Silicon Comnet ventures into value added network distribution

Silicon Comnet Pvt Ltd, the systems integration arm of
OA Compserve Ltd, has ventured into ‘network distribution.’ Network
distribution, as defined by Harsh Marwah, CEO, Silcon Comnet, is “a lot of
value-add to the products, we will provide to our as well as end users.”
According to him, network distribution is a concept that only two or three
resellers in Mumbai have tried resellers out. “There is no one in the Northern
region who has thought of this concept,” said Marwah. The concept has been
launched in Delhi and Mumbai initially and will be further expanded to
Chandigarh soon.

Further elaborating on the concept, Marwah said, “We
will be a nexus between the first tier distributor and the reseller. At times, a
reseller is not sure about projects that he takes on. The products that he
procures from the distributor might not get integrated into the network that he
is working on. Or when he buys products from distributors like Ingram Micro or
Tech Pacific, they don’t give any value add to him. Also, small and medium
resellers concentrate on box selling and peripheral selling to earn their bread
and butter. But this community generally becomes hesitant when it comes to
competing for big networking projects. They would rather not burn their fingers
by bagging in a huge networking project and then not be able to execute.”

What Silicon Comnet will do is give the entire solution
for a project to the reseller or systems integrator and then suggest cost
effective boxes that would achieve the purpose.

The products that Silicon Comnet would focus on
initially would be fast moving products for medium to small sized networks from
Cisco, Zyxel, RAD and Intel.

The value adds given to resellers would include product
knowledge of all the latest products; training to resellers on latest networking
technologies prevalent; graduate small and medium resellers from peripheral
selling to networking solutions provider; regular updates on technology and
products that incorporate them; and imbibe confidence levels in resellers to
pick up networking deals.

Silicon Comnet would like to work with a few
resellers–not more than 30 to 35--as their value added network distributor.
The focus would be on resellers who want to migrate from mere PC and peripheral
pushers to mature network integrators. Some of the resellers that Silicon Comnet
has already tied up with include Targus Technologies, Nexus.

Apart from the resellers, the company will also cater to
a few (about 25) end-users, for whom it has done systems integration projects.
“We will mainly stock boxes for these companies,” said Marwah.

Marwah expects to rope in about Rs 50 to Rs 60 lakh a
month by January next year from network distribution in Delhi. In Mumbai the
figure would be Rs 30 to Rs 35 lakh by the same time period.

CNS