Chennai: As finance flow for organizations is turning out to be the biggest nightmare for channel organizations, many are looking for various options to get financed. Private funding firm, X10 financial services that is focused on the IT industry’s financing requirements, is offering tailored services to meet the financing requirements of the partners. In an interaction with Channeltimes, Karan Bhatia, CEO, X10 Financial services, explained his vision and future plans for the company.
“All these problems are existent because of a lack of working capital. We help resellers expand their business by providing them flexible growth capital. Our Industry knowledge allows us to serve them in an efficient manner and helping them with their requirement of additional capital,” Bhatia said, adding that IT Distribution Business is a volume driven business and purchasing power is the most important factor in it.”
Bhatia believes as purchasing power is linked to own equity and bank credit, directly or indirectly, funding becomes the biggest pain point for this industry, there are very thin margins in IT Business and to have more and more of profit they need to do more business for which they need adequate working capital and sudden large orders and delay in collection also adds to the pressure on the partners.
Speaking on the uniqueness of the product, he said, “X10 Financial Services is the only NBFC which is targeting the financial needs of the IT Sector exclusively. Our Industry knowledge helps us understand and cater to their needs in a better way than other bank or financial institutions.
Bank loans require collateral while X10 Financial Services provides unsecured loans on the basis of the market reputation or credibility of the partner or the company. Bank loans involve tedious, time consuming paperwork while X10 utilizes technology to provide hassle-free and time saving applications. Moreover, utilisation Limits are regulated by banks while we provide them the freedom to utilize their Limits however they want.”
Speaking on the funding model, Bhatia said that the company basically cater to the needs of IT National Distributors (Tier 1 Distributors), Regional Distributors (Tier 2 Distributors) and Partners (Tier 3 Distributors) by providing them with extended credit period and the working capital solutions as per their specific requirements by providing the below mentioned products for the various financial needs.
The company eyes three key forms of funding for the channel partners
Purchase Invoice Financing- The company finances purchase of Inventory by regional Distributor, B2B partners from Tier 1 National Distributors and Tier 2 Regional Distributors of IT Products.
Vendor Financing – This product is somewhat similar to Purchase Invoice Financing but in this product Tier 1 Distributors purchase stock from Manufacturers/OEMs on extended Credit Period.
Project Financing- The company finances the project based orders placed by corporates and public Sector Undertaking on System Integrators and Tier 2 Distributors and the partners.
X10 Financial services is planning to launch products for financial needs of any sort for various partners in the IT Industry under one roof. We will be the de-facto solution provider to serve to the financial needs of the IT Industry. Other plans in their charts are to launch lease rental financing and receivable financing.
“We have already tied up with all the major IT distributors and resellers in the industry. Many more are in the pipeline. Our goal is to be the one stop shop for funding needs of IT distribution players. We are highly flexible in our approach in terms of financials and their assessment,” said Bhatia.
He added: “We don’t go merely by numbers or balance sheets while taking funding decisions. We do consider the market credibility of the partners as well as their future potential and experience. We are not rigid in our approach at the time of considering any partner for funding.”
“In the technology side as well, we have our web portal or online dashboard in which you just need to upload your invoice for getting it funded through X10 and we will provide you our assistance without following any lengthy and cumbersome procedures,” Bhatia concluded.