Jalgaon: Divided We Stand

The DQ Week IT Panchayat, which has been touring the smaller cities of the
country since the beginning of 2007, reached the sleepy town of Jalgaon last
week. Surprisingly, partners were not having any major issue that needed to be
dealt with the present distributors. But, this was not because there were no
issues to be addressed. Rather, it was because the partners said they did not
know the right person to address it to.

This is why The DQ Week IT Panchayat seemed like the right paltform to them.
They got representatives from Neoteric Infomatique, Rashi Peripherals and
Redington India on a single platform; Ingram Micro was missing. Some partners
there remarked that since the distributor did not make its presence at the
event, it was an indication just how important small towns are to a big company
like Ingram Micro.

It was also noticed that partners in Jalgaon were a divided lot with no
common consensus about how to go about business in a unified fashion. One
partner remarked that the only time all partners get together is if one big
partner is affected and then he will try to get the nearly defunct association
going till his problem is resolved.

The panel at The DQ Week IT Panchayat held in Jalgaon

However, they realize that this complacency will have a negative impact on
their business as the IT adoption increases. Several partners vouched that they
would consider revitalizing the association, so that they have a unified front
to deal with any issues.

Information gap exists

After a well received presentation from Rahul Seth, Seagate's Channel
Relationship Manager for western India, the channel took its time warming up to
the panel comprising Milind Modi of Neoteric Infomatique, Manish Joshipura of
Redington India and Himanshu Joshi of Rashi Peripherals.

The first salvo was fired by Manish Lotwala of Xsys Computing Systems who
noted that often a vendor would appoint more than two distributors for different
product lines. This create a lot of confusion to the channel.

Joshipura agreed that this was the reality, but added that this problem could
be erased if distributors were regularly in touch with the channel. He informed
that Redington was doing this. Himanshu of Rashi noted that his company was also
following this practice.

Channel partners at the event involved in a group discussion

Another partner noted that often, the distributors did not pass on
information about stock availability to the channel. Taking note of this, all
three representatives on the panel promised to look into this to ensure that
timely information is passed on to the channel.

Market fed by several cities

What the partners reiterated at the event was that Jalgaon was equidistant
from Pune, Nashik and Nagpur due to which all three cities fed it. In case of
product shortage, a partner had to approach distributors in each of these cities
to get the products, which increased their overheads and also meant time loss in
co-ordination.

Jalgaon also does not have vendor-driven service centers, which led to longer
turnaround time if there were any post-sales support issues. “Samsung does not
have a service center, and therefore, we have stopped selling its products in
this city. Instead, we prefer selling HP products, which has an authorized
service center,” noted Lotwala.

However, the distributors stated that these were decisions that only vendors
could take and all they could do was pass this information on.

The event also gave impetus to the partners to revive the defunct local
association, which will safeguard their interests and would also give them a
unified front to deal with any issue that crops up in the course of business.

VINITA BHATIA

vinitavs@cybermedia.co.in