"With focus on upcountry markets, our channel sales will increase by 20%"

R Govindan is bullish on the potential of upcountry markets for IT business.
He ensures that his local marketing executives meet the region's channel
partners at least once a month. He monitors these visits and ensures that
partners are aware of eSys' roadmap, product portfolio, and any pending issues
are clarified expeditiously.

What strategy are you employing to communicate with your channel?

At the moment, we intend to concentrate more on B- and C- class cities.
Thus, we are initiating numerous roadshows to attract resellers and system
integrators. In the last month itself, we organized roadshows in 10 B- and C-
class cities, covering varied regions to increase awareness of our products.
More than 1,000 resellers attended these roadshows. With this feedback, we are
gearing up to expand further in interior regions too.

Second, we set up a 25-seater call center two months ago to address and
clarify various queries of resellers and SIs. If we provide all assistance
required to the channel on a timely basis, our presence would be further
strengthened in the market.  

How will this call center benefit your partners?

This call center, which offers product details, answers queries about
schemes running, besides technical support-is slated to become a 24/7
operation with the seater-capacity increasing to 100 shortly. Also, the
technical support service, which is provided for the channel, would also be
extended for all customers. We have to decide when we can extend this service to
the end-users though.

Besides providing the required information over the phone, we also have
web-enabled support. We have a website that offers all the information regarding
products, regulations and schemes for those who log on to the Internet.  

How do you intend to attract partners in the face of increasing
competition?

We have a hybrid-matrix model to approach resellers and SIs to coordinate
with them. Since our focus is largely on the upcountry market, we have deployed
a well-planned strategy. The respective region's marketing executive meets the
region's channel partners once every month and shares our roadmap, briefs them
about the product portfolio, new entrants and clarifies if they have any issues.

Further, the local sales representative makes frequent follow-ups. Though the
interaction of the marketing executive is not new, we have formalized this plan
in a way that will reap optimum output.

Alternately, we are attempting to start various training programs for the
channel community to make them more comfortable with our product platform. So
far, we had training programs conducted only for MVAD, but now we plan to
conduct programs that will give an insight in to the entire product range with
thorough inputs on product features. 

What is your recommendation to the channel to gain and retain voluminous
market share?

One key area is aligning well with vendors. Primarily, for a company like
eSys that has collaborations with various vendors, we need to align well with
their strategies and market as expected. When providing an effectively assembled
product, making the product available is important. When you roll out the
product, we have to ensure that the product is available in all the geographies
where we intend to capture the market. Pricing is also a key aspect that should
be considered. Keeping in mind that quality doesn't come with price, we
consider various configurations, targeted segments and then aim the market.   

Since you conduct business directly and indirectly, what is the traction
of sales that you expect from the channel?

We have an advantage of positioning ourselves as an original equipment
manufacturer and also as an assembler. At the moment, both direct and indirect
sales contribute equally to our market sales. Given the focus on the upcountry
market, which further establishes wider contacts with the channel, we foresee a
20% increase in sales from them.  

What is the business potential in India?

Market studies suggest that the market presently in India is around 3.4
billion PCs a year. Of this, 50% is targeted by SIs and the rest by MNCs. But
with broadband penetrating fast, we foresee a great business momentum-taking
place in the days to come.  

What criteria does eSys abide by while selecting vendors for inclusion in
its portfolio?

What we provide is an entire range of hardware components to resellers and
systems integrators. Besides, we have effectively assembled a range of products
with our own brand name and are faring well in the market. Foreseeing a great
demand for notebooks, we intend to come up with our own-brand of laptops having
a viable price range in the coming month. Presently for laptops, we have Mobile
Value Added Distributor (MVAD) program initiated by Intel.

SUNITHA NATTI CyberMedia
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