CMDA Pune�s ex-president Shyam Bhandari was hell-bent on taking the Pune octroi issue to HP�s US office. But that was on October 22, 2002.
p____p However, right now, peace and bonhomie seems to prevail between CMDA Pune and HP. The year 2003 seems to have brought good tidings after all, and now that the dust has settled, it is worth looking at how the issue went on to
create history.
p____p Actually, it all began when Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) authorities swooped down on a few channel partners in Pimpri and forcibly checked their account books, in a bid to collect a three percent octroi. The idea was to meet the PMC�s octroi collection target of Rs 340 crore in an era of
recession and shrinking margins.
p____p This led channel partners to demand that HP foot the octroi bill � something that HP refused to do. Thereafter, CMDA declared a ban on HP products throughout Pune from August 8, 2002.
p____p The boycott led to a situation where HP�s rivals even began sponsoring CMDA meetings. The deadlock continued to simmer under the surface, even as HP and CMDA were talking it out�
p____p The breakthrough came only after HP announced its Geographic Initiative Program with effect from January 1, this year. Under the program, HP�s partners in non-billing locations are entitled to an additional incentive of two percent over and above regular incentives, on meeting their
stipulated targets.
p____p CMDA lifted its ban on HP goods after this program was launched, though J T Jacob, HP India�s country commercial sales manager, (Imaging & Printing Group) made it clear that the introduction has nothing to do with the ban
on its products.
p____p So what led to CMDA lifting the boycott on HP�s products? After all, HP was only extending an ongoing program to its hardware as well.
p____p CMDA�s calculations seem to be very simple. It is easy to sell HP products and meet stipulated targets. So achieving the two percent additional incentive over and above regular incentives is child�s play for Pune�s resellers. They can easily afford to pay one percent of the (three per
cent) octroi from their own pockets. The two percent of additional incentive would pay the other two percent of the octroi.
p____p Besides, HP had clearly refused to succumb to pressure. CMDA would have known that a long-term boycott of HP products was not only unsustainable, but may also backfire.
p____p So prudence and pragmatism seems to have won the day for now, though a few may accuse CMDA of a �climb down�. But what matters the most is that Pune resellers can now afford to pay octroi without a squeeze on their margins. Shubh Labh!
p____p Please write to me at bobbyanthony@channeltimes.com