Where is My Money?

As The DQ Week award ceremonies

are currently being held across the country, I am meeting a large

number of channel partners from every location, both from metros and

upcountry markets. While most of them are indeed lamenting about

shrinking margins and even contemplating exiting the IT business, the

most common grouse is about delayed payments. Delays by the vendor

despite several reminders, resellers extending credit periods beyond

all reasonable limits, or worse, disappearing without paying-it's

obvious that payments (or rather non-payments) is the most serious

malaise afflicting our channel partners today.

While chroniclers of the times like The

DQ Week have been actively highlighting the plights of those

suffering individuals or companies whenever or wherever possible, I

am sure that other stakeholders have to take up responsibilities too.

For one, all partners must do a careful and thorough scrutiny of

whoever they are doing business with, especially if it is the first

time. There have been instances where even partners who have been

doing business for a long time vanish without a trace. I know it is

difficult and many partners will insist that they have been doing

business on trust and on verbal approval for so long. But with

changing times, they have to become strict, at the cost of even being

rude! What is most needed is a drastic improvement in overall

transparency especially about auditing accounts of partners. While

compiling the APR lists, we realized the lack of this transparency

most acutely. If some people lead the way here, I am sure many more

would follow; and once the overall transparency improves, there would

be little place for fraudsters. There can be genuine reasons for

delays in payments too, and transparency will ensure that such cases

are looked at with adequate attention and not bracketed with the

cases of total fraud.

I just cannot also help feeling that

ultimately it is the local channel association who can offer the most

meaningful assistance. Provided, of course, that the association is

active enough, not beset with internal rivalries and petty politics

and, most importantly, has enough clout. However in reality we are

not seeing much of this happening, as most associations often fail to

take up the cudgel on behalf of their beleaguered members. The

reasons are not difficult to fathom; either there are vested

interests at play or the association office bearers are too busy with

their own businesses to devote enough time. Often the large or

influential partners in a particular market use their own clout to

solve their problems, and it is the smaller partners who suffer. And

probably these are the people in maximum need of assistance-but,

unfortunately, these most often turn out to be just another Big Boys

Clubs. So ultimately, instead of condemning individual partners or

associations, every stakeholder in the whole ecosystem must look at

stopping fraudulent payments and reducing delays in payment cycles.

The DQ Week is willing to offer

all help, be it as a neutral body reporting the cases, or even acting

as a third-party mediator to settle the differences.