Global companies scouting for distribution partners in India

The way the electronics distribution business has changed in the past 60
years is often referred to as an evolution. From radio parts to chips–to the
sophi-sticated Supply Chain Mana-gement (SCM) of today, the business has changed
in res-ponse to the environment and now distribution has become an integral part
of the way business is done on a global scale.

In the recently concluded IT focused exposition ‘Super-Comm India 2004’,
there was participation from countries like Canada, Korea and the US and most of
the companies were found to be scouting for distribution partners in India. It’s
the margins and the number game, which is attracting fore-ign companies to the
Indian sub-continent. "We sincerely believe that India can be a good place
to market our products, the market is so huge over here that we just can’t
ignore it. And an event like this has given us a good opportunity to make
inroads into the Indian market as far as distribution is concer-ned,"
informed Jong-Hwa Kim, Assistant Manager at Korea-based Panwest. The company
focuses on USB drive, PC cam-era, optic mouse, etc.

Current changes in distribu-tion are more cataclysmic, representing the
emergence of a whole new species of company. Today analysts are asking questions
to determine just how the top-tier distribu-tors are going to mutate the
business to make it yield better financial returns. For Canada based Redline
Communica-tions, it’s a different ball game altogether. The company is all set
to venture into the Indian market, but is quite particular when developing
partnerships. "We operate in a specific dom-ain of connectivity solution
for broadband. We need to be very careful while picking on a distributor, so we
are taking all the precautions for this," said Keith Doucet,VP (Marketing),
Redline Communications.

The outsourcing pheno-menon has also been a factor towards this need to have
an international distribution network. The relationship between OEMs, contract
man-ufacturers and all the sup-pliers and distributors in the supply chain has
changed and continues to change. SCM has become a key competitive competency and
the way an OEM configures its channel is unique and customized.

"Though we had a presence in India to some extent through our partners,
now we are fully committed to create business opportunities in this region with
a distribution network. This whole idea of distribution is quite basic to us
when it comes to our core business principles," informed Doug Vilim, VP
(Sales & Marketing) at Sangoma Technologies. This Canadian company has just
signed up a distributor for the Indian region.

Canada seems to be going real strong when it comes to companies eyeing India
to distribute their products and services. "The whole idea of dis-tribution
is to have an exten-sion of your company virtually working for you. Canada is
eyeing India for that and a lot more networking and commu-nications focused
companies are set to foray into India," added on David Dawson, MD at
International Business Deve-lopment Associates, a Mumbai based company involved
into connecting Indian and Cana-dian companies in terms of trade.

Zia Askari (CyberMedia News)