/dqweek/media/agency_attachments/JNb31gQnqJvAm0jqPxaV.png)
Follow UsFortune Grecells has created ruckus amongst its channel partners by raising prices of BLACKBOX Data Safe, their India innovated High Availability, Disaster Recovery Continuous Data Protection system. Grecells had pre-announced price rise in March and this was taken in with a pinch of salt by partners.
Arvind Singh, Maxnet Computers, a BLACKBOX partner stated, "Grecells is not Microsoft, they should not have pre-announced price rise. We are not unhappy about the price rise which we long knew was unavoidable but at least it should not have been openly publicized. It could have been done subtly." While Ravi Jalan of Shakti Enterprises voiced caution: "When markets are undergoing bad times the company could have been discreet rather than repeated announcements done since March." He further added, "However, we closed at least one extra order post this announcement."
On the other hand, Gaurang Bhatt of Asset Infotech, who is an early BLACKBOX partner defended the pre-announcement, "As the sales cycle is typically 30 - 45 days, it was good that we knew about price rise well in advance; we could inform customers and plan our orders accordingly." He further added, "Other companies simply raise prices suddenly and we find our quotations are lower than the new price but still have to fulfil customer commitment even though we lose money. In that way, it was a progressive step from which other vendors should learn."
On contacting, BLACKBOX Master Business Accelerator, Durga Computers, Pravin Rege expressed said, "We are conducting Data Champ Summit, our quarterly partner meet on 17th that will be attended by 45 Mumbai and Pune system integrator partners."
This solution from Fortune Grecells is sold through channel partners across the country after making inroads in enterprise segment, particularly for MS SQL based ERP, CRM and legacy database applications that cannot afford to be offline.
On this, Kshitij Kotak of Fortune Grecells said, "At this point, I am not in position to share too many details. However, we have increased the prices of our solutions. We will further be sharing our channel strategy and pricing details in a conference in the coming week."
It seems the company is arranging partner meet for damage control and putting up a brave face. However, it seems repeated communication might ease up the matter for Grecells.