Digital Camera- Nikon Clicked

The other segment added in this year's Channel Satisfaction Survey is digital cameras. Though there are numerous brands available in the Indian market, we focused on the top three players viz Nikon, Sony, and Canon. And out of these three, Nikon has emerged as the #1 choice of the channel partners, followed by Sony and Canon. While Nikon has marginally beaten Sony in this race, the impression that it has left in the minds of the partners justifies its positioning in the market. Being the technological leaders in this space, Nikon cameras have proved to be very reliable and user-friendly. The company has also scored high over its competitors in terms of after-sales support, its promptness in stock replacement, turnaround time, and proactive service approach.

Channel partners also seem to be impressed with the company's product pricing, profit margins given to them, and back-end incentives and its settlement. Besides, Nikon has maintained flexibility and transparency in its commercial terms and policies along with being very prompt in communicating its schemes/incentive programs with the partners. Even the partners appreciate the richness of the online resources it offers to them along with maintaining an interactive site for resolving their queries. Nikon also excels in maintaining relationship with its partner-be it having dedicated personnel to take care of the relationship, consistency and effectiveness of communication, and conveying training and certification programs. The closest competitor, Sony, has left a positive mark amongst the channel partners with its advertising strategies, innovativeness in market development programs and keeping an efficient team at the disposal to carry out the marketing activities. Partners also feel that Sony cameras offer value for money, as it has scored very high in prove versus performance ratio. Besides the wide presence of its service centers across the country, the company also has an excellent ability to provide satisfactory repair and replacement services of its cameras. And not only these, Nikon has a great technical expertise to resolve the problems of both partners as well as customers along with having an effective online partner portal. It has also been consistent in honoring commitments made by its personnel to the channel partners.

Though the services of Canon's account managers and help desk are very competent and always available for the channel partners, the company needs to pull up its strings in overall product quality as well as marketing and after-sales support. The company also plans to re-visit their strategies for providing online support to its partners, if they have to remain in contention in the coming years.