Indore channel appeals to distys

The DQ Week IT Panchayat reached Indore on Nov 18. The sixth in the series of
event witnessed Indore's channel community attending the event in full
strength. With an attendance of around 100 key channel partners, the Indore
event turned out to be a mega success. With the help of MP Telecom and Computer
Traders Association (MPTCTA), and the sponsors (Hitachi, ICICI Bank and Kasshku),
The DQ Week ensure complete participation from audience, making it an
interactive and fruitful session.

The event started with Sushil Shivani, Relationship Manager-Western Region,
Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Asia Pte Ltd, making an interesting
presen­-tation on the latest technologies from Hitachi. This was followed by
ICICI Bank representatives explaining the bank's interest in the channel
community. Vivek Rastogi, CEO, Kasshku made the fourth presentation on its first
module of KasshkuCRM built, using innovative and practical concepts. After that
there was a question answer session. On the panel was Manish Tiwari from Ingram
Micro, Kumar Tanksale from Redington, Gyneshwar Gujar from Neoteric, Rajesh
Agarwal from Rashi Peripherals, Manoj Ajmer, President, MPTCTA and Manish Goel,
Next Year President, MPTCTA.

The panel at the IT Panchayat answering queries

According to some of the participants, issues relating to dead on arrival (DoA)
DoA cases were one of the prime problems, which vendor together with
distributors should take up. One system integrator alleged that when a DoA hard
disk is sent to service center it comes back with a stamp, which reads, “repaired”.
This practice gives the customer a wrong impression of the products as they are
buying a new product and with stamping which reads, “repaired”.

Participants urged the distributors, the association and the media to
highlight this issue and request the vendors to stop this practice of stamping.
The channel partners also requested that DoA cases should be addressed within
seven days and not in 15 days.

Some channel partners came up with the price disparity problem in Intel
products. To this distributors claimed that it is the vendor who defines the
structure and there is no chance that a price disparity could happen. “We
distributors only follow what the vendors have defined,” said Tanksale of
Redington. Partners also felt that vendors or distributors should share
responsibility in providing service and support policies in clear and acceptable
terms to the channel partners.

Some systems integrators were insisting that distributors should provide the
service policy of all the vendors. To this, distributors refused to take up this
responsibility citing it as a responsibility of the vendors.

DQC News Bureau