SES ban in Panipat: Personal vendetta or genuine reason?

New Delhi

August 8th, 2007

The ban imposed on national distributor, SES Technologies by the Panipat
Computer Dealer Association (PCDA) has sent a strong message to the distributor
community within the city. The move was planned a month ago after the
distributor failed to respond to the association's repeated request to meet and
resolve a particular issue. This stance has now boosted the confidence of the
dealers in the association.

According to Ajay Singla, President of PCDA the entire issue dates back to
roughly a year and half ago when Compware Computer, a dealer based in Yamuna
Nagar, wanted to purchase a laptop. Since the dealer was blacklisted and did not
hold a good reputation; they got in touch with Manish Lodhi, Branch Manager of
SES Technologies (Panipat) and requested him to dispatch the material. Manish
sent him the laptop and instead billed Sandeep Bansal, Proprietor of Computer
People, who had earlier issued a blank cheque in favor of SES Technologies,
towards some payments that was due against the company.

Later when Sandeep's cheque bounced, SES Technologies blacklisted him,
labeling him as a defaulter for payment. "They misused my blank cheque to
cover the expenses of Compware Computers," said Bansal.

On contacting SES Technologies, Poonam who is the Marketing and Sales Head of
Panipat said that she was not in a position to comment, as her company was still
trying to find out the details of the entire issue. However, Manish denied all
the allegations leveled at him and said that it was actually a personal issue
that Sandeep wanted to get resolved by involving the union. He also claimed that
no notices were received by him from the association, until a few days back and
that the association did not want to get the issue sorted out as his superior
had visited the association previously.

But Singla denied this and said, "We had banned the association on 6th
of July itself. However, seeing no response coming from SES Technologies to
address this issue, the association decided to further re-ban it. The
association has made it clear to all its members that none of them will purchase
any material, directly or indirectly, from any source that have dealings with
SES Technologies."

When asked whether it was correct to take such an extreme step based on one
dealer's complaint, Singla said, "It is not a question of one dealer.
Rather the association had to keep the interest of all the dealers in
mind." He added that they had not only leveled serious charges against
Sandeep but had also filed a case against him in the consumer court.

Following the above developments, the association decided to place a ban on
SES Technologies in Panipat. He also stated that the association had support
from all its members as they did not wish to be taken lightly by distributors.
The association had reportedly informed SES Technologies well in advance about
this entire issue and had even wanted to arrange a meeting to get a version of
both parties and solve the issue amicably.

Partly aware and partly unaware of the entire development, the distributor
community's has given a mixed response to this regard. While most of them did
not wish to comment on whether banning a company was the right way to deal with
an issue, Vivek Mittal, CEO of Apex Computers-Panipat said that the banning
approach would send a strong message to the distributor community and help in
authenticating the entire procedure.