IT channel growth slows down in Pune

Expressing the displeasure about the issues related to vendors, channel partners in the Pune region are of the view that the market is witnessing a slow growth. There are several vendor related issues that have led to the slowdown of the market. "The Pune market is down by about 40% for the partner business. One of the major problems that partners and distributors are facing is the steep rise in the prices of products, especially in the hard drive space. In addition, there are issues related to the dumping of stocks and servicing of products, due to which customer numbers are going down," said Shital Nahar, director, Nahar Integrated System Services.

It is not only Nahar Integrated System, but there are several other distributors and partners, who are putting down their grievances for the Pune market. Nilesh Kumbhani of Pune based Fast Trac Computers said, "In the third quarter of this fiscal, post Diwali, we are not able to generate good revenue in the market, rather we are running at a loss of about 20-25%. We are not getting stocks as per the demands of our consumers here. The unavailability of the products with the vendors is a major problem for us. "

He also added that several resellers are getting into the practice of selling products in the black market because of the declining curve of the consumers frequency in the Pune IT channel market. Throwing light upon the similar vendor issues, Rajendra Patil, CEO of Pune based Akash Computers said, "Apart from facing various problems from the servicing and unavailability of stocks, we also face the problem of dumping of stocks before completing one cycle of the product sales. And, because of this, we fail to generate our profi t margin on the sales of products."

However, when the local association, Computers and Media Dealers Association (CMDA) was asked by The DQ Week on how would partners deal with the vendor- elated issues, Yogesh Godbole, president, CMDA, Pune said, "Undoubtedly, there are vendorrelated issues in the Pune market. And in order to resolve all vendor-partner issues, we are working on several ways to organize meetings with the concerned vendors and ensure all issues hampering the channel market in Pune are resolved in the coming months."