Genius gears up for festive season

New Delhi: Genius recently concluded phase one of its multi-city channel meet. The roadshows kick-started in Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai. “In the second stage we will hold it in Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata. Upcountry is our priority so we will also be including these regions, like in South we will be covering Kochi, Coimbatore, Mysore, Hubli and Vizag. In West we will be covering Ahmedabad, Pune and Goa; Chandigarh and Lucknow in North and Rachi, Patna and Bhubaneswar in East,” detailed Sandeep Ramani, Country Manager-OBM Sales Division, KYE Systems.

Through the event Genius took the opportunity to meet all their partners under one roof, introduced new products and briefed them about the future strategy. “We wanted them to pull up their socks and get ready for the festive season,” said Ramani.

Speaking about their expectations of the coming festive season, after the not so good year last year, Ramani said, “If u talk about Genius as a whole the revenues of 2007 were the same as those of 2008. But Last year at about the same time, there was panic in the market, so sales went down. As far as India is concerned we were also affected. This year we have high expectations.”

Expanding its reach across the country, Genius has been regularly increasing its channel base. “Just last month we increased our distribution network by appointing Inspan. We have also increased our channel base. Our current network comprises four national distis, who bill to 135 Genius Volume Partners (GVPs) who further bill to 1,200 resellers, dealers and SIs. By the end of this year we are planning to extend our GVP base to150 and channel base to1,500,” shared Ramani.

Adding to its range of products genius recently announced the availability of its camera-DV and DSC, that come with 5-12 megapixels. Currently the cameras are being sold through Homeshop18. “We wanted to do test marketing hence we took this medium, and the response was very good. Now we can feel we have a pulse of the market and feel confident of its success. During the festive season we will make three to four models available through the channel. Though these cameras we will offer all the features that are available in the other brands, they will be 25-40 percent cheaper. Our digital still cameras come with a 2-year replacement warranty,” noted Ramani.

One product that did not do as well as expected was digital photo frames. “The product was not very well received by the customers as the price was almost the same as a TFT monitor. The other concern we saw with this product was that it requires a power point to work. But people wanted a product prices around Rs 2,000-3,000 with battery backup,” explained Ramani.

For servicing and warranty Genius has tied up RT Outsourcing for six locations-Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kolkata. “In the rest of the locations the partner has a choice to take the service from our distributors. They can send the product directly to the nearest service center, and one-side freight will be paid by Genius. Even end-customers can go and avail of the after sales service. 95 percent of products are on replacement warranty,” informed Ramani.

Post-sales service is increasingly becoming an issue for channel partners to deal with. But according to Ramani, service centers can provide good support if they are backed by the vendor. “90 percent of the responsibility lies with the vendor. We monitor them on a daily basis through call reports,” said Ramani.

Speaking about the threat from the growing number of local exporters, Ramani opined that they cannot continue after the second quarter as the peripherals business is very dynamic and there has to be much focus on the consistent availability of the product, maintaining quality and after-sales support. “During the slowdown about 50-60 percent of factories in China had to shutdown their operations so the regular importers faced major problems in sourcing their products. So a lot actually got out of the market. We are seeing a change in the customer mindsets. If you give them confidence of brand they will stick to you. Besides, we are 10-15 percent cheaper than other leading brands,” asserted Ramani.

The vendor will be announcing more schemes by end of this month to help partners improve their bottomline.

Schemes this quarter

1. Giving gold vouchers to GVP based on target achievements. Two slabs for A-class cities and upcountry partners.

2. Target-based scheme for channel buying from GVP. The targets have been kept small so that they are achievable by all partners in a quarter.

3. Combo kit (keyboard and mouse) in which for every 10 units the reseller gets a Reebok t-shirt