All our channel policies are monitored

All our channel policies are monitored

“We have a special training program called as 'Digicare' for our channel partners and our main agenda is to associate more partners which will help in doubling our partners base”

How many partners do you have in India? Does Diglink plan to expand its channel base in next one year?
As an organization we have a different set of customers starting from the home segment to large enterprise. We reach out to our customers with our nationwide network of 23 regional distributors nationwide, six national system integrators (NSI), more than 200 empower value system integrators (EVS), 1,000 plus empower value added re-sellers (EVAR) and more than 5,000 empower reseller (ER). Starting from home segment to large enterprises and SMEs are served with the distribution pattern coupled with small and medium SIs. Our large projects cater to large SIs. In large cities we have a three tier distribution pattern consisting of dealers and resellers. In small cities we have a two tier distribution pattern. Large enterprises are served through large SI and they are around 50 in number. Ingram Micro is our ND that serves to large distributors only.

Our continuous effort is to expand our channel base and this year we have also come up with a special initiative program known as the 'Network 160.' It is basically a reseller event which we are conducting in 160 locations and in the past 50 days we have covered 85 cities wherein we had invited our small and medium resellers and SIs. We introduced them to our corporate and company profiles and gave them more knowledge about our company. We have a special training program called as “Digicare” for our channel partners and our main agenda is to associate more partners which will help in doubling our partners base.

Are you looking at revamping your channel policies?
All our channel policies are monitored and we follow the reseller distribution pattern. We make corrections in our policies if the market demands. No major policies are to be changed. Also in the month of April we had launched “Digisol” which offers wireless products, broadband products, unmanaged switches (Giga and Ethernet switches), video phones. Shortly, we will expand our range by September covering 70 to 80 percent of active networking needs for an organization.

How do you enable your channels to earn more profits?
We work very closely with our channel partners and educate them about our products so that they can sell them. We train them so that they bring more value addition to the products. Traditionally, ours was strong RD sales model, and over the period we have upgraded skill levels of many of business partners into system integration and solution/services offerings. This way not only the end-user gets a satisfying experience but also business partners in the bargain gets huge value addition. Under the “Digicare” program we personally take care of the service of our products related issues and have 100 cities under the service network. Once the partner sells the product we make it a point to take care of the entire service issues. We also conduct marketing research for the products so that they become easily sell-able for the dealers in the end-user segment and for creating branding of the products. We are currently running 160 cities event series 'Network 160' where we are reaching out to partners in A, B, C and D class cities.

What is your channel strategy for this year? Can we expect some changes in next year?
Our basic channel strategy is to expand our channel base and and reach out to more and more partners in tier-2 and tier-3 cities. It is also important for the SI and the end user to have a healthy relationship with the end-user so that it becomes easier for the latter to sell the products. I also believe that there is a consistent growth happening in the upcountry regions as well. It might be a new territory for the partners for certain applications and faster growth rate is certainly expected. Moreover, if you enrich a smaller SI and local distributor they take extra effort to penetrate in an untapped market. Also in the long run we intend to create MNCs in India as the market is quite big and it is necessary to create a base in the country. I have observed that in most of the situations the multinational distributors as well as big SIs find it difficult to cover the B and C class cities.

Minakshi Shetty
minakshis@cybermedia.co.in