Amritsar association forms MOP guidelines for members

With the formation of Amritsar Computer Traders Association (ACTA ) and active cooperation of its members, many problems of the IT channel community of the region have come to a halt. Now things are clear with the guidelines framed by the EC members.

ACTA was formed on May 20, 2012 with an open secret voting for selection of eleven executive members. Those elected members were further selected the office bearers among themselves.

Speaking to The DQ Week, Sanjay Gupta, general secretary, ACTA said, "The most important role to play was to develop confidence among dealers, breaking the barrier of uncertainties among them, increasing the profitability in this cut-throat unhealthy competition created by themselves. We have created an atmosphere for all the dealers to increase their interaction and come out of their shell for the benefit of this trade. The manufacturer and the consumer are the king of this time and we are just moving boxes as the transporters."

He continued, "Our association decided to make MOP control guidelines for our members. We have framed an MOP for all the brands with minimum margin and honest commitment from all of them. To have a check on it, we frequently send dummy customers to check the violation of MOP and if it get escalated by someone, we take extra effort to convince him not to spoil the trade."

"In the beginning, some of the dealers were of the opinion that this cannot be implemented as there were payment pressures and the stocks had to be liquidated in time. The pressure of sale starts when a dealer do the overstocking to meet various schemes/targets offered by the principals, overlooking the potential of sales, then comes the pushing of stock unethically. We had given trainings to our sales team too to close the sale above the MOP. Now, all of the dealers are extremely happy with this MOP, they are not after the number game instead making justified margins," explained Vikas Narang, president, ACTA.

The association fixed the time of closing the market on weekly holidays to give everyone equal opportunity, promote family life and stop unethical practice. The association conducts EC-members meet every month to discuss issues and general house meeting every quarter. Additionally, the association fixed the service charges for all sort of works too.

Gupta said, "The only formula to implement any rule is to promote interaction among the dealers and have open discussion on every issues. Soon we are planning a tour with the family of all the dealers to increase the confidence among themselves."

The recent body of ACTA has 2-year terms to perform and its team comprises chairman-Sanjeev Chhabra, VP-Varinder Singh, treasurer-KL Narang, Jt secretary-Sandeep Sethi and 8 EC members. The current strength of ACTA is 99 members.