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