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Freelancers appear to be a nightmare to the IT community in Thrissur. In a
market that is showing steady growth in the home segment, registered dealers are
worried that the so-called 'freelancer community' is taking their share of the
pie away. Freelancers are apparently those dealers who are not registered, have
no shop but manage all their business through a cell- phone. “These people
approach a sub-distributor or distributor, and provide services and
installations at the customer doorstep for merely Rs 100 or even lesser.
Consequently, this is not only cutting into our margins, but also causes
unhealthy competition within the market,” said Sunil Kumar of Thrissur-based
CyberTechnics, while participating in the panel discussion at the recent IT
Panchayat held in association with The DQ Week and DQ Channels. The need of the
hour according to him was that the vendors as well as the distributors should
ensure some sort of discipline in the market, so that too many players do not
mushroom there.
The channel in Thrissur is also unhappy about the service support that most
vendors and distributors lend to them. With no major distributor except SES
Technologies having an office in Thrissur, channel partners have to travel to
Cochin for any service or replacement-related issue. This amounts to a waste of
time, and partners feel that major vendors should set-up their shops in Thrissur,
given that it is a rapidly growing market and will also add to their
convenience. Responding to this concern, Thomas K Mathew of Ingram Micro in
Kochi said that he would take up the issue with his corporate office and see how
best the issue can be resolved.
The other area of concern for the channel was the lack of adequate technical
training on various products and solutions, as well as timely information about
the various schemes by vendors, distributors and sub-distis. Gelix George of
Digital World, a major sub-distributor in Thrissur said, “We organize training
for partners regularly, however the attendance to these events is very minimal.
So we are not encouraged to continue with it.”
The biggest difficulty for partners, when it comes to resolving them, is the
absence of a strong association. While there are many associations that exist
within Thrissur, none of them seem to be active enough.
The event was attended by over 70 partners and had Sunil Kumar, Managing
Partner, CyberTechnics; Thomas K Mathew, Senior Associate-Sales, Ingram Micro,
K Balachandran, Proprietor of Southern Associates and Gelix George, CEO, Digital
World on the panel. The group discussion was moderated by Subbalakshmi BM,
Content Editor, DQ Channels.
DQW NEWS BUREAU Page(s) 1
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