HP faces Pune resellers’ ire on octroi

The ban on HP products by the Pune channel for the last one-month has

snowballed into a major issue with both the sides refusing to budge an inch.

Pune roughly accounts for Rs 1.75 crore of business per month in HP peripherals

alone.

Even as talks continue between the representatives of the Computer and Media

Dealers´ Association (CMDA) Pune and HP India authorities, there seems to be no

reprieve for the moment.

	No intentions of budging to CMDA’s demands
Rajkumar Rishi

The whole imbroglio began almost a year ago when the CMDA approached

principal companies demanding fair business practices that included octroi

freight delivery. Almost all vendors accepted the request.

Samsung was the first company to provide products which were

octroi paid. The other companies to follow suit were Epson, LG, Wipro and TVSE.

"HP was the only company that did not respond. The

matter has been pending with HP for a long time now and therefore dealers in

Pune have stopped trading with HP," explains Suresh Joshi, Secretary, CMDA.

According to him, even Umax and Canon have promised to implement the demand for

octroi paid products. "We fail to understand why HP has adopted this

stance. We are not demanding this immediately. We are willing to give them

time," he added. The Pune channel has banned HP products since August 8.

Although HP India is currently in the midst of talks with

dealers, distributors and CMDA, the issue remains to be sorted out. Clarifies

Rajkumar Rishi, HP’s Commercial Sales Manager - Imaging and Printing Group,

"HP does not bring products in Pune directly, but through its second-tier

distributors. Our company follows a basic business model where billing is done

at five to six locations across the country. In western region, the billing

location is Mumbai. Here the distributors collect goods from these billing

locations and pass them onto the tier-two channels." HP India trades

through Redington, Tech Pacific and Ingram Micro in Pune.

"The issue is fundamental. Since we do not bill directly

in Pune and our business model does not allow for it, we have no way.

We simply cannot pay," maintains Raj. Though admitting

that the Pune market is indeed quite significant for HP, Raj clarifies,

"Currently there is no plan to bill our products directly in Pune."

The CMDA however, reacted to this statement by pointing out

that the best solution for HP would be to reimburse octroi to distributors in

some manner.

NANDA KASABE