IT Panchayat : Channels Resolve Issues In Kanpur

Channel partners grabbed the opportunity to raise their concerns with the
national distributors over various issues prevailing in the town at the recently
held IT Panchayat, Kanpur, which was organized in association with The DQ Week
and DQ Channel.

Panelists at the event, which was moderated by Asim Raina, Consulting Editor,
The DQ Week, were Pushkar Sharma of Redington, Ajay Saxena of Ingram Micro, Arun
Bhargava of Kanpur Computer Dealers' Association (KCDA) and Prashant Gupta of
Digitech Computer.

Issues that led to the arguments between the channel partners and the
distributors were the degradation of emplo­yees who keep on shifting
organization from one distri­butor to another, and they also lack knowledge of
product handling and provide inade­quate information to partners.

Another issue that Bhargava raised was the sole focus of national distributor
on a particular channel partner while neglecting others.

“It happens in every town that a distributor puts his focus only on one
particular partner who is a big name in that region. The distributors do not
care about other partners and are completely ignored. Most of the times,
distributors do not visit the partners even once a year,” he said.

Replying to the partners who accorded with Bhargava on the issues, Saxena of
Ingram said, “The employees of distributor who is dealing with the channel
should have basic knowledge of the products that he is selling. Quality of
man­power should be taken care of.”

(From L to R) Prashant Gupta from Digitech Computers, Arun Bhargava from Techno Serva, Pushkar Sharma from Redington, Ajay Saxena from Ingram Micro

Sharma of Redington replied that as far as manpower is concerned, the
employees with distributors do not focus much on technical issue, as their main
agenda is to secure the payments and reach the targets.

Channel partners also raised the issue that distributors need to work on the
billing of the products as at times there is no difference between the MRP and
billing price of the products for the channel.

Raising the issue of DoA, Himanshu Kohli of Comxecell Technologies said,
“Whenever there is an issue of DoA, distributors never lend any support and they
straightaway say that it is not in their control and we should approach the
vendor. In a month there are around 25 cases of DoA and why should one go to
vendor when we are dealing with the distributor.”

The IT Panchayat also played an instrumental role in sorting out an issue
that Bhargava, was facing with Sify when the later had dumped stock of Rs 52,000
few years back.

“I had taken the distribution of a newly launched Sify product few year back
and it has not moved in the market yet. Sify is not interested in taking care of
the stock,” shared Bhargava.

He further announced, “I, as President of KCDA, am declaring that no partner
will work with Sify in Kanpur till the matter is resolved.”

Supporting Bhargava on the matter, Kohli of Comexcell added that Sify needs
to resolve the issue within 10 days or it will lose its market in Kanpur.

Calming the channel, Nitin Kumar Sharma of Sify assured that immediate steps
would be taken to sort out the matter.

30 channel partners were present at the event. IT Panchayat was held in
asso­ciation with Sify, Hitachi, Microworld and Geneva.

Ramesh R of Hitachi, Anil Gupta of Microworld and Nitin Kumar Sharma of Sify
made the presentation educating partners about their products.

Amrita Tejasvi

amritat@cybermedia.co.in