Service centers needed in 'Hill Tippera'

Situated just a couple of miles from Bangladesh is Agartala, the capital of

the state of Tripura. It is a market known for rice, tea, jute and oilseed as

well as the commercial and administrative center for the regions surrounding it.

Agartala also offers some outstandingly beautiful palaces, gardens, hills,

temples and lakes of India.

The market of Agartala has around 50 channel partners including resellers and

VARs. Laptops are in high demand, and brands like Lenovo, Compaq, HP and HCL are

enjoying maximum popularity Subhash Modak, CEO, Computer Link said, “In recent

years, there has been a shift from desktops to laptops. However, there is still

a good demand for laptops in the government sector.”

The city has a number of education institutions, such as ICFAI, Tripura

University and National Institute of Technology (NIT), Agartala, which serve as

important business opportunities for dealers in the region. Siddharth Dey, CEO,

Info Solutions Systems said, “Education sector caters to around 60 percent of

our business, while the remaining 40 percent is neatly divided between the

government and corporate segment.”

Talking about the recent business trends, Rajeev Das, CEO, First Infotech

said, “The business for laptops is definitely increasing at a fast pace. In the

desktop PC category branded PCs are enjoying the upper hand over assembled ones.

But the market for assembled desktops is still high. It accounts for

approximately 40 percent of the total market, the rest are sticking to assembled

ones.”

Service related issues are definitely a cause for concern for some channel

partners. “Currently servicing is the main hurdle for us,” said Dey. “Through

franchisee channels the servicing related problems are solved but the quality is

poor. Sometimes the problems have to be solved from Kolkata and Guwahati. But

that takes extra time and money. Stock, on the other hand, is just enough but

definitely not up to the mark,” he added.

Elaborating further Modak said, “Tripura is a very small state and therefore

it is not possible for any every company to erect service centers here. HP and

Samsung service centers are here and we try and make do with them.”

While the world's IT industry have been struggling to cope with the economic

slowdown, Agartala, too, has witnessed a slump in sales but the situation is

still manageable. Dey of Info Solutions Systems explained that there is lesser

government sector opportunities until the central government settles down.

“Since the economic slowdown, procurement is definitely less. To top it all

off, the election period last month has killed all business opportunities in the

government segment.”

Agartala has a three-year old IT association called IT Association of Tripura

(ITAT). Das of First Infotech, who serves as the Joint Secretary of the

association, said “We formed an association here to deal with regional issues.

However, we are yet to prove our mettle as an association. We are not too

active, but we are here to sort out issues if they arise.” Dey added, “The

association is symbolic. We know that it exists and we rarely meet to discuss

issues. The sheer size of Tripura is so small that an active association can

hardly make much of a difference.

We meet amongst ourselves when we need to and sort our problems out if needs

be.”

The IT market of Agartala is still evolving. With an increase in service

centers in the region and a more active channel association, the partners expect

to witness an encouraging boost in the IT market in the city that lies along the

banks of the Haora river.

Madhura Khasnobis