Meet vocal partners in Visakhapatnam

Around 60 partners from Vizag and neighboring districts participated in ‘The DQ Week-Tech Caravan' , which was organized in the city recently. The event had a panel discussion, besides the vendor presentations, which revealed the unknown facts of the Vizag IT market. The session had discussions under three categories including vendor relations, customer relations, and channel relations.

Starting the session with discussion on vendor relations, A Banthia, CEO, Coastal Trade Links, put up the question, "How many vendors meet the channel partners on a regular basis?" Almost everyone, present at the event, raised concerns that the executives of the vendor firms do not meet the partners regularly. "It has been more than a year since I have met the representative from a particular brand," said a participant from Srikakulam. Suresh Kolla, CEO, Kolla innovatives, said, "I have two concerns with the vendors. Primarily, the vendors do not keep up the promises and do not keep the employees for a long time." Suresh added the representatives of the vendor companies are not trained well for the market. "It is high-time, vendors recruit people with rich-knowledge over the product they are handling," he said adding that almost 70 % of the executives are not well-aware of what they are selling.

On the customer relationship, Anand Narla, CEO, Pioneer Marketing Corporation, started with an example. "There are idlis available in road-shops, normal restaurants and star hotels ranging from Rs 20 to Rs150. If price is the only option before the customer, star hotels would have seen their doors shut," he said further questioning, "Aren't there takers for idlis in star hotels?" Narla said that there is something called ‘service', beyond the price which always helps in the long run. Anand also asked the partners to have their own identity and stand on their grounds without undercutting the price. "Do not worry about the competition. The customers will not go away from you if they like you," he said.

Speaking on the channel relations, the panelists raised concerns about the inactiveness of the Visakhapatnam Information Technology Dealers Welfare Association (VIDWA). Narla, who has been the president of the association, said that it should take initiatives where people can meet, share thoughts and have a healthy business competition. Suresh, who is the vice-president of the association, also said in concurrence that such steps will help the partners solve their problems at large.