In an unprecedented action, the Coimbatore market observed the week November
19-25 as boycott HP week. The event has left an indelible mark in the history of
IT business in Coimbatore market. The week has been truly observed as black days
by the city resellers who boycotted HP's entire range of products. Named 'HP
1925 — Black Days', the novel protest got significance with entire channel
community here expressed in single voice their displeasure and protest against
HP for alleged harassment of the channel community.
The entire action was triggered of by a raid initiated by HP through its
private agency to curb free-flow of counterfeit cartridges in the Coimbatore
market. HP, along with its investigative team and local police, had carried out
this raid on November 9 and according to market reports, Maruthi Computers and
Sujee Computers were the two shops where the raid had been conducted. It is
understood that HP and its team had recovered a couple of fake cartridges from
these shops.
Meanwhile, the team had approached the local police to file an FIR and take a
legal course on the concerned parties. What annoyed the channel community in
Coimba-tore was HP and its team's least respect for the local associa-tion-Coimbatore
Computer Dealer Association (CCDA)-which tried to intervene in the matter and
solve it amicably. Secondly, the market feels HP is harassing the reseller
community in the name of raids regularly. According to them, HP has conducted
four raids in the last six months alone.
Interestingly, the persistent approach to take police and legal action
against Maruthi Computers by the team was received with shock by resellers, as
Maruthi is a key partner of HP and has won many awards from the vendor for its
outstanding perfor-mance and commitment to the brand. "If this can happen
even to a sincere partner, who else will be spared by them," asked a
leading reseller of Coimba-tore. "We are not afraid of instigated raids,
but if HP is determined to curb fake products, it should catch the culprit
instead of harassing innocent traders like us. Has HP and its team ever tried to
investigate and find out the source of these products and take action against
them? And, why have HP or for that matter other consumable vendors not devised
any fool-proof concept to identify original products against fake off-hand by
resellers themselves? We are not selling fake products intentionally and at the
same time, we are unaware of any fake product coming in while purchasing
goods."
By and large, the channel community in Coimbatore market stood united with
the association to boycott HP's products for the November 19-25 week. CCDA is
again meeting shortly and will chart out further course of action in its general
body meeting. According to sources, the association is planning to extend this
boycott indefinitely, as there has been no response or communication from HP to
solve this issue till date. It is also learnt that resellers would return their
HP stocks to distributors as a sign of protest and not deal with the vendor
anymore.
"We are determined and will be together till we get a favorable reply
from HP. The association has tried all means to reach HP at various levels, but
none of them have been available to sort it out. All (the reply) we got is HP is
not directly involved in this initiative and it is carried out by a separate
wing from its Apac region," said another leading reseller.
When The DQ Week tried to contact HP officials in Delhi as well as Chennai,
they preferred to remain tight lipped about this issue and declined to comment
anything, except saying that they do not have any direct role in it, as it is
being handled by their Apac region. When contac-ted, HP's agency EIPR also
declined to comment on this issue.
Several leading resellers of Coimbatore who are also key partners for HP such
as Bloom Electronics, Ozone Computer Services, Ashish Electronics, Init Systems,
e-Caps, Compu Soft Systems and Microbase, among others, have confirmed their
participation in the boycott.
"We want to be with the market and we will stand united to protect the
channel commu-nity's interest in business. We welcome HP's move to control
fake products, but they should plug it at source instead of targeting innocent
traders," said the number one reseller of Coimbatore market.
"Today, we have cut-throat competition in business and resellers try to
source materials wherever it is cheaper. In the process, some fake products are
also being mixed with origi-nal ones and there is no mech-anism to identify it
off-hand by resellers. Finally, innocent traders are being targeted by vendors
to create some sense of fear in the market, which is a bad practice," said
another leading reseller in the market.
"The associations across the country should be streng-thened to handle
issues with the vendors. Presently, they have little respect for the associat-ions
assuming there is no unity among the resellers. We want to teach them a lesson
and show our strength and unity. The boycott would continue indefini-tely till
HP comes with a solut-ion and we are sure the vendor would act quickly if
business takes a hit in the market," said a key office-bearer of CCDA.
S Gopikrishna
Chennai