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Hyderabad
May 5, 2008
India's first ever summit for regional and sub distributors, Disti Summit,
organized by The DQ Week, saw 90 delegates from across 25 cities in the country
congregating at the in Ramoji Film City in Hyderabad. The Disti Summit kicked
off with a keynote by Jitendra Kulkarni, who was earlier CEO of Redington India.
He exhorted that sub-distribution was not dead and that regional and
sub-distributors could increase their profits if they made minor tweaking in
their daily routine.
Kulkarni, who now heads Winspire Solutions a company that makes ERP solutions
for the distributors, said, “The problem with most of the sub-distis is that
they have no control over the credit that they get and policy enforcement. There
are pending and outstanding payments and no one is tracking them.”
Traditionally he said that the distributors sustained financial viability
because of high growth rates, better economies of scale, relatively higher
margins and addition of major product lines. However, all this has changed and
now there is intense competition among vendors, which is squeezing the supply
chain margins.
What needs to be done
To make the most of the sub-distribution business Kulkarni propagated that
the owners must get involved to drive performance in the company. He said, “The
best thing is to keep looking for alternate business models. Also do not park
most of your business with one vendor. Spread your portfolio to increase vendor
numbers, because if you bank more than 30 percent of your business with one
vendor and if that vendor company hits a rough patch, your business will go for
a toss.”
According to Kulkarni the three essentials for scaling up distribution
business were, “Strong information systems and processes and clear
organization structure. These are important when you are thinking of scaling
your business. “
Elaborating about what could be the options for alternate businesses Kulkarni
said, “There are a lot of things that you can do. Firstly you can look at
becoming tier-one distributor for smaller vendors or niche products. Then there
is the option of graduating to the next level and becoming a regional
distributor."
Sub-distributors could also think of launching their own brand. Retail is
another option apart from expanding in adjacent industries like telecom,
consumer electronics, white goods and mobile devices.
Adding value
After the keynote there was a panel discussion on 'How to add value to
your customer'. The discussion that was moderated by Prasanto Kumar Roy, Chief
Editor, The DQ Week had a panel which included Sanjay Sharma, VP-IT Division,
Samsung India, Arunava Chakrabarthy from Microsoft India, Anil Mhaske, CEO of
Pune's Data Care Corporation and Chennai's Rakesh Jain, CEO of Supreme
Computers.
Taking off from the keynote the discussion centered around how
sub-distributors were getting bogged down by policies set by vendors and
national distributors. It tried to throw up avenues to scale up
sub-distributors' work. A lot of participants felt that vendors are usually keen
on pitting one partner against the other so that no one grows and everyone keeps
doing their business.
Another discussion that saw heated debate amongst delegates and panelists was
on 'Fund Management'. Moderated by Vinita Bhatia, Executive Editor, DQ
Channels the panelists included Jitendra Kulkarni, Keshav Madhav from Vidur
& Company, New Delhi, Umang Mehta from Roop Technologies, Mumbai and Rajesh
Saboo from Saboo Computers, Kolkata. Page(s) 1 2
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