Philips revamps distribution strategy; appoints Compuage, Priya as distys

In an aggresive move to revive its presence in the monitor market, Philips

India Ltd has restructured its channel strategy by dropping the existing

regional distribution model and appointing Compuage Infocom and Priya Ltd as

national distributors. Compuage will focus on the western and southern region

while Priya will distribute in the northern and eastern part of the country.

Philips hope to emerge as a major player by reorient its service staff to

provide better after-sales service. "Philips has 103 service outlet across

the country, but, until now this was not fine-tuned to support IT product,"

admits Ankan Biswas, GM - Business Group Communication, Consumer Electrnoics

Division, Philips. "Very soon we will train our existing service staff to

handle IT products as well," adds Sanjay Maheshwari, Manager -

Distribution, PC Peripherals, Philips.

The new strategy also aims at providing competitive pricing and feature-rich

range of monitors.

"According to IDC, our marketshare for LCD monitors stand at 17.3

percent and for CRT monitors its is 1.8 percent. Our target is to be #1 in LCD

segment and achieve 10 percent marketshare in CRT monitors," says Sanjay.

Under the new arrangement, Philip’s existing network of 70 dealers will now

become Star partner. Star partners get preferential treatment in pricing and

other channel activities. "We intend to increase this number to 100 Star

partners in an year’s time," says Sanjay.

While some major monitor verdors have chosen the regional distribution model

in the recent past, Philips has done the reverse. "It might be working for

s ome vendors, but it is not working as a viable option for us," says Ankan

adding, "Regional distribution model creates a stock pressure on the

channels and in the process partners lose money. Our strategy is to grow revenue

profitabily for both the channels and ourself."

DQCI NEWS BUREAU