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Indian companies building their channel networks outside India would need
to scale up processes to the international standards of visibility. This is
where Zyme Solutions comes into the picture. It helps companies minimize their
errors and streamline the interface between vendors and their channel partner
What kind of risks do companies face while working with the channel?
For most high-tech companies, collaborating with channel partners, distributors,
resellers, and retailers is the key to driving revenue. Selling through partners
exposes them to problems in the areas of inventory management, revenue
reporting and compliance, consistent branding, company reputation and
verification of partner claims.
Key information such as channel sales activity, inventory levels and partner
program claims, reside with partners and companies must rely on their partners
to self-report the information in order to access this data. Unfortunately, the
data arrives in varying degrees of completeness, timeliness and accuracy, making
it complicated for companies to mitigate risks.
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Chandran Shankaran
Chairman and CEO, Zyme Solutions |
Organizations are forced to rely on information from partners, regardless of
the quality, due to the sheer volume of data coming in and the short intervals
between reporting periods. Often they cannot adequately or cost-effectively
scale the channel administration processes needed to consolidate, cleanse,
validate, and reconcile channel information.
What are the reasons for inaccuracy in partner data?
Partners work with hundreds of suppliers and get inundated with requests for
data in multiple formats at various times. Even if partners try to comply with
the requirements, when they are overwhelmed by requests they often submit data
in a single format to all suppliers.
There is no standardization for assembling or transmitting partner data. So
when companies attempt to standardize their partners on particular technology
solutions, only large and sophisticated partners may adopt the newer methods for
data transmission. Smaller partners, on the other hand, may be unwilling or
unprepared to make technology investments for data reporting purposes.
Since partner systems and processes are not perfect, there can be timing
differences with shipments and returns that are in-transit between manufacturers
and partners besides inadequate record keeping. wrong statements due to fraud or
the use of gray market goods, can also cause inaccurate, incomplete, or late
data reporting.
What role does Zyme play in helping companies clean the data they get?
At Zyme Solutions we provide a variety of outsourced information processing
and analysis services to companies so that they are confident about the quality
of their channel data and processes. These services include Outsourced Channel
Visibility Services whereby Zyme consolidates and cleanses sales, inventory,
and customer data from channel partners on a daily or weekly basis.
As part of its Outsourced Program Administration Services, Zyme processes,
validates, and manages the payment of channel partner claims related to rebates,
special pricing and price protection.
Additionally, Zyme offers consulting services to assist clients with specific
channel-related issues to increase partner participation in a required data
submission process, establishing Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)
infrastructure, building data warehouses for decision support, and finding ways
to enhance channel management processes and technology.
How can companies benefit from Zyme's services?
Zyme's services improve the quality and timeliness of our clients' channel
management support processes, while lowering their administration costs and
improving the adequacy of their control environments. These services require no
up-front investment and no long-term commitment-just an ongoing
month-to-month service arrangement and processing fee.
This provides clients with enhanced process performance at the same or lower
cost; reliable data that has been scrubbed and validated; full accountability
through established service level agreements and full responsibility for
results; high levels of security in handling client data and improved compliance
with documented processes and controls
Who are your major clients in India? Are you focused on any set of market
verticals?
Zyme's present clientele include Symantec and Linksys, among others. We also
have has direct distribution partners like Ingram Micro, Redington, Wipro, who
carry inventory on behalf of Zyme clients.
As yet, we have no particular target verticals although we are looking at
software, networking and mobility companies. This is because most of these
companies have a uniform distributor base and problems are consistent and
transferable.
What kind of opportunity do you see for yourself in markets like India?
Who are your competitors?
As Indian companies build channels outside India, they would need to scale-up
processes to the international standards of visibility. We can give them
standard contractual ideas for partnership and also indicate what data they can
expect from their distributors outside India. By doing that we would help
companies minimize their errors and streamline the interface between the vendors
and their channel. This means we have a huge growing opportunity in the channel
analytical space. We are the first in this space and would certainly leverage on
the first entrant advantage.
-SUBBALAKSHMI BM Page(s) 1
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