The best place for newcomers to learn business first hand in the IT space is by joining a partner organization. Here they get all kinds of experience in the area of sales, marketing, engineering, finance or technical aspects. Channel organizations also provide them plenty of options to learn about the IT industry.

But what does the partner get in return? Partners put much effort into training new people and giving them all kinds of assistance. But once these employees know the rules of the game, they quit. Often they join the very distributor they were dealing with when they were working in the channel organization.

Sudhir Arora

Why people move
The main reason why people move from the channel organization to the distributor companies are because they are in regular touch with the latter and gradually develop good business relationships. Sometimes this relationship spills over to friendship.

Channel partners, in most cases, have a limited business area as compared to distributors. Their scope of giving exposure and brand to their team is limited. And it is not possible for a channel to take the risk of getting into bigger business just to keep their manpower motivated.

It is not possible for an employer to stop his people from switching to another company. But there is a need to have some control on this particular phenomenon.

How distributors operate
Distributors face a similar problem related to attrition. In their case, vendors whom they deal with poach their skilled employees. When a vendor is dealing with a distributor he is bound to come across good people there and this gives them a ready hiring ground for employees.

But distributors do not face this situation acutely because most vendors and distributors have a tacit agreement that they will not hire each other’s manpower. Therefore, a mutual understanding enables them to curb the rate of attrition to a large extent.

Valuable lesson
Though most partners are aware of this symbiotic understand- ing between distributors and vendors, it is surprising that they do not emulate it amongst themselves. This is due to the fact that it is difficult to apply such a formula with partners, because in any case we do most of our business with distributors and therefore can’t afford to take chances with the relationship. At the end of the day, the distributor can do business with several partners, but a partner can source products only from selected distributors.

How to stop this menace?
Partners are dependent on distributors for their business so raising the poaching issue too aggressively can also lead to soured relationships.

Over time, partners tend to forget such instances and train new people all over again, maiking it a routine. Instead they should have an agreement with employees that they can’t quit the company within a prescribed period.

A nice office environment and good appraisal system are the two criterion that play a great role in retaining people.

Scene among partners
Switching jobs among channel partner companies is also a common phenomenon. But in Indore, all partners have an unwritten understanding that smoothly gels our relationship.

When a new person joins us, we ask them about their work experience in the industry. If he has been working with some other partner, we contact the partner and inform him about the person’s movement. This way we safeguard our interest maintain good relationships with our peers.

60 percent of my employees inform me well in advance about their resignation. This practice provides a solution to the problem of attrition. We also discuss with employees about the issues that might have led to their resignation. This way we can plug the loopholes and not lose more people than is necessary.

Sudhir Arora is Director of Computer Gallery

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