In their pre-budget missive to the Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram demanding enhancement in exemption limit for small scale industries, Mumbai-based resellers body TAIT had expressed apprehension that native assemblers would have to give up local manufacturing and sell only MNC products. This MNC phobia is not without good reasons. The new challenges and growing competition are making life tough for the channel.
But the changing landscape in the new economy and technology era is also opening new avenues. The multi-faceted internet revolution has thrown open a new set of opportunities, that did not exist a few years back. The opportunities, along with the growth of business in traditional IT products and services require you to make a true assessment of your preparedness.
There are some in the channel community of those who have optimally exploited the opportunities and have climbed up the value chain, but many still operate at the bottom of the chain. Neither they have realized the importance of identifying some sunrise opportunities nor are they willing to avoid the beaten track and trying out something innovative.
What the channel needs to do is to look for new avenues of business instead of engaging in special discounts or at times unfair trade practices. Exploring such new avenues of doing business will reduce the threat of payment default or the credit issue in the long run.
A tool that you could use to boost lead generation and provide a lot of value to your customers is the internet. The dynamic and interactive medium it is, internet provides you innumerable ways to service your existing customers and also find new ones.
You must explore how you could effectively add this new dimension to your business. The Return on Investment or RoI on your website or online activity could be phenomenal. But only if partners are able to fully exploit the various tools available to reach out to your target customers.
In fact, you can prompt your customers and associates like distributors and vendors to make use of the web to your own advantage.
You can also reap the benefit of a lucrative business by readily providing all information about you and your company on the site. There will be a better return on investment and you will have the ability to drive profitable service across a diverse customer base.
Here dynamism is the name of the game. If your website is up and nothing happens on it for a year, you have only wasted your money. It’s only when you constantly update the site with the kind of information your customer wants, provide him useful tools on the site and eventually draw him to the site through a weekly, monthly or a fortnightly newsletter, that you’ll attract fresh business.