Problems in HDD replacements in Ankleshwar and Bharuch

The HDD business in cities like Ankleshwar and Bharuch is getting gravely affected due to the delay in HDD replacements.

One such partner from Bharuch is Parimal Patel, who is waiting for his 20 GB Samsung HDD since August 18. “The service centers for vendors like Sam-sung and Seagate are based in Vadodara and Ahmedabad. In Ahmedabad, it’s Shree Ramkri-shna Enterprises taking care of after sales service of Samsung. It’s more than a month but I haven’t received the replace-ment and in order to not lose my customer I have provided a temporary hard disk. There is no point increasing the warra-nty period to three years if vendors cannot provide good after sales service,” lamented Patel.

On contacting other channel partners based in the same region, similar opinion was sha-red by all. Mayank Mehta, proprietor of Sunsign and VP of Ankleshwar and Bharuch Infor-mation Technology Association (ABITA), faces a similar pro-blem. He said, “This is the case with both the prominent hard disk vendors–Samsung and Seagate. Many a times the ser-vice center wants us to per-sonally hand over the HDD at the Ahmedabad service center instead of couriering the component. Earlier the after sales service was taken care of by the distributors which would only take a maximum of 10-15 days, but now it’s more than a month.”

He added, “In fact, ABITA is also planning to have a meeting on October 26 to discuss this matter. We may also opt to take the support from Bharuch District Management Associa-tion where there are prominent members like the VP from
Birla.”

Meanwhile, the delay in Samsung replacements had also pushed the association to write a letter to the vendor. “It’s more than a month but nothing has happened. In fact, we want vendors to set up service cen-ters at Ankleshwar or Bharuch. There are already plans by Wipro, TVSE, HP and LG to set up their service centers at Bharuch. There is also a large amount of business happening here, which is at least 300 PCs a month,” pointed out Manish Shroff, President, ABITA.

However, on contacting Shree Ramkrishna Enterprises, service center for Samsung’s entire range of products at Ahmedabad, Ketan Vyas, who’s looking after HDD replace-ments at the center, gave a totally different picture. “Due to the rains, all electronic pro-ducts face a problem. Therefore even with HDDs it’s the same problem. The problem in replacements always arises only with outdated products like the 20 GB. In 40 GB, it’s the 7200 RPM which is the product moving in the market.

There-fore HDDs with the earlier technology like the SV series face a problem. There is no need for the channel partner to personally come as we accept couriered products. It’s also not feasible for the vendor to set up a center at Bharuch or Ank-leshwar because the business output is only about 20 to 30 PCs a month. Even if the time is taken to deliver is mainly because out of the 100 coming for replacements, 80 have to be sent to Delhi and only 20 are repaired here.”

Nancy Sudheer