"Distis need to listen to channel"

Chandigarh : Whether it is a DoA issue, or a matter related to cartel
formation, channel community feels that distributors should listen to the market
and help them gain profit.

The IT Panchayat organized in association with The DQ Week and DQ Channels
was well attended by over 60 people from the local Chandigarh IT channel
community. Panelists at the Chandigarh IT Panchayat, which was moderated by Zia
Askari, Associate Editor, The DQ Week were Subroto Banerji of Redington, Vijay
Kumar of Ingram Micro, Ram Pansari of Rashi Peripherals, IP Singh of Beyond
Computers, V Phutela of Phutela Computers and Sanjeev Walia of Jetage. The IT
Panchayat was held in association with Hitachi, Sify, Microworld, Amconics and
Geneva. Amit Kohli of Sify, Anil Gupta of Microworld and Sanjeo Singh of Hitachi
made the presentation educating partners about their products.

Speaking at the event, Walia of Jetage raised the issue of price parity
between big cities and smaller towns, 'We still have a situation wherein some
product are cheap in Ludhiana and expensive in Chandigarh, even though we sell
in big numbers here. And the same goes for a place like Delhi and Chandigarh,'
he commented. Responding to this, Banerji of Ingram Micro said that he was not
aware of such practice in the region.

Transparent policy

Singh of Beyond Computers said that today a distributor should move from just
being the logistics provider to actually being a friend of the channel. He also
mentioned that there is an urgent need to have transparency between a vendor and
a channel and a distributor should play a big role here. 'They do not share any
policy details with us. If we are the one facing the ire of the end-customer on
DoA issues, we should at least have a fair amount of idea on the vendor
policies. We have raised this issue many times but nothing happens either from
the distributor side or the vendor side,' he explained.

Reacting to this, the overall gathering strongly felt that distributors
should go back to vendors and ask for better transparency for the channel
policies when it comes to clearing off the DoA cases.

At this point, all the distributors also felt that the same should be
realized at the vendor level and they should be transparency in their dealing.

'This is something that comes from the vendor side and we cannot do much on
this. However, we will definitely take this feedback to the vendors and
something positive will come out of it,' said Kumar of Ingram Micro.

Speaking on the subject of backend payments, Phutela of Phutela Computers
informed that in most of the cases, distributors do not help the channel in
terms of getting backend payments. 'They just want to dump their products at our
doors and then forget about the schemes or any other issue. If there is a vendor
scheme, we should be informed about it and everybody should be treated alike.
All should benefit from the backend payments,' he added.

In response, Pansari of Rashi said,"We always try to be there when we are
required however, if this is a big issue then we will make sure that we are in
sync with the channel," he added.

Addressing the gathering on the issue of cartel formation, Singh said that
this is a menace for the channel and distributors should not engage themselves
in such activities at all.

“We are pretty much against the cartel formation and as in the past we will
continue to take stringent action against such distributors which engage
themselves with these activities that go against the channel," he added.

While, Banerji of Redington said that there are some decisions that are taken
in concern with the vendor and this was one of those decisions.

Distributors and association

In their bid to help themselves in terms of deciding the credit limit of the
channel players, distributors agreed unanimously to take active part in the IT
Forum activities and take this platform as a way to ensure that right credit
limit is given to right partners.

“We welcome distributors and we will surely increase our intera­c­tions
on this association platform," Walia added.