SURAT
March 5, 2007

The DQ Week IT Panchayat at Surat on 2nd March witnessed passionate outbursts from the participating channel partners. And they had good cause to be. Most of the partners present claimed that they have to deal with several issues with respect to post-sales service support. And they were very dissatisfied with the role distributors are playing in helping them get this support, either from their own service centers or from the vendor. What also annoyed several of the assembled partners was the absence of representatives from Ingram Micro India Ltd and Rashi Peripherals. And the local representatives for the two distribution houses did not make it to the event even after assuring the DQ Week team that they were well on their way. Said one partner, “The fact that they did not even bother to turn up at a platform for redressal of channel issues, shows how important we are for them.” Other partners agreed with him and added that there was a major communication disjoint between these representatives and the channel partners in Surat.

Coming back to the warranty related issues, Kamal Agarwal of Ria Computers was most vociferous and gave instances of delays in getting replacements for faulty products. “Usually the turnaround time for dead on arrival (DoA) or faulty products is 15 days. But there have been instances where we have not replacements even for three months. And when we approach the distributors, they tell us that the problem lies with the vendors and when we approach the vendors they pass the blame on the distributors. Ultimately, we have to suffer as our end-customers demand instant replacement and we have to give them the product from our own inventory,” he complained.

Dharmin Shah of Neoteric Infomatique agreed that there were delays in replacing DoA or faulty products while Mandar Khade of Redington India said that in most cases the vendors were responsible for these cases. Mohamed Hans Abbas of Cyberstar India claimed he was new to the city and therefore did not know the modalities involved and promised that he would look into it.

Partners claimed that the issue about timely replacements could be solved if distributors made it a point to stock ample inventory. Khade replied that Redington has taken an initiative in this regard with their reverse logistics center in Chennai. Dharmin Shah said that there has been some improvement over the past few months and partners can look forward to faster turnaround time.

Another suggestion came from Bharat Randeri, President of South Gujurat Information Technologies Association (SITA) who said that it was time that vendor warranty policies should be well defined and furnished to the channel. And the distributors should take the initiative to get these warranties from their principals. While Dharmin, Mandar and Mohammed agreed this was a good idea. But they were not forthcoming about when these policies could be handed to the channel.

And this set around another round of debate on whether the distributors were willing to help the channel out or were just concerned about some posturing. Anand Joshi of Krishna Infotech In the end, the distributors' representatives agreed to try and resolve the issues partners have with well defined warranty policies and make the same available to the channel soon.

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