Who Will Clean the DoA Mess?

DoA and warranty replacements are

issues that dealers and partners across the country have now accepted

as part and parcel of the IT business. Either they take them into

their stride and move on or they completely move out of the IT

business altogether. Most of them complain that the vendors are not

defining clear policies on either of the above issues. To add to it,

distributors insist that they can act only in accordance to vendor

policies, which means that the partners are left in a lurch as far as

finding amicable solutions are concerned. There are associations who

often take up cudgel on behalf of their member partners, but in the

face of complete non-cooperation from the vendor side, it's not much

that they can do. While DoA and warranty-related

problems have been troubling partners now for years, The DQ Week

is currently getting a first-hand experience of the situation. We

recently embarked on a joint initiative with COMPASS, the association

from Kolkata, on bringing clarity to the DoA policies of the vendors.

The problems here are multiple-most vendors do not have any clearly

enunciated policies or frameworks on this aspect; so there is no

clarity in communication with the partners. In case of principals

where some sort of framework is in place, there seems to be

particular lack of intent and in some cases brazen indifference and

nonchalance to honor the words of these policies. Take for instance the

current DQ

Week campaign where we decided to examine the vendor DoA policies

in a particular category every week. We started with motherboards and

moved to monitors with plans to embark on notebooks next. However, in

the first week itself biggies like Intel and AMD refused to share any

details despite repeated attempts from our side. Ditto in case of

monitors-there have been no responses from vendors like Samsung, LG

or AOC. Things do not look much rosier next week when notebooks will

be taken up. We have to make do in some cases with sketchy

information available on the vendor websites. And in many cases,

without any information at all. This state of affairs is not just

abysmal, but shocking to say the least and smacks of an entirely

callous attitude from leading vendors and the way they conduct their

businesses here in India. So what should be done to alleviate the

situation and make vendors see a reason behind adopting well-defined

policies and making them clear to the channel partners as well as

honoring them in both words and spirit. For one, the distributors

have an important role to play here. Most partners accuse the

distributors of not undertaking replacement of DoA goods and not

helping them enough to deliver on customer requirements quickly.

Distributors feel that most dealers

are not aware of the correct vendor policies as far as DoA and

warranty replacements are concerned, and therefore find fault with

the distributors. Though they agree that there are no clear-cut

policies on DoA and warranty from the vendor's side, but still aver

that it is the responsibility of the partner to find out and know the

vendor policies. Since distributors also have targets and stocks to

deal with, they feel they cannot keep track of all DoA and warranty

concerns. Distributors believe they only serve as a bridge between

the channel and vendors and cannot be blamed for everything. While this

mutual blame game would

not lead to any concrete results, it is time that some strong actions

are taken. For one, vendors need to be more accountable and should

put right policies in place. And to ensure that this does not remain

only a lip service, even drastic options like 'stop payment'

envisaged by certain partners should not be ruled out if it proves to

be the best option. Perhaps this would make vendors and even

distributors treat the channel as customers and work to find amicable

solutions. And distributors, perhaps instead of totally washing their

hands off the matter, should rather sit with the association and

vendors, and clarify all doubts as regards DoA and warranty. But the

biggest mindset change has to come from vendors; and they should take

this seriously, before it seriously jeopardizes their businesses in

the Indian marketplace.