Freelancers spoil the market in Thrissur

Thrissur, Oct 12

Freelancers appear to be a nightmare to the IT community in Thrissur. In a
market that is showing steady growth in the home segment, registered dealers in
Thrissur are worried that the so-called 'freelancer community' is taking
their share of the pie away. Freelancers are apparently those dealers who are
not registered, have no shop but manage all their business through a cell phone.
“These people approach a sub-distributor or distributor, and are ready to
provide services and installations at the customer doorstep for merely Rs 100 or
even lesser. Consequently, this is not only cutting into our margins, but also
causes unhealthy competition within the market,” said Sunil Kumar of Thrissur-based
CyberTechnics, while participating in the panel discussion at the recent IT
Panchayat held in association with The DQ Week and DQ Channels. The need of the
hour according to him was that the vendors as well as the distributors should
ensure some sort of discipline in the market, so that too many players do not
mushroom there.

If freelancing is one area of concern, the channel in Thrissur is also
unhappy about the service support that most vendors and distributors lend to
them. With no major distributor except SES Technologies having an office in
Thrissur, channel partners have to travel to Cochin for any service or
replacement-related issue. Additionally, some vendors like Asus do not accept
couriers, hence all product replacements have to be handed over and collected in
person in Cochin. This amounts to a waste of time, and partners feel that major
vendors should set-up their shops in Thrissur, given that it is a rapidly
growing market and will also add to their convenience. Responding to this
concern, Thomas K Mathew of Ingram Micro in Kochi said that he would take up the
issue with his corporate office and see how best the issue can be resolved.

Among other areas of concern for the channel was the lack of adequate
technical training given to partners on various products and solutions, as well
as timely information about the various schemes that are running for the channel
from vendors, distributors and sub-distis. Responding to this issue, Gelix
George of Digital World and a major sub-distributor in Thrissur said, “We
organize training for partners regularly, however the attendance to these events
is very minimal. So we are not encouraged to continue with it.” As far as the
absence to the events is concerned, partners said that they would like to have
training sessions to be conducted over weekends or in the evening after business
hours, so that they are able to attend it.

With so many issues on hand, the biggest difficulty for partners, when it
comes to resolving them, is the absence of a strong association. While there are
many associations that exist within Thrissur, none of them seem to be active
enough. According to K Balachandran, Proprietor, Southern Associates, “While
we have enough partners and many associations, the problem is about getting
proactive. Unless we resolve to do that, we would not be able to get solutions.
It is time that we move as a single entity and work for our common interest.”

The event was attended by over 70 partners and had Sunil Kumar, Managing
Partner, CyberTechnics; Thomas K Mathew, Senior Associate-Sales, Ingram Micro,
K Balachandran, Proprietor of Southern Associates and Gelix George, CEO, Digital
World on the panel. The group discussion was moderated by Subbalakshmi BM,
Content Editor, DQ Channels.