Kochi Fights Meltdown

IT Panchayat, which is organizedby The DQ Week and DQ Channels made its stop
in Kochi on Dec 10, 2008. More than 50 channel partners converged at this
channel-focused event. Presentations were given by Dev Narayanan from Sify and
Mohamed Arif from MicroWorld. On the panel were Eldho from Aldous Glare Trade &
Exports, Jaimon Joseph from Noveon and Harikrishnan PK from Alltime Power
Technologies who represented the channel side, while distributor's side was
represented by R Suresh Kumar from Ingram Micro and Sudesh S from Redington.

The discussion started with the current issue of financial crunch that is
negatively affecting businesses worldwide. Speaking about the ongoing market
scenario in and around Kochi, Harikrishnan from Alltime Power shared, “Our JAS
quarter was extremely good because of the Onam festival, however today we are
experie­ncing a somewhat diffi­cult situation as people are post­poning their
buying decisions to some extent. However, I strongly feel that this will be over
by December end as Christmas approaches,” he added.

Dwelling upon the current market scenario, Joseph from Noveon agreed that
this is indeed a difficult time, but suggested that the channel community should
look at every possible way to increase their profitability and enhance customer
base as well. “We should have a focused approach towards dealing with critical
situations like this. Move into services, focus on collections, not give
unnecessary credits- these are perhaps some ways to make sure that one can earn
margins,” he explained.

Suresh Kumar from Ingram and Sudesh S from Redington suggested that all the
distri­butors should keep an eye on the credibility of all the channel partners.
“We are surely not giving credits to channel partners who do not have a standing
in the market. We are closely looking at all the parameters before giving credit
to channel partners now,” they added.

Transparent policies

Voicing their concern towards vendor-driven policies on issues such as DoA
or services, all the channel partners present in the gathering displayed their
urgent need for vendors to make

their policies as transparent as possible.

On the panel: (L-R) Eldho of Aldous Glare Trade and Exports, Jaimon Joseph of Noveon, Harikrishnan PK of Alltime Power Technologies who represented the channel side, while distributor's side was represented by R Suresh Kumar of Ingram Micro and Sudesh S from Redington

“We have no clue about their DoA policies or service-related issues. How are
they likely to handle our cases is not clear to us in any manner. We urge the
distributors to take up this matter with their respective vendors and solve our
problems. Transparent policies will surely help us a lot in terms of solving
major issues,” Harikrishnan from Alltime added.

Expressing his concern on this issue, Joseph said that if vendors share their
policies in writing with partners, it will become easier for them to decide
whether they want to work with a particular vendor or not. “I will not prefer
working with vendors that take long time to settle DoA cases. But we should at
least know in advance what they have in store for us,” he added.

Kumar from Ingram accepted that this issue surely needs to be taken up with
vendors.

MRP and MoP

Distressed channel community present on the occasion strongly criticized the
practice that some vendors follow of placing their products' MRP lower than the
MoP. “If we are selling at a greater price point to a customer than what is
being quoted as MRP, then it creates a huge problem for us. The customers goes
to the consumer court and we have to face the music. Distributors should make
sure that this does not happen,” Eldho from Aldous Glare Trade & Exports
asserted.

Zia Askari

(ziaa@cybermedia.co.in)