We are passing through a phase when the black cloud of economic recession has overcast the arenas of economic activities all over the world. The same excuse is being echoed in the Indian IT product distribution market too, where a large number of resellers, sub-distributors and dealers are gasping to run their businesses.
Is that all for this situation when almost nobody is truly happy by selling IT products? Before entering further into the discussion, let us recollect one thing that India is still a virgin market, even a few months back all the vendors used to say this in concord. Truly, the IT product business is yet to spread its wings beyond the cities (includes all sizes).
Then, why is this melancholy being seen in the faces of all IT resellers and dealers? Recently, I was talking to P. N. Prasad, Vice President, CONFED-ITA and owner of Microplus Computers, Pondicherry, on the present situation.
Prasad pointed out some fundamental causes that have a great contribution to beget such a dull situation. As per their strategy to spread fast in the Indian market, many vendors offered dealership to a number of people within a small geographic span, this ultimately resulted in unfair competition among the partners of the same brand. Consequently, came up malpractices like price undercutting and selling at resellers’ price to any Tom, Dick and Harry.
According to him, many dealers hardly possess any long-term business perspective. Thus, elimination of these mean business policies is very difficult, and this vicious circle will affect everyone.
In many cases, as he pointed out, the vendors too have dealt with ordinary people without their sales partners’ knowledge, which also has caused ruin of their own partners. On the contrary, some good vendors like Samsung (printer division), Autodesk, Canon etc., have always maintained very less number of partners in a particular region, they are doing well even today, so are their resellers.
As Prasad suggests, long term perspective and commitment in business is very essential for everyone to survive in today’s market, and let others survive. Vendor-dealer relationship has to be based on long-term commitment. All vendors should realize that the distribution should be done through exclusive partners only at the genuinely quoted price. This will be beneficial for all.
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