Cashing In On IT & Retail

Nagpur is the commercial hub of Maharashtra since years and its location in
the central part of India just reiterates its status further. At present, Nagpur
is also an education center as many engineering colleges and medical colleges
have been established of late. However, because of global recession, the market
growth has slowed down considerably.

“The rate at which the market is growing is extremely slow. The enthusiasm,
which was there initially in the market, is down because of the economic
recession. The 'Multi-modal International Cargo Hub and Airport at Nagpur' (MIHAN)
is not doing well. The whole industry is getting affected by the recession,”
said Rita Budhay, Director-Finance of Business Algorithms. As per the channels,
since three years the market is growing at about 40 percent and that is a good
sign of development.

As compared to all other sectors, IT and retail sectors are growing at a
faster rate in Nagpur. The IT market in Nagpur is comparatively bigger. “Around
2,000 laptops are sold every month in the region,” said Budhay.

Nagpur

FACT FILE Market growing at 40% YoY Market size is 2,000 laptops IT, retail are major growth drivers Large presence of corporate

The market and the behavior of people have changed considerably in Nagpur.
The customer awareness has increased and so has brand consciousness among the
people. Budhay commented, “People have stopped going in for the lowest priced
brands and are rather looking for a nice ambience when purchasing a product.”
Different channels have different viewpoints about the changes happening in the
market condition. Sonu Kewalramani, CEO, Silver Systems who is into distribution
business since seven years has seen a sea change in the Nagpur market. “Some
years back overall sale of laptops in the city was nearly 200. Now it has
increased to 2,000. The desktops are selling consistently at around 3,000 per
month. Another noticeable shift is happening in the LCD monitor segment, the
ratio of LCD to CRT monitors now is 80:20 while earlier it was 20:80
respectively,” said Kewalramani.

The cargo hubs are another area of rapid transformation in Nagpur, which is
attracting the corporate sections. “The number of corporate coming into the
region has resulted in increase in manpower. This is positively boosting the
business. Retail is another segment of brisk development but the LFR market has
yet to catch up,” said Kewalramani. When it comes to vendor investment in the
upcountry, every company wants to invest in such cites for their business
expansion. According to some companies the number of opportunities have been
overlooked in the upcountry. To tap that market they need to have a strong base
in upcountry cities.

Subhashis Choudhury, Branch Manager, Redington said that lots of companies
are investing in Nagpur for business in this region. On being asked why big
distributors like Redington should have a base in a city like Nagpur, Choudhury
said that now Nagpur can't be consider as an upcountry city and it comes under
the tag of a C-class city. He said, “Corporate class is present in Nagpur, which
is the major target segment. It's a secure place to run business, well connected
and central to all places. Year after year the consistency of the growth has
been recorded.”

The channel is very happy about the support given by the vendors. The big
vendors have established their service stations in the region, so as to combat
the post-sales service problem in the region.

Archana Swamy

archnas@cybermedia.co.in