Crack appears in all UP channel association

Close on the heels of the formation of an All UP Association for the channel
community, big gaps have started to show up between various regional resellers
and this has lead to a situation where there is no communication between the
members of the association. The association has been formed to address bigger
issues on a national scale.

It all started sometime back with the issue of handling charges being levied
upon by the distributors on the channel community. As Lucknow is the hub for
some of the major distributors such as Redington, Ingram Micro and Tech Pacific,
Lucknow based resellers were quite unhappy because of the extra Rs 3 per kg
being asked from them by the distributors.

"We never used to pay any handling charge as the ware-houses were based
over here only. So this was absolutely not called for. On the other hand
reseller community from Varanasi and other areas of UP were quite happy about
it, because earlier they used to pay about Rs 6 per kg as handling charge and
now it was coming out to Rs 3 per kg only. They wanted us to show no discon-tent
about this issue," infor-med, Gurmeet Singh Saluja, President of Lucknow
based Computer Dealers Association.

The whole episode of handl-ing charges has exposed the vulnerability of the
UP based reseller community and a lack of co-ordination when it comes to dealing
with business dynamics related issues. It was only after a nation-wide agitat-ion
that the distributors withdrew handling charge case. "All the major
distributors like Ingram, Redington and Tech Pacific were closed for close to
five days in Lucknow and we were all united on this front. During this period no
billing was done and then they decided that it is not worth it and dropped the
handling charges," Saluja added.

The idea to form a state-wide association was coined by some of the prominent
resellers of the region in the month of June 2003 but ironically, the
asso-ciation has not been able to select its office bearers till today. Though
there have been at least two round of meetings to decide about the coveted post
of president, at different places including Lucknow.

It may be recalled that a couple of months back the association backed its
mem-bers in Gorakhpur when they faced problems by removal of a service center of
a national vendor. "We were united at that time and that prompted that
vendor to continue its service initiative in the Gorakhpur region, that was a
win for our Gorakhpur partners. We know how good a big association is when it
comes to handling bigger issues. We just need to act jointly and work towards
mutual benefit," Saluja added.

With handling charges issue cropping up the differences between its members,
the all-UP statewide association is all but united as of now. "There is no
communication between the Varanasi and Lucknow based reseller community because
of this issue.

But I am sure that things will improve in sometime," he quipped.

Moving forward the reseller community of the state would have to think
closely in order to gain the mindshare of vendors when it comes to solving
problems related to their day-to-day business activity.

(CyberMedia News Service)