Don't Sit On The Fence

During the World Cup, a person with even the remotest knowledge about it will
turn into an armchair critic. They will talk about who should have opted to bat
first, what the batting order should have been, who should have led the team,
how they would have made the different judgement calls differently. But the
reason they are in a position to criticize is because they are not on the field.
They can never experience that severe pressure the team undergoes.

This is what seems to be happening in some smaller cities of India. A bulk of
the partners there have become armchair critics. This is what I realised when I
visited Jalgaon recently. The channel community over there does not have a
semblence of unity. This is evident from the fact that there is a channel
organization, but only on paper. Like a partner remarked, when the biggies have
a problem, the channel springs to life. Otherwise it is defunct.

But when asked why they do not come together to form a channel, the constant
refrain is that no one is willing. Not one person is ready to take the
responsibility of gathering his peers together get the local association going.

Similarly, when faced with issues from their principals, most of them play
the blame-game. They talk about how the vendors and distributors should have
representative offices in their city, even though the sales there might not
justify it. They talk about how distributors might have an ERP in place, but do
not take orders after 5pm, forgetting that the reason behind this is that most
courier companies do not take delivery orders after a stipulated time. They will
talk about not having technical knowledge, but will hesitate to go for the
seminars organized by their principals.

This does not mean this is the general scenario in all smaller towns. But at
the same time this general lackadaisical attitude is definitely prevalent in
varying degrees there. What the channel partners here fail to realize is that
they need to shake this attitude off. Because at the end of the day they are the
ones who suffer.

Think about it.