Importers provide better services compared to distributors: Kolhapur channel

Kolhapur: Support for service related issues and providing complete information about new products by the national distributors, were some of the concerns put forth by channel partners in Kolhapur during The DQ Week/DQ Channels IT Panchayat. The event, sponsored by Sify, Delta and Supertron, was attended by over 90 channel partners and distributors including Redington, SES Technologies, Rashi Peripherals and Neoteric Infomatique.

Another highlight of the event was the announcement of the formation of Computer Association of Kolhapur (CAK). The event began with a speech from Arun Mangave of CAK followed by a cake cutting ceremony. Mangave remarked, “We want to collectively resolve several issues that are pinching us at the moment, and the formation of an association will give us the perfect platform to voice our opinions. Currently around 40 members have already become a part of the association.”

This was followed by presentation from Sify and Delta. During his presentation Nilesh M Mistry, Deputy GM-Enterprise Division, West, Sify gave an insight into the existing opportunities for the partners in enterprise connectivity, enterprise application service, data center hosting services, messaging and collaboration and data center among others.

On the other hand, Jagdish S Gujari, Team Leader-UPS Sales, Western Region, Delta Energy Systems elaborated on the opportunities partners could explore by furthering UPS products to customers ranging from entry level users to high-end data centers and large enterprises that require 24x7 backup.

During the panel discussion, partners got an opportunity to raise some of the trade related matters. Rajesh Shah, Proprietor of Mahalaxmi Computers highlighted a service related issue pertaining to Intel motherboards. Shah remarked, “I have been facing numerous service related and DOA issue with Intel motherboards and the local distributor is unable to provide me proper services. The turnaround time exceeds two months. This has resulted in huge business loss as well.”

Responding to Shah's query, Mandar Chavan, Branch Manager, Rashi Peripherals opined, “Rashi is willing to look into after-sales service issues and will bring the matter to the notice of the vendor.”

Another point of discussion was the lack of product knowledge among the channel community in view of the untrained staff at the distributors' office. Pointing towards the same, one of the partners stated, “Many a times when we call up a distributor's office to inquire about some products the local staff either has no information about the availability of product or the technical aspects related to it. As partners I really feel that we should be provided with complete information about any given product.”

Responding to the above question, Mandar Khare, Branch Sales Manager-Pune, Redington stated, “In order to get rid of the above problem, we have resolved to collate a database of partners in Kolhapur from the newly formed association and will make all information about products available to the partners.”

During the discussion partners clarified that several importers who are doing direct business with them provide them better services when compared to the national distributors. Managave stated, “When it comes to replacement and DOA cases there have been numerous occasions when the importers have provided better services in comparison to a national distributor. We want the distributors to take active participation in terms of providing after-sales services and not restrict themselves to merely selling a product. By doing this they will also be able to extend huge support in terms of improved turnaround time.”

The distributors ensured that they would do their bit to inform the vendors about the feedback and work towards providing better services.