Rashi, Savera "cholbe na", says East

East India never ceases to amaze us. After the formation of the eastern confederation of IT channels with more than 10 associations as its members, the confederacy, Confederation of Indian IT Associations (CIITA) has stepped in finally to intervene in the channels trading scenario, taking the major step of issuing its members a notice of temporarily terminating business activities with Rashi Peripherals and Savera Marketing Agency citing violation of ‘business ethics'.

Not resorting to any sudden conclusion or issuing an ‘order on the lines of boycott or ban' the confederation has appealed to each of its individual member to refrain from any business dealings with Rashi and Savera Marketing as the ongoing conflict is deemed to enter the next stage of clash of interest.

In the last meeting of CIITA held in Kolkata in the premises of the Compass office, presidents and secretaries of 8 member associations attended the meet whereby CIITA decided to made the above mentioned appeal to the members.

"CIITA has appealed to its members to avoid business deals with Rashi and Savera Marketing. We have not resorted to any boycotts or bans as these are not legally justified and the stance of CIITA has to be made legally acceptable to all associations,"said Rajiv Poddar, secretary, CIITA.
Although the discussion centered on all companies neglecting or violating the National Distributor Policy (NDP), recently passed by CIITA, the focus remained with Rashi and Savera Marketing.

"For a long time, dealers in Assam have been fighting against trade malpractices, allegedly committed by Rashi and Savera Marketing, with the ongoing ban from Assam channel partners resulting in a stalemate. We now need to resolve this dispute as it is affecting all tiers across channels and also need to address the issue over data leakage from Rashi Peripherals," said Naveen Gupta, VP, CIITA.

"In the meeting, it was unanimously decided from participating associations to issue an appeal to the members of local associations to refrain from any billings with Savera Marketing and Rashi . With this decision in place, this week onwards, there hasn't been any billing across the east from Rashi or Savera Marketing," Gupta added.

With the billings of both Rashi Peripherals and Savera Marketing being brought to an abrupt end this week across eastern India, Gupta is hoping Rashi Peripherals to revert back to CIITA with clarity and their stance over the ongoing dispute soon. However, CIITA has not decided or predicted over the next course of action.

"We can only say our next move or the possible end over this conflict once Rashi reaches us to discuss about the impasse," Gupta added.
Also, Savera Marketing refused to comment over the ongoing tussle across the east or clarify their stance citing it was not a party in the CIITA meeting or wasn't invited.

However, Rashi has claimed that it did not receive any official communication from either CIITA or any of its member associations about the ‘appeal'.

"We haven't received any communiqué from CIITA over their decision and as such I cannot comment over this. So far, with the problem in Assam, we have done our best to address the issue with the channel partners there and arrive at a consensus; however, I think our actions were not upto the expectations of the channel partners in Assam; the result being that the issue still remains unresolved," said Rajesh Goenka, VP, sales and marketing, Rashi Peripherals.

The history of the action from CIITA dates back to last December when North-East Computer Trader's Association (NECTA) banned all business dealings with Rashi Peripherals and had issued notice to its members to bar all Rashi Peripherals officials from entering their office premises in the north-east alleging malpractice of business by the national distributor.
The dispute arose over the nature of business as well as shareholding of Savera Marketing Agency (Savera Marketing) which, according to Rashi Peripherals (Rashi Peripherals) is operational since the last 10 years. Channel partners in Guwahati alleged that the Directorship of Rashi Peripherals and Savera Marketing is disputed as Rashi Peripherals has a direct ‘vested interest in Savera Marketing' and the retail partner (Savera Marketing) is getting ‘undue privileges from Rashi as well as some vendors.'

"Gopal Pansari has a share-holding in Savera Marketing whereas he is also the RM - East of Rashi which implies that he has a direct stake-holding and interest in the business performance of Savera Marketing. We thereby question Rashi to clarify themselves to us as to whether they are distributors or retailers," said Ranjan Kumar Das, legal head, NECTA in a previous instance.

However, Rashi , last year only had clarified that Rashi directors are K K Choudhary and Suresh Pansari and Savera Marketing Directors are Vijay Kumar Pansari and his family including Gopal Pansari which is not managed by Rashi but by independent management team from Savera Marketing. The reply was put down by NECTA stating the response as ‘totally incomplete and it has well established our main concern/points (regarding Savera Marketing and dubious nature of the distributor) are correct'.

Since then, NECTA has been at loggerheads with Rashi and Savera Marketing and the same fury against Rashi Peripherals and Savera Marketing started to be felt across east with Siliguri, Jamshedpur, Patna, Ranchi and some companies in Kolkata alleging the same thing suggesting a ban on Rashi Peripherals and Savera Marketing.

However, nothing concrete was done then with CIITA officials revealing that the confederation had hoped an ‘unanimous resolution between Savera Marketing, Rashi and NECTA', but with the ban on Rashi Peripherals and Savera Marketing remaining in effect since December last year, the confederation felt it necessary to intervene on request from its member associations.