Partners In Coimbatore Want Ac

The IT Panchayat organized by The DQ Week and DQ Channels held in Coimbatore
on Oct 12, 2008 proved that the scenario existing in the Manchester of Tamil
Nadu is no different from any other IT market across the country. Coimbatore
market too has issues that are prevalent in other IT markets. The event started
by mourning the death of three dealers in the past eight months-AH Saleem of
Compu Soft Systems, SG Ponnarasu of Addons Computers and Senthil of Computer
Solutions.

The panelists included Manoj Shankar, Branch Manager, Ingram Micro; G Suresh,
Director, eCaps; A Dhanasekar, President, Coimbatore IT Association (CITA); Raaj
Gopal Dakka, Branch Manager, Rashi Peripherals; K Ravichandran, President,
Tirupur IT Association (TITA) and VR Sundar Raj, Personal Relationship Manager,
Init Systems. The panchayat also saw the participation of Tirupur IT
Association, whose dealers were once part of the Coimbatore IT Association (CITA).

DoA issues

The panel discussion started with Dhanasekar highlighting DoA issues that
the channel partners were facing in Coimbatore. He requested the distributors to
take immediate steps in replacing DoA products.

Addressing this issue, Shankar said, "Most of the time distributors are
allotted specific regions, as the vendors decide whether DoAs should be
addressed by the distributor or the authorized service provider." On the other
hand, he also agreed that there are no clear moralities in the DoA cases from
the vendors end. "Vendors and distributors must have some clarity in DoA
policies," he added.

The panel: (L-R) VR Sundar Raj, Personal Relationship Manager, Init Systems; G Suresh, Director, eCaps, Coimbatore; A Dhanasekar, President, Coimbatore IT Association (CITA); Manoj Shankar, Branch Manager, Ingram Micro, Coimbatore; Raaj Gopal Dakka, Branch Manager, Rashi Peripherals, Coimbatore; K Ravichandran, President, Tirupur IT Association (TITA)

Sundar Raj said, "Distributors are helping us to some extent and the vendors
too agree to solve DoA cases, however there is little action," he claimed.

Price difference

The next issue that the partners brought up was the price difference for
different channel partners, and in different regions in the same state.

Addressing this, Shankar said that as a distributor, Ingram is very
supportive of the partners by fixing up adequate prices. "The price difference
could be because either the vendor or distributor would be giving some special
discount to a channel partner. We suggest that both the distributors and channel
should have a clear focus on the MOP and operate accordingly," Shankar said.

Ravichandran argued that in most cases, the distributor's prices are higher
than the MOP and partners in Tirupur are asked to courier every product for a
service. "We are bearing the courier charges from our margins, which are already
shrinking. Being a huge market, the absence of a national distributor is felt
badly among the partners."

Dev Naryan of Sify face to face with partners	Partners during the event

Price protection

The other issue that the partners expressed dissent over was price
protection. Dhanasekar said that the dealers need to be protected
unconditionally during any price drops, as they are totally committed to the
vendor and the distributors.

Shankar of Redington too appreciated the move by Rashi. But he said that such
predictions at times would go wrong and the dealers might get into trouble.
"Mostly distis are not allowed

to inform about price drops and some times the predictions have indirect
implications," he averred.

Warranty and service support

Suresh of eCaps indicted that the distributors don't have any product
knowledge and act as mere logistics providers. He stressed the need of product
and service specialist in Coimbatore. However, the partners present there
claimed that the distributors have few technical people with them and wanted
those numbers to be increased.

Ravichandran of TITA claimed that there is no service center in Tirupur and
partners there are facing hardships in terms of customer service. Supporting him
Dhanasekar too claimed that there was no support from the local service center.
"There is a service center in Chennai but unfortunately, we don't get the
service at the right time and it takes almost a month to get the products back,"
said Dhanasekar.

Addressing the Tirupur service center issue, Shankar of Ingram suggested that
partners in Tirupur could identify some well doing, experienced partner and
stock the products. "That particular partner could be used as a collection
agent. Through him the distributors can pick the stocks and get the service
done," he suggested.

Extending supports

On the support extended to the channels from the distributor's end, Shankar
said that the distributor has a separate division called 'value-added services',
where people in the team communicate the products and solutions that would add
value to the partner's solutions and where they could make good margins.

Dhanasekar appealed for more support from the vendors and distributors. "We
invited both vendors and distributors, and discussed our issues, but till date
we haven't received any solution from either of them. We need more support from
both of them for doing a good business," he claimed. As the discussions on the
support extended to each other continued, Shankar of Ingram extended his full
support to work with the association and sort out the issues that were possible
from his end.

Dev Narayan, Regional Manager-South Channels, Sify and Anil Gupta,
Head-National Sales, MicroWorld made their presentations and indicated that the
companies were looking

to partner with the members present in the IT Panchayat.

The discussion was moderated by Zia Askari, Associate Editor, CyberMedia.

Sify, MicroWorld, Hitachi, Epson and Geneva sponsored the event, which was
attended by 60 partners.

NR Sethuraman

sethuramannr@cybermedia.co.in