We have a huge portfolio for SIs and we keep enhancing it

Goyal said that Bharti Teletech is looking to add SIs with sound knowledge
about various technologies, servicing ability, those who have good relations
with resellers and consumers and with adequate financial strength

When did Bharti Teletech venture into the distribution space?

We forayed into the distribution space in 2005 with Blackberry and Motorola
mobiles. It has only been about a year since we started thinking about
positioning ourselves as distribution house. Before, we were just leveraging on
Beetel brand and selling consumer products in telecom. Now we plan to go
pan-India with our extensive range of IT products and will do so step-by-step.

We have already started our foray into the top 100 cities in May this year
and established our presence in these cities by this August. Our portfolio
consists of a wide range of products including Motorola handsets and
accessories, BlackBerry, Thomson, high quality cordless phones, modems,
audio/video conferencing products from Polycom, free to air set top boxes, fixed
cellular phones and fixed wireless terminals.

Sunil Goyal, CEO, Bharti Teletech

Why did the company decide to focus on distribution?

We did a study on Beetel and found that it stands for dependability. That
gave us the confidence to leverage on the brand and get into this vertical. Our
belief at Bharti is that adoption of technology will grow.

To encash on the portfolio of growing technology, we are looking at those who
want to develop their products but don't have their direct presence in India.
Not to mention, the consumption of technology is very fast here. Our first
exposure to the scenario was with mobile phones.

Tell us about your system integrator focus.

We were earlier focusing exclusively on system integrator (SI) partners with
IT products like Polycom for its voice and videoconferencing solutions; and
Sharp and Sanyo projectors. We have a huge portfolio for SIs and keep enhancing.

These are the products SMEs, large corporate and government needs and we can
offer them that. We added LCD panels to the list, as offering complete boardroom
solutions is the key. We have Panasonic, Samsung and Sharp brand of LCDs.

Even the Logitech products are targeted at the corporate segment and catered
to through our SIs. Currently, Bharti Teletech has relations with 200 SIs of
which about 120-130 are billing with us every month.

You have recently got into the retail segment. What are your plans on this
front?

We started our retail focus in May this year. In the retail segment we have
added Transcend Products, which will be sold across all verticals-corporate, IT
and retail channel. This is where we have multiple partners-500 across the
country.

Bharti Teletech's focus is consumer IT-branded products. We will enter with
brand pull of these brands. Large format retails (LFRs) will be another focus
area. I can't share much about our mass retail channel initiatives as of now
since it is an area we are just getting into and are still in the process of
finalizing details.

What are the criteria you will be looking for when appointing channel
partners?

They would be different for each vertical. These SIs that we are looking to
add to our network include those with sound knowledge about various
technologies, have the ability to service, and have good relations with
resellers and consumers and financial strength.

For each of the products that are in our portfolio we have taken servicing
for them as well. For Polycom we were the first service providers.

RUTH SAMSON

ruths@cybermedia.co.in