Shimoga: Competition woes

Shivamogga or better known as Shimoga
is located on the western side of the state of Karnataka. The
district which is 280kms from Bengaluru is home to the world famous
Jog Falls, picturesque Agumbe Falls and the magnificent Sahyadri
Range. The district is close to many important cities like Bengaluru,
Mysore, Hubli etc. Shimoga is also known for its educational
institutions and small manufacturing units. In terms of invasion of
information technology, there are more than 100 dealers operating
from the district. As a result, there is excessive competition and
lesser margins. Girish Kumar of Unique Technologies said, "There
is a lot of competition amongst dealers. Already due to recession, we
are facing low margins. There should be competition, but healthy and
not unhealthy. But unless there is proper awareness, we cannot do
anything about it."

Almost all leading brands like HP,
Dell, Acer, Sony, Toshiba are available in the district. Hassan,
Chickmagalur and Chitradurga are the prominent nearby markets. Even
though the district does not have any national distributor presence,
dealers reach out to Hubli or Hassan to procure services. Purushottam
Bellar of Typewell Computers said, "I started my company in
1989. There is a lot of unhealthy competition today in the market.
Also many unregistered shops have opened and are spoiling the
equilibrium of the market. We also have been seeing a lot of gray
market materials floating around."

Like any other upcountry market,
Shimoga also has an IT association which is defunct and
non-operational. Kumar said, "There should be a collective force
to push our voices further to distributors and vendors."
Agreeing with him Bellar added, "Vendors should look at
promoting dealers for having service centers as well, instead of only
looking at numbers, they should take into account history of the
dealer, market reputation, business etc.