Channel Tree : Keeping it Simple

AMD entered the Indian market in 2001. Over eight years it has been able to

successfully establish the building blocks for its business with OEMs, channel,

consumer, enterprise, and government markets.

On the OEM front, AMD has built alliances with global infotech majors in

desktop as well as server segments. In addition to the sales and marketing

teams, it is now strengthening its platform in engineering and R&D efforts at

its India Engineering Centers in Bengaluru and Hyderabad.

The channel structure



Discussing the channel structure of the company, Sandeep Naik, Head-Channel

Sales, SAARC, AMD India said, “Our master distributors are Avnet India, Ingram

Micro and Rashi Peripherals. We have 140 sub-distributors across 20 cities,

predominantly in the component business and 5,000 active system integrators and

resellers across the length and breadth of the country.”

Sandeep Naik; Head-Channel Sales, SAARC, AMD India

AMD India's channel structure is quite simple spread across three tiers. In

tier-1, the company has appointed three national distributors; namely Ingram

Micro, Rashi Peripherals and Avnet. These three national distributors can do

direct billing solely from the company.

In tier-2, the company has appointed regional distributors termed as Platinum

partners, and premiere partners termed as Gold partners.

A Platinum one has to have a 1,000 unit every quarter purchase to remain in

its current portfolio while a Gold one has to have a minimum intake of 250 units

every quarter. “In the present scenario, we have 32 Platinum partners and 102

Gold partners,” Naik elaborated.

As far as tier-3 is concerned, AMD has appointed solution providers who are

to be billed either from the Platinum partner or from tier 1. Termed as AMD

solution providers, tier-3 handles major deployments, deals with orders and

carries on the daily consumer transactions.he channel team As far as its

organizational structure is concerned, AMD again has a clear cut distinction in

its regions. “The country is divided into four regions-North, West, South and

East. Every region has a regional manager (RM) and under them there are teams of

channel relationship managers (CRM),” Naik said.

The RMs are solely responsible for the regional business and presiding over

the channel team. However, contrary to the belief that the CRM is responsible

for dealing directly with the channel partners, they carry on the daily

transactions with them.

“AMD India is broadly categorized into three business units namely-commercial

organization that works with the large and small enterprises, the consumer

organization and the component organization. Apart from this, there is a

dedicated team which manages the critical relationship with OEM and ISV partners

and a full-fledged marketing team. From a product perspective, AMD offers the

entire platform of products from processors, chip sets, and graphic cards,” Naik

elaborated.

AMD has recently launched an initiative to provide a single-window access for

all matters related to the channel community. They can now directly contact Naik

to provide feedback, get replies to queries, resolve issues, etc. The route is a

dedicated e-mail address-channelhead@amd.com which the company claims is

diligently monitored, allowing Naik to respond to each inquiry as quickly as

possible.

“Best-in-class post-sale service is aligned with our business philosophy and

we at AMD endeavor for continuous improvement of our service standards. We have

partnered with Accel Frontline Services, and leveraged their expertise and their

logistics support infrastructure across the country to provide RMA service to

our customers,” Naik added.

In the case of a manufacturing defect within the warranty period, Accel

Frontline Services provides doorstep pickup from the customer location and

replacements are also door delivered. With over 40 branches and proven IT

infrastructure, Accel has excellent control over logistics to service AMD's

partners and end customers.

The strategies



With its commitment to enable the growth of its channel partners along with

its own growth, the company as part of its channel strategies, undertakes

regular initiatives to motivate the channel ecosystem. AMD recently hosted its

annual channel meet at Gold Coast, Australia for channel partners who

accomplished their prescribed goals and in turn became AMD 'High Flyers'.

In addition to this, it has several programs to reward partners who have

contributed to its business growth in India. These programs target AMD's CPU and

GPG partners, retail and commercial partners, distributors, OEM and ODM partners

across four zones in India and other countries in South Asia including Sri

Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal.

Training on new AMD and ATI products is important so that they have better

awareness about our solutions and hence able to translate their understanding to

customers better. AMD has organized several programs in the past like 'Dive',

'SB Yatra' and others to train our partners.

Besides its channel plans and enhancing its channel focus, AMD also

circulates a quarterly newsletter titled 'Chip In' among its channel partners to

keep them abreast of AMD India and industry developments. AMD is also developing

a portal for educating, communicating and acting as a collaborating forum

between AMD and its channel partners.

AMD is now all set to roll-out 'Sparx 2009', a training program for channel

partners with a target to cover more than 2,000 system integrators, resellers

and retailers, who promote AMD platforms, including processors, graphics

solutions and chip sets.

Avishek Rakshit



avishekr@cybermedia.co.in