A Mind-Blowing Event

When DQ Channels an-nounced that it would have its second Solution Provider
(SP) Summit aboard the Star Cruise Libra, little did we bargain for the response
we would receive. For days, the entire team fielded calls from people who wanted
to be a part of the event.

Finally, 100 lucky SPs made it for the event on Jan 10. And after checking
into their rooms, they assembled at the Galaxy of The Stars, a convention center
aboard the ship, for an informal get together. In the relaxed atmosphere,
partners unwound and talked shop, while others took the opportunity to explore
the huge ship, its four restaurants, the sun deck, casino, dance shows or other
fun spots.

But the next day everyone got down to business. Interjected with
presentations from Lenovo, AMD, Canon, Brother, Emerson Networks and APW
President, were sessions that fueled a lot of debate and mirth as well.

Award winners strike a pose

The first session was on human resource management and the speakers were Ravi
Verdes of Frontier Business Systems and Sudhir Kothari of Embee Software, while
Asim Raina, Editor, DQ Channels was the moderator. They talked about manpower
retention being an area of concern, where Verdes quipped that SPs face the
biggest threat of poaching from their very vendors. People in the audience
relived their own HR problems and talked about building a sense of ownership in
their teams to make sure that their personnel remain with them.

The next session was on brand building, which had Satyen Vyas of Vitage
Systems, Chetan Shah of Xpress Computers and was moderated by Zia Askari,
Content Editor, Voice & Data Connect. Shah pointed out that it is even more
imperative for solution providers to create brand-building exercises of their
own offerings and create a good image of their product and service offerings in
front of their set of customers. When asked about the set of processes that need
to be followed by solution providers in order to engage themselves in this
exercise of brand building, Vyas said that companies need to have a clear set of
brand building processes like direct and indirect messages, product advertising
based initiatives and create that brand recall for the set of offerings that
they have.

Fund management was one session, which saw a lot of debate as several people
in the audience pitched in with their viewpoints on how to manage working and
capital expenses. Participants of this session were, Saket Kapur from Green
Vision and Ajay Sawant from Orient Technologies and it was moderated by Nelson
Johny, Bureau Chief-West, Channel Publications Group, CyberMedia. Kapur
pointed out that most entrepreneurs present at the summit were first generation
entrepreneurs with technical background but stressed that at a certain point,
one needs to acquire or train oneself about the financial aspects. “In a
business like ours where margins are extremely low it is very important,
especially when we have our commitment towards the distributor, but our customer
do not have that kind of commitment towards us. Yes the entrepreneur or the
person who started the organization should be deeply involved.”

Sawant felt that owners need to involve themselves in each and every big deal
so that the understanding of the cash flow is better for the owner. “The
ground reality will be known only by the person who is involved in every stage
of the project who often is the owner,” he said. Disagreeing about this view,
Pradeep Gupta, CMD and Publisher, CyberMedia said, “At some stage, the
entrepreneur, just like he let go of other things in the organization has to let
go of day-to-day cash management.” According to Gupta, very often the reason
many companies in India do not grow is because the owners get involved in small
things like: Where is the next cheque coming from and ensuring what payments
have been made. This needs to be left to the accountant, rather than the
promoter getting involved in the financial nitty-gritty.

S Gopikrishna, Content Editor, DQ Channels moderated a session on 'Single
or Multiple Solutions', which had Anil Gupta of Artek Enterprises and KV
Jagannath of Choice Solutions as speakers. While debating whether SPs should
continue to sell only one genre of solutions or expand their business into other
technologies as well, there was an offshoot decision as well on the importance
of having a corporate vision and mission. The speakers felt that unless a
company had a well-articulated vision and mission, it would not be able to
decide what its core competency should be. There were those in the audience who
begged to differ and those who agreed whole-heartedly.

The SP Summit was brought to an end with an entertaining and insightful panel
discussion on 'How to retain customers' with Sandeep Nair, MD, Emerson
Networks and Vivek Malhotra, Director-Transaction Business, South Asia, Lenovo
India on one hand; and MS Sidhu of Apara Enterprises and NR Panicker of Accel
Frontline of the other. Shyam Malhotra, Editor-in-Chief, CyberMedia Publications
moderated the session.

But the end of the SP Summit just signaled the start of the DQ Channels
Excellence awards. The awards ceremony was interspersed with dance performances
by Versatile. And the winners, needless to say, all wore huge smiles. After an
exciting day came to a close, the next day the attendees were treated to a round
of fun and games on the deck of the ship. They all danced and engaged in games,
and took back memories, which will last for a lifetime.

And here are some of the things that the participants had to say about the
event. “We had a lovely time. Apart from the interaction with people from
industry and other SPs across the country, the event was really helpful and gave
us insights into the future roadmap of our industry,” noted Ketan Barai of
Kaybee Infotech.

Nityanand Shetty of Essen Vision likened the DQ Channels SP summit to wine,
which gets better with each passing year. “From my perspective, this is an
excellent platform to network with peers and stalwarts from our industry. I have
carried back a lot of valuable thoughts and it has also given me a better
introspection of my business. Like they say in different parts of the world-Thank
you, Merci, Shokran, Dhanyabad, Dankschen!”

The accolades are still coming in. And DQ Channels would like to thank all the
sponsors and participants who made this event such a mind-blowing success.

Human Resource: High Risk Issues?

Manpower management is one of the toughest jobs for an entrepreneur. How
does one hire the right candidate and then make sure that he stays in the
company? This was the backbone of the session on HR at the DQ Channels SP Summit

In the past year, the entire industry has seen a sea change, with the economy
booming and people's spending power increasing. But this has also brought with
it an ugly truth-that of manpower attrition and retention. This is one of the
biggest challenges that solution providers across all genres are facing today.
In fact, HR no longer stands for human resource issues; it also means high-risk
problems.

This was precisely the reason why the DQ Channels SP Summit flagged off with
a discussion on 'How to retain people'. Ravi Verdes of Frontier Business
Systems and Sudhir Kothari of Embee Software were the speakers and Asim Raina,
Group Editor-Channel Publications, CyberMedia moderated the discussion.

Incidentally, Frontier, which has a 300-strong workforce, has recently
started a new services division in association with an Australian-based ITIL
consultancy firm. And Embee Software is aiming to increase its IT skilled
manpower by 75 percent this year. So who better than Verdes and Kothari to talk
about how to get good quality technical personnel and keep them in the company?

Dealing with people problems: Sudhir Kothari (left) and Ravi Verdes (right) listen to Asim Raina broach the topic of investing in certification

Finding the right people

Building a good team of people is difficult, especially when the job market has
opened up. Kothari talked about this being a major issue especially with key
projects underway. Losing people at this juncture can be detrimental to the
prospects of the entire deal.

“This is why, we keep generating a database of candidates regularly and
keep interviewing them. If we find someone who is very good we immediately hire
him. The other candidates, who perform well in the interviews, are kept on the
back burner and we get in touch with them when we have a vacancy,” Kothari
said.

“If I offer an engineer a monthly salary of Rs 20,000, he will find someone else who can offer him Rs 30,000. Does that mean I should match my competitor in this offering, even if it is not feasible for me?”	“If we find someone who is very good we immediately hire him. The other candidates, who perform well in the interviews, are kept on the back burner and we get in touch with them when we have a vacancy”	“Certification is pertinent in the current business atmosphere and there is no getting away from it”
-SR Nautiyal, Spark Technologies	-Sudhir Kothari, Embee Software	-Ketan Barai, Kaybee Infotech

But the biggest crunch is the remuneration that can be offered to good
candidates. SR Nautiyal of New Delhi's Spark Technologies asked whether it was
justifiable to pay an engineer Rs 30,000 just so that some other company does
not pick him up. “If I offer an engineer a monthly salary of Rs 20,000, he
will find someone else who can offer him Rs 30,000. Does that mean I should
match my competitor in this offering, even if it is not feasible to me?” he
wondered.

Verdes advised that in such a scenario it is imperative to have a conducive
working atmosphere, which will encourage the person to stick around in the
company. “Not everyone is looking only at the pay package on offer. They also
want to know their growth prospects and if the working environment is good. We
have people who have refused better paying offers from our competitors and have
continued working with us for several years,” he noted.

Is certification worth it?

Raina broached the subject of investing in the skill sets of an employee and
literally opened a Pandora's box. Several people in the audience lamented that
if they send employees for certification programs, it increases the latter's
brand value and they immediately seek employment elsewhere. Vineet Garg of
Progressive Infotech said, “It is a necessary evil, but we have lost lots of
money in first certifying a person and then losing him to some other company.”

Ketan Barai of Kaybee Infotech claimed that certification is pertinent in the
current business atmosphere and there is no getting away from it. Another
partner claimed that often they sign contracts with employees who undergo
certification, so that they do not leave for at least a year. But whether such
bonds and contracts work is another debatable issue.

This in turn threw up another branch of discussion and that is about vendors
poaching people from their partners. Verdes said, “There should be some way
where we can stop vendors from poaching our people. This is especially the case
with MNC vendors.”

A participant from the audience requested Raina to have a forum where this
issue could be highlighted. While admitting that the idea of bringing the media
spotlight on this issue was a good one, Raina replied that it is not possible to
persuade a vendor to not recruit people from the channel or to dissuade an
employee to join any company he wants.

Taking ownership

When you give your employees a say in your business, they will feel accountable
for it and will not move away as easily. Kothari mentioned how he has given
responsibilities to the core people in the company with decision-making powers.
But at the same time he makes them accountable for their decisions so that they
do not take random chances.

However, one partner pointed out that this could be a risky proposition as
the promoter can become overtly dependent on members of his core team. And when
one of them leaves, filling in that vacuum can become a tough task.

Another suggestion given was that there should be a dedicated HR manager in
every company. Often, companies appoint someone who will draw up the salaries
and keep a track of employee attendance, assuming it to be the extent of HR
management. But, it is imperative that promoters hire an HR manager who will
draw up personnel growth charts and identify who are the key performers and who
are the non-performers. Also, investment in soft skills is also important, as
employees are the company's front face, when they meet people.

People recounted their own experiences about dealing with manpower problems.
There were several questions that remained unanswered since human resource
management is a vast subject. Like Amit Vira of ITISL System and Networking
Solutions said, “I think this session was an eye opener to some of the people
who had come to this event for the first time. The session relating to HR was
too good.”

-Vinita Bhatia

Build Your Brand

Everyone talks about brand equity, but mostly with reference to huge MNCs.
It is important that solution providers also get down to building their own
brand to distinguish themselves from the run of the mill companies

Everyone swears by certain brands. There are customers who are so brand loyal
that they will hold their purchase rather than go for a different brand. This is
true for most of us. But do solution providers extend this belief to their
business as well?

The session on brand building focused on the importance of having a brand and
investing in it. Moderated by Zia Askari, Content Editor, Voice&Data
Connect, the speakers included Satyen Vyas from Bangalore-based Vitage Systems
and Chetan Shah of Mumbai's Xpress Computers. Speaking about the importance of
brand building, Vyas pointed out that it helps a company in terms of creating a
desired image. “It is a very important aspect of a business activity,
epecially when it comes to IT products. Brand building helps companies a lot
towards creating an image in front of its customers,” he added.

Brand your offerings

Different solution providers of the country enable different set of customers in
terms of delivering an end-to-end solution. In short, this community integrates
different products to fulfill a customer's need. In a scenario like this, Shah
pointed out that it is even more imperative for partners to have brand building
exercises for their distinctive offerings and create a good image of their
product and service offerings in front of their customers.

“Yes, we do integrate a lot of products and these products have their own set
of brand building being done by different global vendors. However, we should
work towards having our own brand building procedures so that a customer recalls
our products and services from among other players,” Shah added.

Brand building is one area where solution providers need to get serious. The panalist discuss ways of enganging in brand building exercises

When asked about the conduits that need to be considered by solution
providers in order to engage themselves in a brand building exercise, Vyas said
that companies need to have a clear set of brand building processes like direct
and indirect messages, product advertising-based initiatives to create a brand
recall for the set of offerings that they have.

“If 10 companies are engaged in providing a similar set of products and services, then a solution provider should create brand value and look towards differentiating themselves from other players offering similar product and service offering” -Chetan Shah, Xpress Computers

Further adding to this discussion, Shah said that companies should try and
put in place, simple yet effective process in order to create brands with big
impact. Solution providers should try and create simple processes and procedures
that will help them create a brand value. They should look at things like how to
add value to their set of offerings, how to associate their company's name
with the product or service. “If 10 companies are engaged in providing a
similar set of products and services, then a solution provider should create
brand value and look towards differentiating themselves from other players
offering similar product and service offering,” he explained.

Personality brands

There are times when the IT industry tilts towards certain people who become a
brand by themselves, and their name becomes synonymous with the company,
wherever they go. Replying to whether it was prudent for partners to involve
personality into brand building, Vyas said, “Yes there are some personalities
who become brands by themselves. But they should not make a big difference even
if they decide to leave the company. The core values are most important and a
company should always keep its core values intact,” he added.

Shah felt that such personalities do carry weight but are not that important
when compared to a company's overall operations. “I agree that there are
times when we tend to get attracted towards getting certain personalities from
the industry. However, these are all people and are not bigger than the company
itself,” he added.

Concluding the discussion, Shah said that brand building was one exercise
that should be taken up more seriously by all solution providers. However, the
key to success remains in terms of delivering the right quality to their set of
customers. “There is no doubt that brand building helps a lot. But when it
comes to retaining your customers, one should concentrate on increasing the
focus on quality. That is what matters in the end,” he added.

-Zia Askari

The Fund Management Reality

A vast subject by itself, the session on fund management threw up several
issues related to finance generation and fiscal responsibilities

Fund management is one topic that remains close to every entrepreneur's
heart. No wonder then that a session on this subject at the DQ Channels SP
Summit saw some heated discussion. Every view that came up during the discussion
threw a different facet on fund management, showing how vast this topic was.

The participants of this session were Saket Kapur from New Delhi's Green
Vision and Ajay Sawant from Mumbai-based Orient Technologies. Nelson Johny,
Bureau Chief (West)-Channel Publications Group, CyberMedia India, moderated
the discussion.

The debate got underway with talk about the role of owners in managing funds.
To what extent should owners get involved in the fiscal management of their
company.

Kapur pointed out that most entrepreneurs present at the summit were first
generation entrepreneurs with a technical background. Giving his own example, he
said, “I did not know what debit and credit was when I started my business,”
he said. “I thought, on the basis of my technical competency I will take the
business forward, but that was only to a certain extend. Beyond that, you need
to acquire or train yourself on the financial side. In a business like ours,
where margins are extremely low, this is very important. Especially when we have
our commitment towards the distributor. But our customers do not have that kind
of commitment towards us. Therefore, the entrepreneur or the person who started
the organization should be deeply involved.”

Solution providers debate over whether owners should get involved in the financial nitty-gritties of their business

Finance background helps

Sawant said that the people present at the event were techno-commercial guys and
very few had an MBA finance background. According to him, people who have some
education in finance can really help a company to a certain extent, since they
have a good understanding about the technicalities of accounting and finance.
But beyond that, even they can get confused.

“They do not understand the cash flow of the company unless they are
involved in every project. Understanding the cash input and output for a project
takes a long time,” he opined. Sawant felt that owners should involve
themselves in each and every big business deal, which will improve their
understanding of the cash flow.

“An MBA person will not know the ground realities, such as things like when
a project is getting over and when the money will arrive. These things are known
only to the person involved in every stage of the project, who often is the
owner.”

Disagreeing with this view, Pradeep Gupta, CMD and Publisher, CyberMedia said
that at some stage, the entrepreneur has to let go of day-to-day cash
management. According to him, the reason many companies in India very often do
not grow is because the owners get involved in small things like where the next
cheque is coming from, ensuring what payment has been made, etc.

“That needs to be left to the accountant. At the same time, you need to
have your control mechanisms. You can get your daily statement, or a weekly
statement, and various other things. But you do not have to get involved in the
financial nitty-gritty, which is what a lot people sitting in this room would be
doing,” he stressed.

Highlighting the importance of have a key finance person in any organization,
NR Panicker of Accel Frontline said, “The most important thing for any
business to grow is to have a good finance person in the management. Then the
owner should guide the business in such a way that this person manages the cash
flow properly and puts that money in the right place. You should take care that
he is not putting the money in investments like creating infrastructure when
that fund has to be used for working capital.”

Some insights

The session also saw witty thoughts coming from the audience. Prabhakar Kini of
Bangalore-based Kinfotech quipped, “Topline is vanity, bottomline is sanity,
but cash flow is reality.” The debate also touched on the need for mobilizing
and efficiently utilizing funds during credit period.

There were interesting insights put forward from the audience. “Cash flow is
something that needs to be managed by the owner. The kind of passion the owner
will have for the cash, no one else will have it. Neither the auditor nor a
consultant,” said one SP from the audience.

Yet another stated that cash flow was very relative. “You need to know your
business very well. Whether you are a government supplier or a corporate
solutions provider. If you are a government solutions provider, probably you
need to have a higher gestation period for your payment to come in. Accordingly,
your business model needs to be that. You can't have great government business
as well as corporate business going together,” he claimed.

While talking about cash flow, people often assume that a balance sheet has
to be prepared by the promoter monthly. But while doing this, it is important
that the balance sheet should have five to six important entries. The
information of your outstanding to debtors, outstanding from creditors, the net
orders in hand, and the profitability of the order, which you have in hand, and
the inventory details, these are the key information you need. At the end of
every month, it is important that you have an understanding of the business'
profitability and your assets and liabilities. This will actually help in better
fund management.

Someone from the audience also added that if the systems are in place and if
you know where you stand every day, every week, every month in your business,
anybody can manage your cash flow and accounting. And the owner can look after
other key business activities.

-Nelson Johny

Single or Multiple?

Should a solution provider concentrate on a single technology offering or
should he try to offer the entire bouquet of solutions? Though many try to be
jack of all traders, none can claim they are truly a specialist in any
particular field. Is it a good state of affairs?

In today's fast-changing world, one has to be agile and adaptive. Business
models have changed over the years and become more dynamic with companies
talking about single-point of contact for customer needs. These threw up some
fancy words in the process such as one-stop-shop solution provider and
end-to-end service provider.

Today, companies, especially channel partners, are grappling with many
products and service offerings to meet customer demands and requirements. But,
they are willingly doing it to make margins in every given single opportunity.
Today, a reseller who started with or focused on storage solutions cannot be
just limited to one. He has to broad-base the business and add more solutions.

In the process, his specialization gets diluted. Though many try to be jack
of all traders, none can claim they are truly a specialist in any particular
field. Is this a good state of affairs?

Jack of all traders? This session sparked of headed debates over whether SPs should build core competencies or broadbase their business

This was a topic of a session at the DQ Channels SP Summit 2007 on Star
Cruise Libra. The session on 'Single or Multiple Solutions' sparked off
heated debates. While some section of the attendees agreed to the view that
partners need to build core competencies based on their specialization, others
shared their experience of being multiple solution providers.

The session therefore progressed to several sub-topics such as: single or
multiple solution-which way to go and why; the importance of having a vision
and mission in business; building on core competencies, while adding up other
services; issues and challenges and finally, the road ahead. The session had
Anil Gupta of Delhi-based Artek Enterprises and KV Jagannathan of
Hyderabad-based Choice Solutions as the panelists, while S Gopikrishna, Content
Editor, DQ Channels guided them on this topic.

Settling on a core competency

Gupta decided to be in the networking business from the very first day of
starting business. He entered into the IT business in 1984 as a networking
solution provider, while the rest of the industry was talking about PCs and
peripherals then. He was an out-of-the-box thinker and got into solutions as
early as 1984, when other resellers were caught up with box-pushing business.
Gupta's Artek specialized in networking over the years and today, it claims to
offer complete range of networking solutions covering LAN, WAN and MAN.

“Today, we can offer any level of solution in networking segment and call
ourselves specialist in this field,” said Gupta. After building so much
expertise in networking, the company recently diversified into security,
storage, bandwidth and telecom solutions. However, nearly 80 percent of its
revenue comes from networking.

Jagannathan's Choice Solutions also has an interesting history. The company
was started in 1991 as a software reseller and it reinvented itself in 1996 to
become a storage and power specialist. It however, continued with the software
business-but more on the application side.

Today, Choice claims to offer complete infrastructure solutions, right from
consultancy to design to implementation and managing of infrastructure for the
customers. And, the company's revenue is a bit balanced with every segment
contributing almost equally to the total turnover. Jagannathan underscored the
importance of having a vision and mission in business, which he found out only
after five full years. And how it helped him from there to reach this level.

“Though vision and mission seem to be important to business, we have not written one for our company. As the head of the organization, I have a vision and mission in my mind, with which I am working on taking the team towards”	“Today, we are working as a team and the success depends on every individual's performance in the team. So it is better to have your statements on paper and communicate them to the team. People should get inspiration out of it and work towards achieving the common goal of the organization”	“Today, we can offer any level of solution in networking segment and call ourselves specialist in this field”
-Saket Kapur, Green Vision	-Nitin Shah Allied Digital Services	-Anil Gupta, Artek Enterprises

Vision and mission

The discussion on having a corporate vision and mission topic sparked a debate.
While some participants agreed that this is important to any business and to
identify oneself in the market, people at large were intrigued by the topic and
its relevance to sticking to a single or multiple solution.

Saket Kapur of New Delhi's Green Vision said, “Though vision and mission
seem to be important to business, we have not written one for our company. As
the head of the organization, I have a vision and mission in my mind, with which
I am working on taking the team towards.”

Joining the discussion, Mumbai-based Nitin Shah of Allied Digital Services
pointed out how important is was to put vision and mission on paper, and
communicate the same to the team. “Today, we are working as a team and the
success depends on every individual's performance in the team. So it is better
to have your statements on paper and communicate them to the team. People should
get inspiration out of it and work towards achieving the common goal of the
organization.” Shah however disagreed with the point that mission and vision
should be communicated to your customers also in business.

Adding to his point, Prabhakar Kini of Bangalore's Kinfotech shared his
experience in business. Kini tried to reinvent his business every time and in
the process, he identified greener pastures for his organization. Moving away
from traditional box selling, he identified security as his forte and tried to
build the core competencies around it. Today, he is one of the leading players
in the security space.

Reaching high

The objective of the session was to find out whether being focused on single
solution or handling multiple solutions would help one in business. In today's
world, channel needs to be more dynamic and should try to offer end-to-end
services, mainly to meet their customers' requirements and demands.

At the same time, it is more important to identify their core competencies
and build business around it. A clear vision and mission can only take them to
the place where they want to be. As NR Narayana Murthy, Chief Mentor, Infosys
said in one of his interviews, “A great leader should be able to show his team
the rainbow in the sky and also say how they would reach it. The leader should
convince the team and take them through the journey, by showing value for every
individual, to achieve the set common goal.”

Specialization would help one in the long run, mainly when the market matures
and customers demand for specialists in every field who can offer them
comprehensive solutions. So, channels should identify their core competencies
and build business around it, while trying to offer multiple solutions. There
are many issues and challenges involved while doing it. The climb up a hill has
never been easy. But on reaching the top you are seen by everyone in the world.
Keep going!

-S Gopikrishna