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.”

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.

The attendees are all ears

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.

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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