DOA cases cause concern in Ludhiana

Ludhiana

November 26th, 2007

Treading ahead with the objective of focusing and highlighting the issues of
channel community across the country, the IT Panchayat organized by The DQ Week
and DQ Channels reached Ludhiana. The event marked an impressive presence of
more than 90 channel partners. Partners put forward their issues of concern at
the meet in the presence of distributors indicating the urgency for a platform
where their problems and issues could be acknowledged.

Partners in Ludhiana were mostly pinched by the absence of any policy through
which they could follow up on dead-on-arrival (DoA) cases to the distributor or
vendor level. They said that the number of DoA cases in Ludhiana is quite big
and there is no channel through which the issue could be solved.

Partners also opined that even the distributors present in the town are not
aware of the right procedure to handle any DoA case and customers have to face
big inconvenience and dissatisfaction due to this.

"Distributors are themselves not aware of the right system through which
DoA cases should be followed up. At the end, we are unable to commit any thing
to customers, causing a loss of our credibility in the market. It does not
matter how much time it takes to give proper service but there should be
adherence to commitment," stated Gurpreet Singh Pradhan, President,
Association of Computer Entrepreneurs, Ludhiana, who was also among the
panelists.

Other members on the panel representing the channel were Kanwaljit Singh
Bakshi, CEO, New Bakshi Computers and Paramjit Singh Juneja, CEO, Secant
Technologies. The distributors were represented by Ravi Kant Khemani, Branch
Head, Rashi Peripherals; Rakesh, Area Sales Manager, Redington; and Anuj Garg,
Associate Sales, Ingram Micro.

Highlighting their concern over after-sale support, channel partners said
that besides poor service, the attitude of executives in service center was
highly unsupportive.

DIstributors present at the event preferred to remain silent and only broke
the shell by adding that the dealers should clarify the warranty policies well
in advance before making any deal with them. They further said that it is all
about company's policies and it is not in their hands to make decisions.
However, the statement failed to give any relief to the channel partners.

Juneja added that, "Distributors need to trust us. We have been in this
business for a long time and if they find us to be faulty, this is not a sign of
healthy business."

When the debate started heating up, distributors opined that such cases
should be solved on the mutual understanding between them and the dealers.

Observing the passive attitude of distributors present, Sumbit, Proprietor,
D-Cad's Marketing said that very soon government is releasing consumer policies
through which they would be able to take a company to court for negligence or
mishandling products. Then vendors or distributors will have to answer partners.

Besides DoA and warranty policies, another major issue that caused concern
for the channel community in Ludhiana was delayed claims for incentives.