bowes solutions were witnessing tremendous traction in India with the advent of new technologies.

Threat from Xerox in the document management business

 Responding to the argument that Pitney Bowes has been late into document management business and will face tremendous competition from companies like Xerox, Eric says Pitney Bowes was an end to end mail stream solution provider while Xerox focused on only one end of pie.

 "If you talk about the challenge from Xerox, I would say it is not all a challenge for us as we are an end to end mail stream solution provider rather than a niche player like Xerox", says Eric.

"In order to achieve total communication intelligence, you need to integrate communications with the business processes they connect with, no matter how disparate they may seem and we are best positioned to do that," explains Eric.

 "We provide end to end solutions. Our Customer Communication Management solutions span from database to delivery something which gives us distinct edge compared to other companies", opines Eric.