"Active interaction from vendors is the need of the hour"

Bhubaneswar : The IT Panchayat, which is held in association with The
DQ Week and DQ Channels, reached the capital of Orissa last week. The evening,
which saw attendance of more than 80 partners kicked off with a presentation by
Anil Gupta of Microworld. This was followed by a presentation by Ravindra Rao of
Sify Technologies detailing the plans the company has for its partners.

The panel discussion, which was moderated by Shivangi Yadav, Executive
Editor, The DQ Week witnessed partners raising issues about the lack of support
from vendors.

The panelist included Anshuman Mohapatra, Branch Manager, Redington;
Pritimohan Mohapatra, Sr Associate Sales-Channels, Ingram Micro; Santanu
Samantray, Retail Sales Executive-North Orissa, Lenovo; Sarada Prasad Mohanty
from Neoteric and Soumitra Mahapatra from Iris Computers representing the
distributors and vendor, respectively. The channel partners on the panel were
represented by Anil Kr Choudhary, President, Information Technology Association
of Orissa (ITAO).

Elaborating the problems that the partners face, Choudhary said, "The
problem is with the credit period that we get. In government sector, partners
will only get their money once the entire order is fulfilled. So if we have an
order of say Rs 1 crore, and we have managed to deliver goods worth Rs 95 lakh,
government will not release payment till the pending material worth Rs 5 lakh is
supplied. All vendors know the clause but their help is not forthcoming; they
will not supply the order at one go and on top of that, they are unwilling to
extend the credit period knowing fully well the stipulations that have been laid
down by the government. We should work together for mutual benefit of both the
parties."

Reacting to the same, Mohapatra of Redington said, "We are tied to the
policies that have been laid by the vendor to us. We know and understand
problems that the partners are facing and try to extend as much help as we can.
Unfortunately, we also have our limits. This will need enhanced participation of
the vendor in this process."

Elaborating further, Choudhary said, "Orissa is such a huge market, but
no vendor has any warehouse in Bhubaneswar. All vendors have their warehouses in
Kolkata, so our turnaround time for an order or a replacement gets very long.
Especially if the order is in a remote location in Orissa, first the goods come
to Bhubaneswar and are then sent for the upcountry location. All this takes a
long time and hits our reputation."

Responding to the statement, Samantray of Lenovo stated, "What has been
said is true and we have realized that it was causing a problem for us also.
That is the reason why we have now set-up a warehouse in Bhubaneswar to reduce
the turnaround time for partners."

Raising the demand for active intervention of senior management of vendors in
issues of channel partners, Manoj Lalani of Lalani Computech said, "We have
an issue of pending backend incentive payments with a major vendor. The payments
have been pending for almost a year now and we are yet to get our dues. During
schemes and month ends, their executives come and dump stuff with us and later
no one helps us when our dues get stuck.”

Reacting to the same and the role of the association in this instance,
Choudhary said, "The problem is usually with people who are appointed at
the regional level. Their incentives and salaries are based on how much they
sell, so they believe in dumping things with the partner. While the executive
meets his targets and even leaves, the dues of the channel partner get stuck. So
ideally the senior people in management who sit in head-office should also get
involved in the problems that the channel face. In this particular issue, we
have had a discussion with the concerned vendor, and are hopeful that the
situation will get resolved in the next few weeks itself."

The event was sponsored by Sify, Microworld, Epson and Geneva.