Empowering Channels

With power supply being the key issue, especially in the states of South India, partners deploying power solutions had major role to play. There are different challenges and perspectives with different dynamics and thus the vendors got to see those addressed very differently. For one part of the country, there are issues in mind-sets of average senior workers and their lack of exposures to new things in all walks of their work. According to partners, the principals should not necessarily be into a direct business with the end-customers as much they are even now. More and more should be left to real-time and local mind. At last, most importantly is the information marketing, which is mostly void of target market. Principal/OEMs must put more resources in this direction.

There are three major challenges in the power sector-the power sectors must abstain from making one policy for the whole country. The set of dynamics in Delhi will be uncalled for some part in Chatisgarh or western Odisha. More specific plans have to be rolled out for heterogeneous market. And the power sectors must now be on clients specific needs for solutions. There is also need of a back-up of Indian pricing pattern and service back up. The power sector must encourage quality outsourcing when they do it indigenously . It is great area of concern in India and many business houses have badly failed to perform due to not recognising this properly.

For many partners The IT & ITeS, Healthcare and Education verticals have remained the key focus area. Emergency power supplies or inverters, as they are more commonly referred to, are marketed in the large industrial, commercial and office buildings to cover their lighting, lift and security equipment are also booming. The main challenges are high price competiveness, frequent product upgrades due to both technology and cost considerations and the availability of skilled manpower. Entry of newer players, especially international, leading to increased competition, the need for customer retention, increased infrastructure and marketing costs have all contributed in keeping the margins extremely thin for the partners.
For example, with power becoming the key issue in Tamil Nadu, partners implementing power solutions had made use of the opportunities. Especially partners doing the solutions for banks and other critical industries. Some partners have done around 1000 deployments across all the verticals. Some of the best practices are management solution automates secure, time-based power control and enables powerful analytics reporting of energy cost, temperature, active power, line capacity and carbon footprint. We also ensure that the client is minimizing its carbon footprint is both commercially attractive and environmentally friendly."

B SWAMINATHAN
(swaminathanb@cybermedia.co.in)

 

 

MAJOR DEPLOYMENTS DONE BY SPS IN THIS SECTOR

 Technicolor, Polycom, Broadcom, National Centre for Biological Sciences, PVR Cinemas, Altisource, Apotex, Logica, Cypress, have been among the new customers in the last year for Zener

IT, Government, Industries and Health and large scale deployments in the Electricity board in the Government of Karnataka and PS group of colleges are the places where Universe power systems had made deployments

Cocacola, Pepsi, model -universities such as SOA university, power sectors such as SEPCO, M/s Gupta power and Infrastructure,NTPC, Leading life style housing and real estate such as Assotech group, B.Enginners ,steel plants, ICZMP of Govt of India along with Chilika Development Authority are the clients of signature corporation

UEL Power has made deployments in Lakshmi Vilas Bank, Central Bank of India in the last fiscal.

 

SWOT ANALYSIS OF KEY PARTNERS

Signature Corporation

Strong HR policies within the company and having large-scale projects
Not strong geographically across the country

Zener Systems

Efficient and professional approach to marketing, servicing, installation & commissioning and after sales support, strategic planning both in the short and long term.

Inability to cover a larger geographical area, availability of skilled man power remains the main weakness.

Universe Power Systems

Strong rapport in Government verticle
Not spread across the country.

UEL Power

Long term player in the market who made use of the power-cut situation in the state
Not having clients in heavy industry who are the major prospectives in today's time

Compton Computers

More clientele and large-scale deployments
Have tied up with only two vendors

 

 

 

WHAT DO THE LEADING VENDORS THINK?

M GURUDUTT, director, Transaction Business, APC
"We conduct satellite training programme to keep our partners updated. We conduct mega training event for partners in 85 locations to reach out to around 10,000 partners across the country. This is a first-of-its-kind initiative and it will be done as a complete interactive session. Partners will be trained on some key aspects like UPS, cooling among others.

SUNIL KHANNA, president and MD, Emerson Network Power in India.
Emerson Network Power announced that it has completely integrated Pune-based DB Power's operations. The combined portfolio presents a strong value proposition for Emerson Network Power's Data Center build operations, and provides an impetus to our provisioning capabilities for complex Industrial projects. The breadth and depth of our synergized offerings and collective experience will improve customization feasibility and turn-around time in such large projects.

ARUNABH GOSH, Head, Channels, Socomec
In these Power conditions of blackout, brownout, Spike, surges, frequency variations, noise conditions of normal mode and common mode, and Pollution environment of high frequency superimposed with different Harmonics a clean power is required for continuity of safety power for saving the time & money and avoid maximum worn out/failure of the equipment and justify by providing the UPS for safe economic solution for the critical loads. The demand of UPS goes hand in hand with economic growth as the product is been considered as a capital investment. Certainly there is excellent growth potential for Channel partners with the UPS industry poised to grow by 8-10% steadily y-o-y. We have ongoing aggressive plans to expand our footprints in new geographies. New Schemes, Branding and promotional activities are there to boost the channel community. We have plans to increase our Channel manpower substantially.