Laud the NDs

Both vendors and partners routinely lambast the national distributors for most of the problems that affect them; while that might be true in many cases, the fact of the matter is that these NDs are doing many good things too.

Especially their recent attempt to come together and form a pan-India association, an idea whose time has definitely come, albeit many of us thinking coming two years late. The birth of the ‘The Technology Distribution Association of India' (TDAI) with the motto "we can only build when we know how to sustain'' should have happened in 2010 at least, but as they say it is better late than never.

A first of its kind non-profit organization in Asia Pacific & India, TDAI's objective is to build a transparent and organized distribution services sector in India through risk mitigated best practices.

While maintaining a strategic and healthy channel through good governance and appropriate compliance standards, from the Manufacturer to the End User, TDAI will support the industry's development and expansion while ensuring business hygiene. TDAI will provide all industry stake holders a common ground for deliberating on regulatory issues that impact them, with a view to take those up with relevant authorities for resolution.

It will act as a platform through which they could contribute inputs and information that would help shape the industry. The association will facilitate interaction with various Dealer Associations on common issues faced by the distribution ecosystem as also a forum for discussion with Vendors on taking the channel business to its next stage of development. The initiatives of this association will pave the way for fostering trust and goodwill amongst all stakeholders of the community

Not only TDAI, the NDs are also doing a lot in terms of using new-age technologies to improve their business performances. These biggies might have suffered in growing toplines or are often being squeezed on margins, but they still play their roles in enhancing the country's overall distribution dynamics.

Ingram's b2b website for resellers had been a resounding success in improving transparency and reducing costs of doing both stock sales and run-rate business. Ingram took a lead on this in the Indian market and in currently 30% of its business happened through this website. There was a consolidation of the sales organization with an order processing back office in Chennai making the team structure more efficient.

Redington, on the other hand, has focused on improving distribution process efficiencies --its Automated Distribution Center (ADC) in Chennai coupled with its state-of-the-art warehouse management system this significantly enhanced Redington's distribution process.

Another good measure done by these big NDs is to get into more niche products. That might have been done out of necessity-established volume products no more giving the margins have sort of forced the hands of these biggies to foray into niche value products. For Ingram, there was increasing focus on high value low volume businesses like Adobe, Autodesk, IBM software, Oracle, Fortinet, Juniper, Symantec, McAfee and Trend Micro that offered high margins.

But it was newer areas like AIDC, PoS and surveillance that showed great promise with Ingram signing up a number of niche vendors. It was Redington's diversification into the non-IT business few years back that has paid off handsomely ifor it , with the non IT business accounting for more than 20% of its business. Telecom business was the key with the exclusive relationship with Apple and earlier Blackberry retail (especially in the unlocked space) witnessing good momentum.

(rajneeshd@cybermedia.co.in)