'Wellwin does not have a single paise of bad debt' - Sudhir S, GM, Wellwin Industry Ltd

How big is the distribution network of Wellwin Industry today?

We have 410 channel partners throughout the country. We are in the process of increasing this number to 1000 plus.

We want to reach this number very shortly. We have a major expansion plan this year for distribution.

We are talking to many principals and several vendors are also talking to us to introduce new products in the Indian market. We recently tied up with Elsa whose products have received a very good response. We want to introduce new-generation products with latest technologies to attract large number of partners to our fold.

We are going to open more branches in south and west. We have one office in Delhi today. We have plans to go to Lucknow and many other cities in the north. In the west, we have one office at Mumbai. We will be opening offices at Pune, Nagpur and other cities. More branch offices would bring in more number of channel partners. In south we will be going to C class cities. We already have offices at Cochin, Coimbatore, Bangalore and Hyderabad. We are opening offices at Vizag, Vijayawada, Madurai and Trivandrum. These offices would definitely help us to recruit more channel partners in the next two months time.

We are a strong player in the south since not many distributors are present there. Majority of the players is based in Mumbai or Delhi. Our market share is quite good in the south where we want to capture more. Once we stabilize ourselves in the south, we will go for the expansion in north and west, which should take place in the next four to six months. We are putting our own manpower in these branches. People from big distributors are joining us in large numbers.

We provide a friendly working place for our workforce. Friendly atmosphere is very important when one has to achieve stiff targets. One of the reasons why people like to work with us is the family atmosphere that they find in our organization. We give them more freedom at the work front and also attractive incentives.

No. This matter is under discussion. This can happen only after the AGM discusses the issue. The proposal has to go through several approvals.

We have three types of channel partners. The first one is called the 'Wellwin Premium Partners' who deal in big volumes. These get rebates for the volumes they lift. They tend to be big players in particular items like monitors or printers. I am not talking about the brand but a product category.

The next category of partners is called the 'Winning Race Partners' who are loyal to us and provide us value in terms of sales. They are given good incentives for remaining loyal to us. The third category is called the 'Authorized Partners' who don't get discounts. They usually negotiate and try to get best prices. If these partners want credit, they have to provide us with their balance sheets of three years. This is the reason Wellwin does not have single paise of bad debt.

In the first year of operation, we did Rs 10 crore. The next year we touched Rs 25 crore. Last year we crossed Rs 70 crore. All this while we have been carefully verifying the creditworthiness of our partners to avoid bad debts.

We are not looking for the increase in the number of partners at one single place. Also, I am talking of credit-worthiness of resellers who do business with us regularly. Otherwise we have a live database of 5,700 channel partners who do irregular business with us from Nehru Place in Delhi, Lamington Road Mumbai, Bangalore and other cities.

We have established very good rapport with the top-level distributors and we exchange notes on the credit-worthiness of channel partners. At one level, we distributors might compete against each other fiercely. But on the other level, we exchange information that is helpful to each other.

We expect sound turn-around of money and loyalty from our channels. We expect them to do more business and in the bargain we try to protect their interests in terms of offering competitive prices and providing them attractive margins. We keep our partners informed of the possible shortages. We extend the credit from seven days to 15 days in deserving cases. Unlike other distributors, we do not dump goods on our partners. So we support our partners in every respect and this is the reason why our partners are loyal to us.

We did not run any special scheme or promotion last year. Only 'Winning Race Partners' had some special schemes. But this year we are planning promotional activities for all our channel partners including target-based incentive programs.

For fast moving products, we usually do not look for any technology knowledge among our partners. For products where awareness of technology is required, we approach a different category of partners. Wherever required, we train our partners and keep them up to date to handle products efficiently.