Restarting From Scratch
Any business is characterized by ups and downs. There have been instances
where partners got wiped off from the scene without a sign of regaining their
lost status. And there have been cases where partners must be praised for their
guts and efforts when they made a re-entry into the trade after losing
everything and giving tough competition to their peers.
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RAJIV KHANNA
Computer Touch
Jalandhar |
One such tale can be told about Rajiv Khanna who was a top dealer in
Jalandhar in 1993 and was doing business with Wipro, Shiva and PCS. Later the
dealer started dealing with PCL and became a leading distributor of the brand.
His business was good and he also roped in two partners to expand his avenue.
PCL was a leading brand at that time and was popular among customers for its
extremely low prices. The prices were so low that for six months no other
competitive brand could make its presence felt in the market, which meant good
business for Khanna.
PCL used to take 100 percent advance for each order and would give assurance
of delivering products within a month. Moreover, PCL had exclusive dealers in
each city and hence its distributors were quite small in numbers.
“I can't say whether it was intentional because I have been its dealer for
four years but one fine day PCL shut down and vanished from the market. I filed
a case in consumer court but it did not give me any fruitful results and I was
left with nothing,” Khanna recalled.
One of his partners left and settled in Canada, which further debilitated
Khanna. “Whatever business I had done of Rs 5 to 6 lakh in six months was lost
and I was facing a further loss of approximately Rs 10 lakh,” he said.
There were only two options for Khanna at that time-either he could quit the
business or start all over again. His indomitable spirit rejected the earlier
option and he started assembling PCs with his own brand. Later in 2001, he
started dealing with HP and Computer Touch started gaining ground.
Today, the company is on top and one of the oldest dealers in Jalandhar and
has a turnover of Rs 1.5 crore. Khanna is a leading reseller and service
provider of HP in the city. He has 18 people working for him and his customers
include SOHO, corporate and educational institutes.
Let Down By A Vendor
AK Pandey began his professional career as a Area Sales Manager for Wimco.
But after a year he decided that he was better off doing his own business. He
started Miraj Infotech in 1994 with the distribution of audio-visual products.
This was also the year Sony entered the Indian market as Sony India. Miraj
quickly signed up with the vendor as exclusive distributor and within the first
year of operations, clocked a turnover of Rs 2 crore.
Pandey's best professional phase was from 1994 to 1998 when his company was
almost synonymous with Sony in the local market. By 1998, it was doing business
worth Rs 17 crore annually.
This is when Pandey decided to get into the IT business and partnered with HP
for distributing their imaging products. “From 1999 till 2002, we were busy
doing business for HP day and night. But they took business market leads from us
and established direct contact with customers leaving no business for us,”
Pandey recalled in anger.
This was also the time when Miraj started doing business with other vendors
like Canon, Lexmark and Iomega. In 2002 though the company was showing turnover
of Rs 40 crore for HP and Rs 2 crore for Sony on paper, this was far from the
truth.
“We had actually exhausted all the profit we saved doing business with Sony
in the past. We never realized that we were doing business on loss on a daily
basis. Our bank accounts were almost wiped out,” he said.
At this point of time any other person would have shut shop but Pandey
decided to persevere. “We faced this trouble because of our blind faith in
vendors like HP, who do not think of the partners at any stage.”
Pandey along with nine other distributors took a stand in 2002 to stop
dealing with HP products, till the company addressed their issues. Pandey said,
“Within nine months, HP accepted our terms and conditions. But I had enough of
doing business with HP.”
Miraj then concentrated entirely on Sony, which it felt was more
channel-friendly. “Seeing our laid back attitude during 2000 to 2002, Sony had
appointed a partner for its audio-visual business. But they did not stop us from
distributing its media products,” he mentioned.
Miraj closed its Noida office in 2004 and Jaipur office two years later
because its maintenance was too expansive. Also, the rollout of VAT would have
made it redundant to have several branch offices.
Today, it distributes Sony's media products-both optical and professional. It
also started selling Samsung's media products recently. “In 2002 we were doing
only Rs 2 crore business for Sony while last fiscal we were able to increase
this to Rs 24 crore,” said Pandey.
In 2000, Miraj was an 18 people strong company but today it functions with
just two people. Pandey is now planning to add more products to his kitty, but
only those that don't need showrooms and what he terms as 'hi-fi ambience'. Page(s) 1 2 3
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