'Our partners are able to maintain profitable and sustainable margins'

As Area Channel Sales Manager, KS Chong oversees channel sales in the South East Asian region. Countries under his responsibility include Australia, New Zealand, ASEAN countries and India. With a BE and an MBA under his belt, Chong joined AMD in 1997, migrating from HP, Asia Pacific. A regular visitor to India as part of AMD's focus on the country, CI caught up with him on his last visit here. Excerpts from the conversation.

How big is your distribution network today?

The AMD Reseller Program was officially launched three months back and till-date we have over 1000 resellers registered from across India. We expect this number to grow dramatically in the near future as we step up our channel initiatives and brand-building programs. Our network, however, is much bigger since all partners selling AMD are yet to register. 

How have you been able to develop this network? 

AMD has three distributors in India namely, Avnet Max, BBS Electronics and Intraco. The distribution network is very vital to AMD's success in India and we have been systematically building up the channel with a range of channel incentives. Some the key initiatives are AMD & Friends, which is targeted at the end customer, AMD Reseller Program, and the Athlon Centers. We have been fortunate to have very good response and feedback from our channel partners.

What are your expectations from the channels?

We believe that our channel partners will be the single most important factor for our success in the Indian marketplace. We expect them to keep themselves technically updated and add value to the process of selling. We expect our channel partners to believe in the superiority of our product technology and help us establish AMD as a true alternative PC platform in India both in the consumer and commercial segments. 

Together with the strong value propositions of our products, AMD would be able to offer CPU solutions spanning the entire spectrum of the PC market.

What are the terms and conditions to become your channel partners? 

The AMD Reseller Program welcomes all resellers in the IT market. Once a reseller gets registered online for the AMD Reseller program, he is designated as an ordinary member, and then moves on to become either associate or premier member based on a simple point grading system which is linked to the number and mix of processors sold.

What kind of schemes and promotional programs do you keep running for channels? 

We are currently running the AMD Reseller program wherein the channel partners stand to earn points on every single sale of processors accompanied by the AMD and Friends card. The accumulated points will qualify them to win prizes that range from Rs 250 gift vouchers to a television to an outstation trip to an exotic location. 

The entire process is being managed by surfgold.com. Latest in the series of promotions is the AMD Shop Décor Tehelka for the Nehru Place reseller community.

What problems do you face while doing business with channels? 

AMD is very fortunate to have very strong support from the channel. As a result we have no difficulty in doing business with them. In part this could be a result of our commitment to all our partners. 

What are your strengths vis-à-vis the channels?

AMD strength today lies in the fact that we are able to interact with all tiers of the distribution network very closely. Through our rapport with all our partners, we are able to work as a big team in providing best computing solutions in the PC market.

What are the products being sold by the channels currently?

The channels are now offering the AMD Duron and the AMD Athlon processors. The Duron is available in 700 Mhz to 850 Mhz while the AMD Athlon is available in 850 Mhz to 1.33 Ghz. Incidentally, the AMD Athlon today is the highest performing PC processor in the world and we are confident that we will have overwhelming success in India.

What new products are you planning to sell through the channels in the days to come?

AMD has a very strong product roadmap for the future and we will continue to introduce better performing AMD Athlon and AMD Duron processors. Also, this year, we will introduce the AMD DDR 2-way platform (basically chipsets that will support more than one CPU) for 1-2 way servers and workstations to stake our claim in the commercial segment.

The AMD roadmap leads all the way to the AMD x86 64-bit technology with our Hammer Family of processors. 

The channel is complaining of inadequate margins in business. Are you providing satisfactory margins to the channels?

With our current distribution model, we are confident that all our partners are able to maintain profitable and sustainable margins. And we are topping this up with schemes and promotions that are being run at regular intervals. 

What are the replacement and warranty issues that confront you while dealing with channels? 

AMD offers a very comprehensive product warranty scheme. One of the challenges we face in the field is the use of cooling devices with inferior heat dissipation capabilities. To that end, we have organized regular training to promote the usage of recommended parts. AMD also provides a comprehensive listing of recommended motherboards and heat dissipation devices on its website.

The introduction of a new product or a model calls for orientation of the service staff, so what kind of a training support to you provide to the channels?

In our business of high technology it is very important to ensure that our resellers and their support professionals are extensively trained. We undertake frequent reseller training programs as and when new products are announced and regular technology updates are provided to them through e-mail on a day-today basis. Besides, our web site

www.amd.com is a virtual storehouse of technical information available to our resellers round-the-clock. 

Under the AMD Reseller Program, we have a very structured Technical Certification Program where registered resellers take two levels of certification tests online namely Bronze and Silver levels and then qualify to attend the Gold Certification training and subsequent tests to win the Gold Certification. 

In fact, we recently held one such Gold Certification training program at New Delhi and got an overwhelming response from our channel. At the New Delhi training session, we awarded over 150 bronze and 25 silver certificates. 

AMD also holds product technology seminars called Power Forums with a view to impart information about its technology to various communities such as enterprise customers, OEMs and resellers. 

Mohit Chhabra in New Delhi