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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 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 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.”
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.”
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| L-R: Rakesh Jain, Supreme
Computers; Sanjay Sharma, Samsung India; Prashanto Kumar Roy, Chief Editor,
The DQ Week; Arunava Chakrabarthy, Microsoft and Anil Mhaske, Data Care,
Pune were part of the panel discussion on 'How to add value to your
customers' |
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.
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| The attendees are all ears
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Taking off from the keynote the discussion centered on 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.
When someone from the audience pointed out that vendors are usually dumping
products at the end of the month at whatever price the partner wants. But the
same vendor refuses to listen to them for the rest of the month. Madhav however
insisted that a partner could define his price and product volume to the vendor.
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| Jitendra Kulkarni, CEO, Winspire
Solutions delivering the keynote |
Sanjit Sinha, Associate
VP-Research, IDC pointing out the emerging trends in the Indian market |
Arunava Chakrabarthy,
Distribution Programs Manager, Microsoft talking about the distribution
strategies of the company |
PK Sharma, Comnet Vision, Delhi
puts forth his views about how to add value to customers |
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