Trifin becomes national distributor of Wacom

Trifin Technologies, a premier software
dealer in Nehru Place, has been recently appointed as the
national distributor of Wacom. This is the second major tie up in
the past three months for the company. Prior to this was with HCL
Infosystems, for distributing Toshiba notebooks.

With this newly gained, but stable
confidence, Ashish Aggarwal, Director, Trifin, targets the
revenue for this fiscal year at Rs 30 crore. Out of this, Rs 20
crore will come from Trifin Technologies (TT) and the remaining
Rs 10 crore from Trifin Information Technology Pvt Ltd (TIT). In
the fiscal 2000-01, the revenue figures were Rs 12.5 crore and Rs
5 crore respectively. TIT, which came into being only last year
is more of a services and solutions company focussed on end-user
segment. On the other hand, TT is purely into reselling.

Trifin is also in process of opening
offices in Ludhiana and Chandigarh. An obvious question to this
is why two offices with in such a small diameter? Aggarwal
explained that, "Though I understand that both the places
are at a very close distance, but we are thinking about it
because Chandigarh would give us a lot of government and state
orders and Ludhiana would provide some deep inside look into the
local industry market. And foreseeing that we just cannot afford
to miss on any of them."

Positioning the company's USP, Aggarwal
stated the advantage of off the shelf availability and right hand
replacement. Though in existence for over a decade now, the
company has been in a process of revamping itself in all the
aspects. On behalf of company, Aggarwal stated Focus and
Awareness as the mantras for Trifin's success. It is pretty high
on having a well-defined focus and spreading the right awareness
for the products it sells.

Aiming at consolidating its business
strategies, he said, "I ensure that our business model is
purely on 'transaction to transaction (T2T) basis'. Right from
day one, software is one thing that I have been very sensitive
about. Though a trend has been 'fashioned' over the years in
Nehru Place that when you buy hardware, it is your birthright to
have free software with it. But this trend does not prevail in
Trifin. We are just not into software piracy."

Apart from Wacom and Toshiba notebooks in
its portfolio, Trifin is a regional distributor for bplnet.com,
HCL Busybee and Beanstalk, Microsoft's accessories like mouse,
keypad and joystick, and almost all other major software
companies. After Toshiba through HCL and Wacom, Trifin is eyeing
for a tie up with Compaq and IBM. Though being a dealer himself,
Aggarwal did not missed to state that he too felt Toshiba to be
slightly on the higher side on the pricing grounds, at least in
the Indian context.

Tslowdown off and alking about the
slowdown impact on business, he said in a confident manner,
"We do feel the punch of on, but at the end of the month
business is still the same. What I can probably explain this is
by saying that the customers who were to purchase now have
postponed there decision by three months, but the customers who
had postponed it three months back, are buying now. So that sums
it up."

Getting into an end customer business,
without getting infrastructure in place is something Trifin
surely does not looks upto. For it, the 'T' factor, the
technology, is very important. The need for creating that
awareness is something Aggarwal is firmed up for. Quoting that
with an example, he said, "We all know that Bluetooth is in
vogue, but lot of people mistake it with IBM's Big Blue, their
patent technology. Again awareness is a problem. The work done by
IT magazines on this front cannot be denied, as it is helping to
spread those technology words synonymous with the customer
requirements. That is something that will change the market
scenario."

A little away from talking business,
Aggarwal picked up some of his favorite OEMs. Starting with, the
first name that came handy was of Symantec—a crystal clear,
channel friendly, best pay master, sensible and intelligent
company. Computer Associates though not purely into channels, was
still a favorable and a decent sounding company to dealers.

Without any doubts or questions, HP
scored highest in the terms of service. "They certainly have
good products, but service is their USP and that is what a retail
customer expects. He prefers buying it from a authorized
reseller, as he is assured that he will get upright service,
irrespective of whether he takes it to a dealer or HP
directly."

Talking about Toshiba, Aggarwal said,
"Though they had always been market technology leaders, it
has also always been high priced and they continue with the
trend. Even though I have already seen a price drop of upto 15
percent but I expect another 10 percent. Toshiba has been able to
prove itself feature by feature to its customers and undoubtedly
it is a quality product."

Trifin has also partnered with HCL for
Beanstalk and Busybee range of PCs and had also been a HP ACR for
Brios and Pavilions. But selling them at the margin of mere Rs
200 to 300 was something the company could not sustain with and
backed out from giving it any serious consideration.

Unlike the other channel players n Nehru
Place, Trifin prefers customers paying by credit cards as far as
monetary transaction was concerned. It has a retail showroom in
Nehru Place where flexibility is the buzzword. As there is a
large segment of people who prefer buying through long term
loans, it has tied up with GE Countrywide to take care of the
finances part—personalized loans, schemes, loans at zero
percent interest, all are available.

The bottomline that finally works for the
company is, "It is easy to become a typical Nehru Place
seller, by buying everything and selling everything. But trying
to be focused is what is our mantra. If we try to be different
always, we will remain different."