These people control the market

It is quiet strange but true. The Indian channel market is almost completely
dominated by one single community. And that happens to be the Marwaris who have
over the years gained immense clout in the Indian IT market. In fact, it won't
be an exaggeration to say that this community virtually controls the channel
trade and without them, nothing will move.

Despite the fact that Marwaris have such a domination of the market, no
attempts have been made till date to acknowledge the same. Interestingly, even
this community itself has not exactly realized its clout. They are not even
aware of the commanding position they are in. However, when they are made aware
about this fact, all of them nod in agreement and generally get happy about the
situation.

But nobody can say for sure how this community came about in this field in
the first place. Any part of the country you see, and Marwaris are the ones not
only ruling the roost but also almost everywhere have had the first mover
advantage-which means they virtually started the channel market in that part
of the country. There are several examples of that. The most important and
visible is the Nehru Place-Asia's biggest IT market-which was kick-started
by JP Modi of MC Modi & Co. He can truly claim to have started the gold
rush, where everybody followed later, so much so that today this market itself
has close to 1,200 channel partners operating.

Somewhat similar is the position enjoyed by KL Lalani of Lalani Infotech in
Kolkata. When he started off in IT, there was nobody around. He was followed in
quick succession by a number of luminaries including Shiv Modi of Trisita
Corporation, Jatan Baid of Eastern IT Group etc. The story is the same in
Chennai also where the likes of Rakesh Jain of Supreme Computers, Nitesh
Bhandari of Texonic Instruments, Moolchand Jain of Mahavir Computers etc have
been the pioneers and are still the leading players in the Ritchie Street market-which
is considered to be the biggest IT market of the south.

It is not just the metros where Marwaris are dominating. It is the same
scenario in a whole host of smaller towns also. Here we have people like Sarad
Bawri of Lifeline Enterprises in Shillong, Pawan Agarwala of Datamation in
Guwahati, Rupesh Kedia of Computer Supermart in Jaipur, Sushil Beriwala of
Abacus Combines in Indore, etc.

Although this community is all pervasive in the IT channel trade, still there
are some pockets where they are not dominating. For instance, Kerala is almost
entirely devoid of Marwaris in the channel trade. Same is the case in Delhi
where it is the Punjabis who dominate.

Overall, it can be said with great pride that without the stellar
contribution made by the Marwaris, the Indian IT trade would probably have been
only half as vibrant as it is today. It is time they are acknowledged and given
the pride of place, which they richly deserve.

Asim Raina