Tablets-Samsung's Well-Tabulated Approach

The ongoing war of tablets in the country compelled us to include it as one of the new categories in this year's DQC-CMR Channel Satisfaction Survey. Though the market is flooded with numerous brands, we tried to test the waters by doing a survey of the top 5 players including HCL, Dell, Apple, Samsung, and Acer. And according to the endorsement of the channel partners, the tablets market is dominated by Samsung. Samsung scores high not only on overall product quality and marketing support but also in terms of providing online support to its partners. The ratings from partners clearly show that Samsung tablets are reliable, user-friendly, and offer value for money to both the channels as well as customers. Besides being innovative in market development programs, the company has been very flexible in conducting localized promotions.

Furthermore, Samsung has built an interactive site for resolving queries of its partners and has been very prompt in turnaround time. On the other hand, channel partners seem to be impressed with Apple's after-sales support and Acer's approach towards commercial terms, and overall relationship management. Apple has an excellent technical expertise to resolve problems of the partners and is very prompt with turnaround time. Partners also appreciate the presence of Apple's service centers in every nook and corner of the country and its ability to provide satisfactory repair and replacement services. Also, the services of the company's account managers and helpdesk are very competent and always available for its channel partners.

Similarly, Acer's product pricing, back-end incentives and its settlement, keeping transparency in commercial terms and policies, and the promptness with which the schemes/incentive programs are communicated, have gone down well with the partners. The company not only excels with its advertising strategies and point of sales material, but also has an excellent team in place to carry out all the marketing activities. Partners also feel that the company's reward systems are one of the best in the industry. Besides having a dedicated personnel for maintaining relationship, there is consistency and effectiveness of communication with channel partners as well.

And though HCL and Dell have managed to gain some respect with their price versus performance ratio and having an effective online partner portal, they surely have a long way to go. If they have to win over the channels, then they will have to definitely work on their strategies and policies and be consistent in their communication with the partners.