Looking back, the past year should be some sort of a milestone, a defining point for the Indian IT channel community. In the over two decades history of the two-tier distribution channel, one may never have seen so many events that could be called tumultuous.
So many dealers of mergers and acquisitions were announced, so many new IT vendors entered the market seeing the promise the local market offered. A scam running into tens of crores of rupees erupted involving one of the most high-profile managers the channel has ever seen in an MNC. It reminded us once again that business is based on much more than mutual trust and verbal agreements. New controls have been put in place to ensure such instances don t recur in the company, but random cases involving others could not be simply wished away. Nevertheless, the sordid saga would have shaken the entire community out of its lethargy toward controls and a predilection toward making money through any means.
Prices of many products seem to have stabilized, with vendors and distributors beginning to look at new ways of pushing sales and instilling confidence in partners – incentives, schemes, promotions, more feet on the ground of their own for higher partner engagement, mature marketing strategies
This was the year when the alternate retail channel appeared more as competition to the traditional IT reseller/retailer than as opportunity. Next year would be when the IT mall would bloom from concept to reality. One in Bangalore has already begun functioning, launched without fanfare while a more high-profile one in Mumbai is still in talks with vendors, there are more in Delhi and Kolkata.
More people in vendor, distributor and reseller organizations seemed to hop jobs in the past year than in previous ones. A sign that their current employer was floundering or new opportunities opening up in others, either way it could only mean that the industry as a whole was in the final stages of consolidation, winding up, crouched for another leap.
As the stock exchanges and all related news in the financial and other business sectors show us, India is indeed a success story.