CRN January 01, 2012 by UBM India

contents

January 01, 2013 l Volume 2 Issue 05

Best of Best in IT Distribution & Retail

methodology

Choosing the best

Best Value-added Sub-Distributor (National) advanced markets NCS Computech emerging markets OST Electronic

Best Sub-distributor—Advanced Markets

North

Park Network

East

Balaji Solutions

Best Retailer—Emerging Markets North Secant Technologies CAS Computers

east

south Supreme Computers

west Business Algorithms south IT World Best Sub-distributor—Emerging Markets

North

Computer Gallery

east Krishna Agencies west Ria Computers south Aldous Glare Trade & Exports

Winning together The second CRN Distribution and Retail Summit held in Pune was a heady concoction of knowledge sharing, networking, display of latest technologies, and the annual CRN Xcellence Awards 2012

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Best Retailer—Advanced Markets (National) mid-size Realtime IT Concepts Care Office Equipment

large

CMDA IT Expo achieves new heights With 30,000 visitors, 100 exhibitors, and several innovative initiatives, the IT Expo in Pune was a great success

TAIT shines with COM-IT COM-IT, held in Mumbai witnessed participation from 100 exhibitors and 50,000 visitors including vendors, channel partners, CXOs and consumers

editorial

The 4Ps of success

n this annual edition, we present the 15 winners of the CRN Xcellence Awards 2012 for Distribution and Retail. These are companies who despite the slowdown and various challenges in the marketplace delivered a scintilating performance during FY2011-12. If you read the profiles of these winners, you will realize that they have won not only because of above-market revenue performance but also because they have imbibed best practices that are helping them scale up and deliver a better all-round performance as compared to the peers. To the credit of all the winners and even the nominees, rather than getting dazed by the external challenges they have focused their energies and resources on the four key pillars of any business— People, Processes, Practices, Profitability. The importance of people in any business is most crucial. Hiring and retaining the right people and imparting the right skill-sets through regular and wellthought training program is half the battle won for organizations to succeed.

Volume 2, Issue 05

Managing Director

: Sanjeev Khaira

Printer & Publisher

: Kailash Pandurang Shirodkar

Associate Publisher & Executive Editor

: Dhaval Valia

Group Commercial Director : Salil Warior Contributing Editor

: Ramdas S

Assistant Editor

: Sonal Desai

Principal Correspondent

: Abhijeet Mukherjee (Mumbai)

Senior Correspondent

: Amit Singh (Delhi)

Design Art Director

: Deepjyoti Bhowmik

Senior Visualiser

: Yogesh Naik

Senior Graphic Designer

: Shailesh Vaidya

Graphic Designer

: Jinal Chheda

Designer

: Sameer Surve

Right processes or lack of it makes or breaks the organization. Processes are key elements to scalability of an organization. But, processes in isolation don’t deliver results and hence one needs to create a framework of best practices around it. None of the best practices will ever deliver results if one doesn’t create a performance-driven culture within the organization where ownership—a combination of responsibility and accountability—is imbibed within each employee for the function they are hired to do. All these will eventually lead to profitability if amalgamated with good planning and strategy. The IT marketplace is transforming at a rapid pace— proliferation of multiple access devices, changing customer needs and demands, online retail, largeformat retailers, cloud computing, and mobile apps. The performers and winners in the marketplace are decided by who transforms and adapts with these market changes. Those that focus on creating an organziation rather than building a business. The 15 winners profiled in this edition of CRN and all nominees who missed the award by a whisker are showing the way to the entire IT channel on how to transform and adapt to sustain and succeed. Read on… n

Sales bangalore Manager—Sales : Sudhir K sudhir.k@ubm.com (M) +91 9740776749 Delhi Senior Project Manager : Sanjay Khandelwal sanjay.khandelwal@ubm.com (M) +91 98117 64515 mumbai Manager—Sales : Ranabir Das ranabir.das@ubm.com (M) +91 9820097606 production Production Manager : Prakash (Sanjay) Adsul Logistics Deputy Manager : Bajrang Shinde Subscriptions & Database Manager : Manoj Ambardekar manoj.ambardekar@ubm.com Senior Executive : Deepanjali Chaurasia deepa.chaurasia@ubm.com

Marketing Advertising Co-ordinator

: Jagruti Kudalkar

online Manager—Product Dev. & Mktg.

: Viraj Mehta

Deputy Manager—Online

: Nilesh Mungekar

Web Designer

: Nitin Lahare

Sr. User Interface Designer : Aditi Kanade

Head Office UBM India Pvt Ltd, 1st floor, 119, Sagar Tech Plaza - A, Andheri-Kurla Road, Saki Naka Junction, Andheri (E), Mumbai 400072, India Tel: 022 6769 2400; Fax: 022 6769 2426 Printed and Published by Sajid Yusuf Desai on behalf of UBM India Pvt Ltd, 6th floor, 615-617 Sagar Tech Plaza - A, Andheri-Kurla Road, Saki Naka Junction, Andheri (E), Mumbai 400072, India. Executive Editor: Dhaval Valia Printed at Indigo Press (India) Pvt Ltd, Plot No 1c/716, Off Dadaji Konddeo Cross Road, Byculla (E), Mumbai 400027

Operations Head—Finance

: Yogesh Mudras

Director—Operations & Administration

: Satyendra Mehra

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Associate Office - Pune Jagdish Khaladkar, Sahayog Apartment 508 Narayan Peth, Patrya Maruti Chowk, Pune 411 030 Tel: 91 (020) 2445 1574 (M) 98230 38315 email: jagdishk@vsnl.com

E-mail me at dhaval.valia@ubm.com

USA Huson International Media (West) Tiffany DeBie Tiffany.debie@husonmedia.com Tel +1 408 879 6666 Fax +1 408 879 6669 Huson International Media (East) Dan Manioci dan.manioci@husonmedia.com Tel +1 212 268 3344 Fax +1 212 268 3355

EMEA Huson International Media Gerry Rhoades Brown, gerry. rhoadesbrown@husonmedia.com Tel: +44 19325 64999 Fax: + 44 19325 64998 South Korea Young Media Young Baek ymedia@chol.com Tel: +82 2227 34819 Fax: +82 2227 34866

Japan Pacific Business (PBI) Shigenori Nagatomo nagatomo-pbi@gol.com Tel: +81 3366 16138 Fax: +81 3366 16139

Important Every effort has been taken to avoid errors or omissions in this magazine. In spite of this, errors may creep in. Any mistake, error or discrepancy noted may be brought to our notice immediately. It is notified that neither the publisher, the editor or the seller will be responsible in respect of anything and the consequence of anything done or omitted to be done by any person in reliance upon the content herein. This disclaimer applies to all, whether subscriber to the magazine or not. For binding mistakes, misprints, missing pages, etc, the publisher’s liability is limited to replacement within one month of purchase. © All rights are reserved. No part of this magazine may be reproduced or copied in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher. All disputes are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of competent courts and forums in Mumbai only. While care is taken prior to acceptance of advertising copy, it is not possible to verify its contents. UBM India Pvt Ltd. cannot be held responsible for such contents, nor for any loss or damages incurred as a result of transactions with companies, associations or individuals advertising in its newspapers or publications. We therefore recommend that readers make necessary inquiries before sending any monies or entering into any agreements with advertisers or otherwise acting on an advertisement in any manner whatsoever.

edit opinion

The worst channel decision of 2012 Steve Burke

iven the pace of change in the tech market, there were many channel blunders this year that have forever altered the indirect channel sales landscape. But none, in my opinion, was more damaging than Microsoft’s decision not to leverage the channel to sell its new Surface Tablet. The irony is that Microsoft’s Surface effort has been flummoxed by Apple envy. Steve Ballmer, CEO, Microsoft, asserted that Microsoft would leave no “stone unturned” in its innovation battle with Apple. At the same time, Ballmer said that if Microsoft partners want to buy Surface, they can buy it from Microsoft.com. Instead of leading with Microsoft’s top-down advantage in the business market, its monopoly position and huge installed base in the business-productivity software market with Office and Windows, Ballmer decided to take a bottom-up approach, battling Apple on its own high ground — the consumer market. No one is a better consumer product and marketing company than Apple. The iPad is unassailable in the consumer market. Microsoft is two-and-a-half years late into the tablet game. Surface is the classic case of a product that needs to be sold. Apple stores fulfill demand for a consumer product. Surface is a product that is begging to be sold into the business market where IT professionals are dying to put the lid on the BYOD to work phenomenon with a business-approved tablet that has all the security of a laptop or a desktop. The ultimate irony: Microsoft has a robust, fully baked channel acting as trusted advisers to millions of businesses who are anxious for a secure business tablet. Detwiler Fenton & Co., a Boston-based brokerage, surveyed the damage earlier this month reporting that Microsoft sold just 500,000 to 600,000 Surface tablets in the current quarter. Compare that to Apple, which is expected to ship 24 million to 26 million iPads in the current quarter. “Regarding (Surface) RT, lack of distribution is killing the product,” said the Detwiler Fenton advisory. Microsoft admitted as much by announcing last week that it was expanding retail distribution for the Surface RT, adding outlets like Staples. My bet is that the beleaguered computer giant will be forced to let partners sell Windows 8-based Surface Pro to make up for its subpar direct-sales performance. Microsoft needs to be Microsoft and get its partners to bring Surface into businesses. Instead, Microsoft wants to be Apple. That’s why Microsoft’s decision not to sell Surface through its trusted partners is the biggest channel blunder of 2012. n E-mail Steven Burke at steven.burke@ec.ubm.com 10

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Role Model: Amarnath Shetty

Leveraging social media

The feature about Amarnath Shetty inspired me a lot, and I am sure many of my friends in the fraternity will share the feelings. Here is a role model who is truely motivating. Though he could have led a cozy life had he chosen to join his father’s established restaurant business, he opted to start an independent business; this shows his passion for hard work. The way he grew from a mere `1.5 lakh seed capital to `1.5 crore as his first year’s turnover is something new entrepreneurs should learn from.

Thanks for the article on social media. The article provided a lot of insights. It was also interesting to note that many channel partners have taken to social networking sites and are using the tool to build and strengthen their brands. Much has been said about social media, but what needs to be also looked at is that it can also act as a bane if customers are dissatisfied. The best option is to interact with the aggrieved customer and resolve the issue soon instead of pointing fingers at each other. Hitesh Mirchandani Hisar

Rudra S Pune

Send your feedback at editor@ubmindia.com or post your views on www.crn.in

Advertiser Index Company name

Page No Web site

Sales Contact

Smartlink

1 www.digisol.com

helpdesk@digisol.com

Smartlink

2 www.digisol.com

helpdesk@digisol.com

4 emersonnetworkpower.com

marketing.india@emerson.com

Sony

5 www.sony.co.in/dealerlocator

sonyindia.care@ap.sony.com

Compuage-Odyssey

7 www.compuageindia.com

odyssey@compuageindia.com

Epson

emp@eid.epson.co.in

Fujitsu

11 www.SEreply.com

in-care@schneider-electric.com

Compuage-Edifier

13 www.edifier-international.com

info@compuageindia.com

NetApp

www.epson.co.in

20-21 yepnetapp.in

CDRS

33 www.crn.in/cds

salil.warior@ubm.com

RDP

1800 200 2444

Biz

38 www.indiaantivirus.com

sales@indiaantivirus.com

Cisco

39 www.cisco.in

www.cisco.in/tomorrowstartshere

Kaspersky

40 www.kaspersky.co.in

sales@sakri.in

www.rdpcomputing.in

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methodology

Choosing the best The 15 winners of the CRN Xcellence Awards 2012 for Distribution & Retail were selected from 130 nominations through a rigorous process n crn network

or the 12th edition of the CRN Xcellence Awards—Distribution & Retail 2012, we received 75 nominations for the sub-distribution category from 22 cities, and 55 nominations for retail from 25 cities. The nominations were invited by using a combination of tools. We sent electronic direct mailers to the channel partners in our database, asked several channel associations to encourage their members and also urged vendors to request their leading partners to fill-in their nominations. The nomination forms floated from April to June 2012, captured the growth performance of IT distributors and retailers during FY2011-12.

Awards categories

To provide a level playing field to channel companies from smaller cities,

We received 75 nominations for the subdistribution categories from 22 cities and 55 nominations for retail from 25 cities 12

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the sub-distributors’ and retailers’ awards were divided into two subcategories—Advanced Markets consisting of the top eight cities including Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Delhi NCR, Pune, and Ahmedabad; and Emerging Markets classified as cities other than the top eight cities. We also decided to give each of the Advanced and Emerging category awards regionally, thus giving due weightage to the regional dynamics of the IT channel industry.

Awards parameters

What sets the CRN Channel Xcellence Awards apart is that we lay a lot of emphasis not just on the size of the company, but also on the following aspects that are integral to make a company a true leader. Quality of turnover, growth and profitability Product mix Quality of HR Market coverage and channel engagement (for sub-distributors) Business systems Marketing & sales innovations Customer responsiveness Future growth strategies

Choosing the winners

Of the nominations received, the final five were selected by the CRN editorial team. The team scanned through each form to verify the information provided by the applicants. Wherever required, we called up applicants for more details. The final five were selected primarily on the basis of the quality of information provided in the nomination form. Once shortlisted, all the finalists were sent an email requesting them to send any bit of information about their achievements and performance that would boost their chances of winning the award. Based on the comprehensive information received and after analyzing the performance of each finalist against each criterion, the CRN team arrived at the winner. In this manner, we identified India’s best IT sub-distribution and retail companies. n

The awards are divided into two sub-categories — Advanced Markets which comprise the top 8 cities; and Emerging Markets

methodology List of final nominees Best Sub-distributor Advanced Markets North

Best Value-added Sub-Distributor Emerging Markets E Caps Computers, Coimbatore

Elcom Trading, New Delhi Micro Max Technologies, New Delhi Park Network, New Delhi

ITCG Solutions, Vadodara OST Electronics, Chandigarh Rachaita Infosoft, Vadodara

East Balaji Solutions, Kolkata

Best Value-added Sub-Distributor Advanced Markets

Lalani Infotech, Kolkata Technocrat Infotech, Kolkata

Aditi Computers, New Delhi Cache Technology, Pune

West Care Office Equipment, Ahmedabad

Hilink Networks, Mumbai

ECS Biztech, Ahmedabad

NCS Computech, Kolkata

Ortek Computers, Mumbai

Shani Peripherals, Ahmedabad VR Infotech, Mumbai

South Sogo Computers, Bengaluru Rakesh Trading Company, Bengaluru Shweta Computers, Hyderabad Matrix Technologies, Bengaluru Supreme Computers, Chennai UMS Infotech, Chennai

Accord Computech, Chandigarh Bits & Bytes, Jaipur Computer Touch, Ambala Jwala Distributors, Varanasi

Best Sub-distributor Emerging Markets

Microsolutions, Ludhiana Royal Infovision, Ludhiana

North

Secant Technologies, Ludhiana

Computer Gallery, Indore Microland Computers, Jabalpur Netcom Computers, Indore

Stek Systems, Allahabad

East

Pioneer Computers, Indore

CAS Computers, Tinsukia

Priyanka Computer Services, Raipur

IT Zone, Patna

East

West

Astric Computers, Patna

Binary Systems, Jamnagar

Infocare Solutions, Bhubaneshwar Infotech Solution, Guwahati Krishna Agencies, Patna Nigama Comptech, Bhubaneshwar

Business Algorithms, Nagpur Cyber Peripherals, Aurangabad

South Fine Computers, Coimbatore

West Aditya Peripherals, Kolhapur Anil Infotech, Rajkot Cyber Peripherals, Aurangabad Divyang Infoworld, Rajkot

Indsys Infotech, Coimbatore IT World, Coimbatore

Best Retailer Advanced Markets Mid-size

Mainframe Computers, Aurangabad

Bitsy Infotech, Mumbai

Orange Electronics, Aurangabad

Concept Unlimited, Kolkata

Ria Computers, Surat

Gigahertz, Mumbai

Super Computers, Amravati

Realtime IT Concepts, Mumbai

South

Best Retailer Advanced Markets Large

Aldous Glare, Kochi

Best Retailer Emerging Markets

Ozone Computer Service, Coimbatore

Care Office Equipment, Ahmedabad

PC World, Madurai

ECS Biztech, Ahmedabad

Positive Systems, Kochi

Lalani Infotech, Kolkata

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November 27-29, 2013 Bombay Convention & Exhibition Centre, Mumbai www.interop.in

100+ exhiBitors 6

keynote address

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50+ ConferenCe sessions

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sPeCial Cio traCks

5500+ Business Visitors industry assoCiation Partner Zone Prominent industry sPeakers

dediCated Zones

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Country PaVilion

For more details contact: Salil Warior, Sales Director T: +91-22-6769-2416 | M: +91-99875-80188 | E: salil.warior@ubm.com Surajit Bit, Sr. Project Manager T:+91-11-2376-5551 | M: +91-98734-45423 | E: surajit.bit@ubm.com

Organised by

Best Sub-Distributor N

Park Network

Santosh Pandey, Distribution Manager, Global Commercial Channel, Dell, presenting the award to Ajaya Kumar, CMD, Park Network

ew Delhi-based Park Network grew moderately by 5 percent posting a turnover of `121 crore in FY2011-12 compared to `116 crore during FY2010-11. Sub-distribution contributed 73 percent of the company’s topline while retail and corporate reselling contributed the rest. Last fiscal Park discontinued its partnership with Lenovo which had accounted for 40 percent of its topline. It also discontinued its relationship with D-Link. “Despite discontinuing these two relationships we did well to keep our turnover constant. We also did well to improve our bottomline significantly. The shortfall in revenue from Lenovo and D-Link was compensated by the Sony and Toshiba business,” informed Ajaya Kumar, CMD, Park Network. In addition, Park strengthened its relationship with Canon and was appointed regional distributor for Delhi. “Following our strong showing in western UP and Haryana as Canon regional distributor during FY2010-11, the company appointed us as distributor in Delhi. This resulted in almost doubling our Canon business from `12 crore to `21 crore. The AOC monitor business also grew by 15 percent over the previous fiscal,” informed Kumar. Nearly 46 percent of Park’s revenue from the sub-distribution business came from the sales of notebooks, while components and display accounted for 40 percent and peripherals 14 percent. Park runs a Lenovo exclusive store and an Acer Mall in the NCR region. Its retail business contributed around `15 crore to the topline as compared to `10 crore in the previous fiscal. During the year Park signed up with BSNL to distribute Penta tablets, and with Unistal for the distribution of Protegent antivirus. Revenue from these two product ranges added `5 crore to the topline. Last year Park launched an employee welfare scheme besides offering Provident Fund and staff insurance. “Our fund has been created to provide financial aid to employees for expenses that aren’t covered under insurance and PF schemes. The fund will provide financial loans or aid to employees for covering wedding expenses, child-birth costs, school admission fees, etc,” informed Kumar. During the current fiscal Park expects to grow by 15 percent. It plans to add more products to its portfolio, mainly tablets and software, and mobile and PC accessories. “We also intend to grow our retail business because it helps in creating cashflows that can help to manage credit capital in the distribution businesses,” Kumar explained. n Performance highlights

company snapshot

Grew 5 percent to record a turnover of `121 crore

Company: Park Network

Discontinued its partnership with Lenovo and D-Link

Year of inception: 1995

Strengthened relationship with Canon; appointed regional distributor for Delhi Signed up with BSNL to distribute Penta tablets, and with Unistal for Protegent antivirus Launched an employee welfare scheme

Computer Reseller News

CMD: Ajaya Kumar Number of branches: 8 Turnover FY2011-12: `121 crore Turnover FY2010-11: `116 crore Employees: 103 Principals: Sony, Toshiba, Canon, BSNL, TVSE, Unistal

Advanced Markets N W

E S

Balaji Solutions

Santosh Pandey, Distribution Manager, Global Commercial Channel, Dell, presenting the award to Bharat Seksaria, Manager, Balaji Solutions

olkata-based Balaji Solutions saw a healthy growth of over 20 percent notching `234.5 crore in FY2011-12 against `194 crore in FY2010-11. “It was an extremely tough year for us following rupee devaluation and disk drive shortage that impacted our PC building blocks business by as much as 30 percent. Despite these challenges, we did remarkably well and our profits grew by 125 percent,” says Rajendra Seksaria, MD, Balaji Solutions. HP USB drives was the top revenue grosser product, which contributed nearly `40 crore to the topline. Balaji is a national distributor for HP memory products which are manufactured and marketed by PNY Electronics. Revenues from PCs from Dell, Lenovo, Asus, and Samsung added `101 crore. The company’s own component brand Foxin contributed `20 crore. Balaji added six branches during last fiscal to take the total number to 15; new branches contributed approximately 10 percent of revenues. Biggest driver for growth was the strong financial practices that the company set in place last year. “We could have never grown in a tough market, considering the credit crunch and rising cost of funds. We negotiated on credit with our international suppliers and increased our credit limit by 30-40 percent last year. We also re-negotiated with banks on interest and other statutory costs,” explained Seksaria. On the customer front, biggest change was made in the credit practice. Balaji tightened credit limits to partners, and reduced the collections of receivables by 7-10 days. “We noticed that outstation cheques took more than 7 days to credit in our account. We also discovered that most partners had bank accounts with 4-5 banks. Prudently, we opened accounts in these banks and deposited the cheques accordingly, which resulted in faster realization,” informed Seksaria. Branch level inventory management was put in place to ensure that no partner was over stocked. According to Seksaria, the above steps helped the company increase the number of inventory cycles from 6 to 7. In the current fiscal, the company plans to add 11 more branches to take the total number to 26. The plan is to bring down dependency on Eastern region to less than 30 percent as compared to its present contribution of 45 percent. Balaji has started distributing Zync tablets, and plans to add more products in accessories and peripherals during the next 12 months. “Once, we have a larger footprint in the country, we may negotiate for national distributorship with more mainstream vendors.” n Performance highlights

company snapshot

Grew 20 percent to record a revenue of `234.5 crore

Company: Balaji Solutions

Profits grew by 125 percent.

Year of inception: 2001

Set up 6 new branches that added 10 percent to the topline Tightened credit control and multibank cheque deposit system Introduced branch level inventory management

Managing Director: Rajendra Seksaria Number of branches: 15 Turnover FY2010-11: `194 crore Turnover FY2011-12: `234.5 crore Employees: 185 Principals: HP, PNY, Lenovo, Transcend, Intel, Dell, Asus, Samsung, Kaspersky, Canon, Microsoft

01/01/2013 www.crn.in

N W

S S

Supreme Computers

Performance highlights

Santosh Pandey, Distribution Manager, Global Commercial Channel, Dell, presenting the award to Rakesh Jain, CMD, Supreme Computers

hennai-based Supreme Computers grew 3 percent, clocking `173 crore in FY2011-12 compared to `168 crore in FY201011. Distribution revenue grew 2 percent from `136 crore in FY2010-11 to `139 crore during the last fiscal. “We would have done better if not for the HDD shortage followed by the currency depreciation which led to the drop in the assembled PC market,” said Rakesh Jain, CMD, Supreme Computers. As a result, Supreme witnessed a 30 percent fall in its components business post-October 2011. This negatively impacted its topline by more than `12 crore. Most of the shortfall in revenue was made up by Lenovo business that grew almost 100 percent YoY from `20 crore to `40 crore. Nearly 41 percent of the topline was generated by notebooks, while components contributed 15 percent, peripherals 13 percent and desktops 10 percent. Supreme also garnered good revenue and margins from accessories for which it entered into distribution partnerships with Belkin and Microsoft. Besides, it signed up with telecom providers to distribute their USB dongles and broadband packs. Supreme added audio-video products and projectors to its

company snapshot

Grew 3 percent to record topline of `173 crore

Company: Supreme Computers

Witnessed a 30 percent fall in its components business post-October 2011 due to the HDD shortage and currency depreciation

Year of inception: 1994

CMD: Rakesh Jain Number of branches: 10 Turnover FY2011-12: `173 crore

Entered into distribution partnerships Belkin and Microsoft ;signed up with telecom providers to distribute their USB dongles and broadband packs

Turnover FY2010-11: `168 crore

Signed on 120 new partners in upcountry TN

Microsoft, Samsung, Intel

Employees: 207 Principals: Lenovo, Sony, Belkin,

portfolio in early 2011; this raked in `4 crore. During the last fiscal Supreme signed on 120 new partners in upcountry TN. “We conducted an exercise to expand to cities and towns. We identified several new stockists and dealers who earlier weren’t even doing IT business and encouraged them to micro-distribute products in rural areas. We did a due diligence of over 350 resellers before signing up 120,” said Jain. Last year Supreme introduced the practice of collecting market intelligence. “Under this practice every channel salesperson had to submit a market intelligence report at the end of the week based on channel feedback,” explained Jain. “We collated and analyzed this information, and shared it with our key vendors. Based on this, every Tuesday we meet with local vendor managers to decide on the strategy and targets for the next week or month.” Another practice that helped improve partner loyalty was the introduction of Supreme-branded incentive programs. Supreme ran almost 25 such schemes last year. During the current fiscal Supreme plans to add more presence in the upcountry by adding 100 more micro-distributors. It is currently in the process of implementing Dynamics CRM. On the products front it will add more projectors, laptop accessories and other digital gadgets. n

Clear Credible Competent Consistent Compassionate Communicative CRN Creative CRN – the 8th C of Channel Marketing www.crn.in

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Best sub-distributor N

computer gallery

Fuad Carim, Sales Manager, Foxconn, presenting the award to Sudhir Arora, Director, Computer Gallery

n FY2011-12, Indore-based Computer Gallery posted a turnover of `94 crore, growing 11 percent over its FY2010-11 topline of `85 crore. Revenue from its sub-distribution business grew 13.3 percent to `85 crore from `75 crore during the previous fiscal. Nearly `9 crore came from the retail business including commission on online sales of Dell products. Said Sudhir Arora, Director, Computer Gallery, “Dell business, which contributed 70 percent to our topline, grew 25 percent. Interestingly, despite the weak economy we saw sales of high-end models such as Vostro, Alienware AIOs and XPS Studio. We received a special recognition from Dell for crossing the `200 crore mark in Dell business in the past two years.” A regional distributor for Sony and Samsung, Computer Gallery garnered 12 percent of its revenue from each of these two brands. “Sony was a high-growth business for us as it grew 45 percent,” Arora informed. “Sony hardly had a presence in MP, but its aggressive marketing and channel strategy starting September 2011 propelled this business. We had to stock four weeks of inventory to meet the demand.” Although not an authorized distributor of Apple, in 2011 Computer Gallery began stocking and selling iPads, and sold around 200 units. Another growth factor was the company’s increased focus on smaller cities. “Earlier we sold only in large cities. Last fiscal we decided to focus on small towns and conducted a year-round campaign where we drove a mobile van equipped with demo products across MP,” said Arora. “This campaign helped us sign new resellers. We contracted freight agencies to improve our delivery time in towns. Our TAT reduced from 7-10 days to 24-48 hours.” Computer Gallery utilized its MDF to put up, across 22 cities, hoardings bearing the names of its leading resellers. It offered 64 retailers up to 1 percent of their monthly billing for in-store branding. In addition, it introduced an incentive scheme for sales people of resellers if they achieved their targets. Computer Gallery provides zero-interest home and auto loans to many of its senior and loyal employees. “This has ensured that these employees stay with us and are motivated to contribute. We have also created a play zone in our office where employees can play indoor games to relax and bond,” Arora added. The company is targeting revenue of `115 crore in FY2012-13. n Performance highlights

company snapshot

Grew 11 percent to record a turnover of `94 crore

Company: Computer Gallery

Received a special recognition from Dell for crossing the `200 crore mark in Dell business in the past two years

Year of inception: 1991

Contracted freight agencies to improve its delivery time; the TAT was reduced from 7-10 days to 24-48 hours Put up, across 22 cities, hoardings bearing the names of its leading resellers

Computer Reseller News

Director: Sudhir Arora Number of branches: 9 Turnover FY2011-12: `94 crore Turnover FY2010-11: `85 crore Employees: 82 Principals: Dell, Sony, Apple, HP, Microsoft, Samsung

01/01/2013 www.crn.in

emerging Markets N W

E S

Krishna Agencies

Navin Gupta, Director, Krishna Agencies

atna-based Krishna Agencies grew 20 percent from a topline of `39.8 crore in FY2010-11 to `47.4 crore in FY2011-12. “The topline growth achieved during the last fiscal was purely organic as we didn’t add new products or brands in our portfolio. Our focus was to improve bottomline which grew by almost 50 percent on the back of better systems and processes, cost controls, and productivity gains from employees,” said Navin Gupta, Director, Krishna Agencies. Krishna’s turnover growth largely came from higher focus on existing products and expanding its channel base in Bihar. “With streamlined processes to manage credit better which led to more inventory cycles adding to the turnover. We increased our penetration in Bihar by decreasing our delivery time and reducing transportation costs. Better credit management ensured nil bad debts,” informed Gupta. Krishna Agencies is a Dell Master Sales Affiliate for Bihar and is also a regional distributor for Belkin accessories, and Xerox consumables. Nearly 70 percent of its topline came from Dell while Belkin contributed 12 percent and printer consumables contributed the remaining 15 percent. Last year it added JBL range of audio-video products which contributed `1.3 crore to the topline. The company ran various channel schemes and programs during the fiscal which boosted revenues. “We spent 5 percent of our turnover on channel training and schemes—conducting road shows in different cities to promote vendor products and training resellers on new technology and soft skills. In addition we spent substantially more money creating end-user demand for resellers by putting up hoardings in major cities and regularly advertising in local newspapers,” informed Gupta. Krishna automated its business processes by using Tally ERP in FY2010-11. “We started reaping the benefits of ERP during the last fiscal in terms of improved efficiency and better management of logistics, billing, and credit. In fact using the ERP, we put in place a completely new credit management policy that led to improvement in credit cycles and resulted in zero defaults,” said Gupta. In the current fiscal, Krishna Agencies expects to grow at 20 percent. It plans to strengthen its portfolio with tablets, more audio-video products, and PC and mobile accessories. On the cards is expansion to neighbouring state Jharkhand. n

Performance highlights

company snapshot

Grew 20 percent to record a topline of `47.4 crore

Company: Krishna Agencies

Net margins grew 50 percent due to automation of core processes

Year of inception: 2008

Added JBL products which contributed `1.3 crore to the revenue

Director: Navin Gupta Number of branches: 1 Turnover FY2011-12: `47.4 crore

Spent 5 percent of turnover on channel training and schemes

Turnover FY2010-11: `39.8 crore

Witnessed zero defaults due to better credit management system

Principals: Dell, Belkin, Xerox, JBL

Employees: 15

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Ria Computers

Ramdas S, Consulting Editor, CRN, presenting the award to Kamal Agrawal, Director, Ria Computers

urat-based Ria Computers grew 20 percent by recording a topline of `48.1 crore in FY2011-12 compared to `40.5 crore in FY2010-11. Revenue from sub-distribution rose 30 percent from `33.3 crore to `42.6 crore. With five outlets, retail contributed the remaining business. Kamal Agrawal, Director, Ria, attributed the growth to the strengthening of vendor relations, increase in the market coverage in Class C & D cities, and innovative channel schemes. Ria was appointed regional distributor for Sony notebooks for Surat, and exclusive distributor for Acer PCs for south Gujarat. A regional distributor for Samsung, LG, Intex, Sony and Acer, Ria has 13 billing locations with warehouses covering south Gujarat from Vadodara to Vapi. “Since 2010 Surat, which was our primary market, has stagnated. Our plan therefore has been to expand in south Gujarat with a clear focus on Class C & D cities,” said Agrawal. Further, Ria targeted mobile, stationery and electronics shops to sell peripherals and accessories. Informed Agrawal, “We set up kiosks at prominent outlets displaying add-ons like headsets. This business contributed `3.5 crore.” Ria also ran several channel schemes. One scheme, Aavo Ne Lai Jav, contributed 20 percent to its revenue. “We offered 1-2 percent cash discounts with the conditions that the products had to be picked up from our warehouses, and that the reseller should submit a 21-day post-dated cheque. Thus, we saved 2.5 percent on delivery costs and 1.5 percent on credit, and we passed on these benefits to resellers,” explained Agrawal. During the fiscal, Ria beefed up its warehousing facilities to ensure easy availability in upcountry markets. It introduced surprise audits to prevent leakages and avoid inventory pileups. “With five outlets and 13 warehouses the risk of leakage is high, and so is the risk of inventory pile-up. We hired a third party to conduct surprise audits. This has stopped leakage, and made inventory cycles quicker,” said Agrawal. Ria invested `6 lakh in employee training. It hired a consultancy firm to do a SWOT analysis of its employees, and based on the analysis provided them functional training. Going forward Ria plans to add tablets, surveillance and commercial products to its portfolio. It intends to open three more showrooms, and distribution offices in the rest of Gujarat. “By 2015 we want to have a pan-Gujarat presence and then go national,” said Agrawal. n Performance highlights

company snapshot

Grew 20 percent to record a topline of `48.1 crore

Company: Ria Computers

Was appointed RD for Sony notebooks for Surat, and ED for Acer PCs for south Gujarat

Year of inception: 1996

Targeted mobile, stationery and electronics shops to sell peripherals and accessories Invested `6 lakh in employee training Hired a consultancy firm to do a SWOT analysis of its employees

Director: Kamal Agrawal Number of branches: 13

Aldous Glare

Rajesh Maji, VP, Corporate Affairs, Albion Infotel, presenting the award to George Thomas, CEO, Aldous Glare

ochi-based Aldous Glare Trade & Exports (AGTE) witnessed growth of 40 percent garnering a turnover of `245 crore in FY2011-12 compared to `175 crore in the previous fiscal. George Thomas, CEO, AGTE, attributed the growth to setting up a new distribution arm, expanding in south India, and strong channel marketing. “We set up a new division, AG Distribution, as a tier-1 distributor, while AGTE will continue to be a tier-2 subdistributor. Under AG Distribution we are sourcing products directly from vendors locally or importing them. The new arm manages Powercom, Asus notebooks, HCL desktops and tablets, AOC monitors, Adata storage and Apotop DRAM. AG Distribution added 15 percent to our topline,” informed Thomas. AGTE continued its expansion in the south through the branches it set up in FY2010-11 in Bengaluru, Coimbatore and Chennai. Business outside Kerala doubled from `35 crore to `70 crore. AGTE further penetrated rural Kerala by appointing new exclusive regional partners (ERPs) at Chalakkudi, Moovattupuzha, Thrissur, Kannur and Kozhikode. “The ERP program has been a growth engine, and has given us penetration in areas where there is no freight infrastructure. The ERPs receive support from us to develop such markets which cannot be directly accessed by us,” Thomas explained. FY2011-12 also saw AGTE move into a new 8,000 sq ft office in Kochi. AGTE conducted several channel schemes during the fiscal. “We started a program called Product Day, where we float a single-day scheme to promote a product category or brand. For instance, we sold 1,200 Intel processors in a single day while another such campaign led to the sales of 1,100 LCD monitors,” Thomas informed. To support its rural expansion, AGTE conducted 15 dealer meets in the small cities of Kerala which helped to increase its dealer base. It floated regular schemes aimed at smaller partners. AGTE also revamped its Website and began providing passwordprotected price-lists. AGTE is aiming for a `450 crore topline in FY2012-13. It plans to strengthen the product portfolio under AG Distribution and has already signed up with Taiwanese tablet manufacturer Eken as exclusive importer and distributor. AGTE also plans to expand to the north with an office in Delhi. “We will add to our tier-1 distribution portfolio and see AG Distribution clocking `120 crore-130 crore in the current fiscal,” said Thomas. n Performance highlights

company snapshot

Grew 40 percent to record a turnover of `245 crore

Company: Aldous Glare Trade & Exports

Set up AG Distribution as tier-1 distributor

Year of inception: 1995

CEO: George Thomas Number of retail stores: 6

Turnover FY2011-12: `48.1 crore

Penetrated rural Kerala by appointing new exclusive regional partners

Turnover FY2010-11: `40.5 crore

Moved into a new 8,000 sq ft office

Turnover FY2010-11: `175 crore

Employees: 71

Started a program called Product Day; floated single-day schemes to promote a product category or brand

Employees: 110

Principals: Acer, Lenovo, Compaq, Dell, Sony, Asus, AMD, Intel, Microsoft, Norton, Hitachi, Sandisk, WD, Seagate, Samsung, Logitech

Turnover FY2011-12: `245 crore

Principals: Dell, HCL, Asus, Acer, Microsoft, Seagate, Intex, Gigabyte, Samsung, Intel, D-Link, Toshiba, Kaspersky

Computer Reseller News

01/01/2013

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Yep, NetApp.

In fact, NetApp is saving IT more than $25 billion and counting. Learn more at yepnetapp.in #yepnetapp

© 2012 NetApp. All rights reserved. NetApp, the NetApp logo and Data ONTAP are trademarks or registered trademarks of NetApp, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. Source: NetApp internal estimates, June 2012: VNX, VNXe, Celerra NS can run any of Flare and Dart Operating Systems. Contribution of these products to the OS share has been estimated based on the proportion of NAS and SAN installations in these products (NAS – Dart; SAN – Flare).

NetApp Data ONTAP is the world’s #1 storage OS?

Best value-added sub-distributor advanced markets

emerging markets

NCS Computech

OST Electronics

Vinay Shetty, Country Head, Component Business, Asus India, presenting the award to Manohar Malani, CEO, NCS Computech

olkata-based NCS Computech grew by a significant 57 percent posting a topline of `88 crore in FY2011-12 compared to `56 crore in FY2010-11. Revenues from distribution stood at `75 crore, while corporate reselling and solutions accounted for `10 crore and corporate training services contributed `3 crore. NCS attributed the growth in distribution to Quick Heal business; addition of brands like Fortinet, Enjay and Adobe; and geographical expansion. Topline contribution from Quick Heal grew 35 percent from `45 crore to `61 crore. “Thin client business from NComputing and Enjay contributed `6 crore, while Fortinet UTM range and Adobe software contributed another `6 crore,” informed Manohar Malani, CEO, NCS Computech. In FY2011-12, NCS opened 5 new branches to take the tally of total branches to 32. “These branches were added in regions where we already had a presence. The mandate was to focus on getting business from Class C and D cities,” said Malani. The company beefed up its partner-led solutions business under a strategy called Dig Deep. “With addition of UTM and thin clients, we increased focus on solutions. We trained and helped partners identify cross-selling opportunities. For instance, for customers who had deployed Quick Heal end point, we helped partners position UTM and thin clients,” he said. Under the Dig Deep program, NCS trained 200 of its 500 active partners. “Each partner was asked to create 3 new solutions up-sell opportunities within their existing customers per month. Most partners saw their business grow 30 percent and their bottomline increased to double digit,” explained Malani. The company revamped its organizational systems. “Most of our processes were centralized which delayed decision making. Hence, we decentralized the organization by making each region a profit center. Each Regional Manager was empowered to plan their business strategy and take decisions locally. We appointed regional custodians at our main office to help the regions get central approvals by coordinating with various functions like HR, technical support, logistics, claims, training etc,” informed Malani. Going forward, NCS plans to embark on geo expansion by opening branches in Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and Gujarat. It plans to strengthen its value-added portfolio by adding mobile device management (MDM) solutions, and software applications like CRM and ERP. It expects to grow at 20 percent in the current fiscal. n Performance highlights

company snapshot

Grew 57 percent to record a topline of ` 88 crore

Company: NCS Computech

Added 5 new branches to take the total tally to 32 branches

Year of inception: 1999

Embarked on Dig Deep strategy for solution-based deep-selling

CEO: Manohar Malani No of branches: 32 Turnover FY2011-12: `88 crore

Signed up Fortinet, Adobe and Enjay

Turnover FY2010-11: `56 crore

De-centralized the organization; created integrated business units in each region with localized decision making

Employees: 250

Computer Reseller News

national

No of active resellers: 500 Principals: Quick Heal, Fortinet, Enjay, NComputing, Microsoft, Adobe, Rance Lab

01/01/2013 www.crn.in

Vinay Shetty, Country Head, Component Business, Asus India, presenting the award to Sourabh Chaudhary, Head, Business Development, OST

handigarh-based OST Electronics witnessed moderate growth of 2 percent in topline revenue in FY2011-12 at `57 crore compared to ` 55.6 crore in FY2010-11. Peripherals contributed 65 percent of the revenue while the rest was accounted for by the networking product line. While the distribution business contributed 75 percent the remaining came from solutions and services. Revenue from distribution dipped 3 percent from `48 crore to `46 crore in FY2011-12; this was attributed largely to OST’s decision to exit the TFT business mid-fiscal. “We were the largest partner of AOC in the north outside NCR for the past three years. We exit AOC following the vendor’s change in policy and stopped billing the company from September 2011. We estimate that this resulted in a shortfall of `7 crore during the last fiscal. If you discount that we had decent growth,” said Dinesh Sharma, MD, OST Electronics. Canon contributed around `18 crore of the revenue while D-Link and Digilink combined contributed about `14 crore. Around `2 crore came from new sign-ups with Aruba and Cyberoam. The AOC business, which was limited to just the first six months of FY2011-12, added `7 crore. Wipro and NComputing added another `2 crore to the revenue. Last year OST added office automation solutions to its portfolio by inking a distribution deal with NeoPost for digital franking machines. OST added around 100 partners during the last fiscal, taking the total number of its reseller partners to 550. It added four branches last year. Also last year OST completed the full automation of nearly all its processes on SAP B1. Informed Sharma, “We implemented SAP three years back, but we integrated the HR and payroll only last year. Almost all our business processes and systems are now automated and managed through ERP.” OST won awards from D-Link and Canon for being the best distributor in India for 2011. The company plans to add more solutions to its offerings for distribution next year. It is exploring distribution ideas around cloud computing and tele-services, and is in talks with a few vendors including Tata Telecommunications. “Our idea is to look at businesses which have a run-rate model, and at the same time need pre-sales and post-sales technical support so that as a distributor we can add value for our channels,” Sharma explained. n

Performance highlights

company snapshot

Grew 2 percent to record a topline of `57 crore

Company: OST Electronics

Exit AOC following the vendor’s change in policy, stopped billing the company from September 2011

Year of inception: 1994

Enter office automation business by inking a distribution deal with NeoPost for digital franking machines Added around 100 partners during the last fiscal

Managing Director: Dinesh Sharma Number of branches: 10 Turnover FY2011-12: `57 crore Turnover FY2010-11: `55.6 crore Employees: 102 Principals: Canon, D-Link, Aruba, Digilink, NeoPost

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Secant Technologies

Alok Gupta, MD, Unistal, presenting the award to Paramjit Singh Juneja, CEO, Secant Technologies

udhiana-based Secant Technologies’ overall topline declined 10 percent from `21 crore in FY2010-11 to `19 crore in FY2011-12. However, revenue from retail business grew moderately by 7 percent to `15 crore. “We reduced our focus on sub-distribution business which resulted in a decrease in topline. The moderation in retail growth was due to increased competition from other brands, expanding online retail and economic slowdown. However, we were able to improve our profitability,” said Paramjit Singh Juneja, CEO, Secant Technologies. Secant runs an exclusive HP World store and a multi-brand outlet. Juneja contributed the increase in retail revenue to addition of Apple products and aggressive customer marketing and promotions. Retailing of Apple iPads and notebooks contributed `30 lakh to the topline. Sensing a slowdown in customer demand, Secant increased its focus on marketing and promotions. “Last fiscal, we hired a manager to look after the day-to-day operations of our two stores. His job is to manage the team, run campaigns to increase footfalls and to create loyalty programs to get repeat business from existing customers. This led to increased footfalls and higher customer acquisitions,” informed Juneja. During the last fiscal, Secant ran several schemes including offering free backpack, high-end headphones and 10-piece cleaning kit with notebook. In addition, to increase customer loyalty it offered discount coupons to be claimed on future purchases. Existing customers were offered exciting incentives for new customer referrals. Further, the company conducted Celebrity Days, on which it invited popular personalities to its stores to perform and give autographs. “All these initiatives increased awareness about our retail stores and hence increased footfalls. Customer referrals alone provided us with incremental sales of 15 percent,” highlighted Juneja. Secant streamlined internal processes by integrating sales, support, inventory, HR and CRM tools to create a comprehensive ERP. It invested in conducting regular employee training for technology and soft skills. The company introduced live Web chat for pre-sales and post-sales support and also offered late night support to customers. In the current fiscal, Secant expects to grow 15 percent and plans to open up new stores in Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh and Ludhiana. Further, it plans to increase its focus on education vertical in the coming fiscal with introduction of new products and services. n Performance highlights

company snapshot

Overall topline declined 10 percent to `19 crore

Company: Secant Technologies

Retail grew 7 percent to `15 crore

Year of inception: 1988

Focus on customer referrals enabled incremental sales of 15 percent Hired a manager to run promotional campaigns and loyalty programs in the two stores

CEO: Paramjit Singh Juneja Number of retail stores: 2 Turnover FY2011-12: `19 crore Turnover FY2010-11: `21 crore Employees: 20

Invited celebrities to its stores to increase awareness and footfalls

Principals: HP, Lenovo, Apple, Cisco,

Introduced live Web chat for presales and post sales support

Microsoft, Adobe

Symantec, APC, Logitech, Targus,

emerging markets

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CAS Computers

Sandeep Ramani, COO, Envent Worldwide, presenting the award to Manoj Bajaj, CEO, CAS Computers

insukia-based CAS Computers grew over 12 percent from `13.5 crore in FY2010-11 to `15.2 crore in FY2011-12. Its retail business grew about 19 percent from `6.9 crore `8.2 crore in the last fiscal. Manoj Bajaj, CEO, CAS Computers, attributed the growth to the addition of a multi-brand retail outlet and product portfolio expansion. “In addition to our flagship 2,400 square feet store in Tinsukia, we opened a new 1,800 square feet multi-brand outlet in Guwahati in early April 2011. The new store contributed `1.7 crore to our revenue while the existing outlet raked in `6.5 crore. Further, we added two notebook brands—Asus and Sony,” informed Bajaj. While the company’s store in Tinsukia witnessed a 10 percent increase in sales volumes per month, the new outlet gained momentum with aggressive promotional campaigns. “Our monthly counter in Tinsukia improved from 135 to 150 units of notebooks and the sales of printers and accessories increased substantially. We conducted an aggressive marketing campaign in local media for our new store with attractive discounts and freebies. This enabled us to break even in just six months,” explained Bajaj. CAS focused on repeat business and ran attractive loyalty schemes for existing customers. In addition, it gave away gift vouchers to customers for referrals. “We believe a happy customer brings more business than a new customer. Repeat and referral business forms nearly 50 percent of our flagship store,” informed Bajaj. The company organizes regular training for its employees on soft and technical skills. “For a retailer, investing in a large showroom, running marketing campaigns etc only help you get footfalls. Converting them to customers is entirely dependent on the store staff. Hence, we invest a good amount on training. Last fiscal, we spent `1.25 lakh on training employees,” informed Bajaj. Going forward, CAS plans to add tablets to its portfolio and to launch an online retail portal. “E-tailing is proliferating among consumers aggressively and one can not afford to miss the opportunity. Additionally, through online retail we can target other cities in Assam,” he opined. CAS has recently added surveillance products to its portfolio and expects significant business from it in FY2012-13. “There is a government guideline that mandates all shops and public places to have IP cameras. This is a huge opportunity and we are getting ready for it,” said Bajaj. n Performance highlights

company snapshot

Grew 12 percent to record a turnover of `15.2 crore

Company: CAS Computers

Retail grew 19 percent to `8.2 crore

Year of inception: 1995

Opened new 1,800 square feet multibrand retail store in Guwahati Aggressive marketing in local media with discounts and freebies enabled break even of new store in six months Added two new brands, Asus and Sony, apart from Acer, HP and Lenovo Spent `1.25 lakh on soft and technical skills training of sales staff

CEO: Manoj Bajaj Number of retail stores: 2 Turnover FY2011-12: `15.2 crore Turnover FY2010-11: `13.5 crore Employees: 35 Principals: Acer, Lenovo, HP, Microsoft, Asus, Sony, Quick Heal, Belkin

Computer Reseller News

01/01/2013

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best retailer N

emerging markets

Business Algorithms

Jagannath Patnaik, Director, Channel Sales, Kaspersky Lab, South Asia, presenting the award to Reeta Budhay, Director, Business Algorithm

ith a turnover of `45 crore in FY2011-12, Nagpur-based Business Algorithms registered a 28 percent growth against `35 crore in the previous fiscal. Retail at `18 crore, contributed 40 percent and grew 28 percent over pervious fiscal’s `14 crore. The company attributed its retail growth to focus on customer loyalty, tight inventory management and addition of Apple products. Sharing growth factors, Reeta Budhay, Director, Business Algorithms, said, “HP contributed 75 percent to the retail business. In addition, we averaged around 45 Macbooks and 80 iPads per quarter.” Business Algorithms ran a series of customer loyalty and referral programs. “Every sales person was given the target to get repeat business from minimum 3 customers every month. Those who brought in the maximum repeat business were incentivized and recognized. These measures contributed 25 percent incremental revenue from repeat business,” said Budhay. The company introduced a strict inventory management system to ensure fast liquidation of aging stock. “Using SAP B1, we introduced an inventory alert mechanism that sends SMS and email alert to product heads every week on inventory levels and aging stocks. We conducted surprise checks at warehouses to check for old stock or inventory pile-up.” Smarter inventory management led to lower utilization of overdraft facility with banks, which led to increased profitability. “In order to emphasize on credit and inventory management, we took the conscious step of lowering our bank overdraft limit from `1.35 crore to `1.05 crore. As a result, product teams were compelled to focus on inventory management and collections. We bought more stock in cash and earned discounts and lesser overdraft facility meant lower interest per month,” shared Budhay. Further, the company introduced a policy to link certain percentage of the salary with collections. “We withheld salaries of employees that had a payment outstanding of more than 45 days. Hence, most payments started coming on time,” said Budhay. Besides, the company split its business divisions into verticals like supplies, printers, commercial, retail, distribution and service. Each vertical was headed by a dedicated resource. “We introduced team incentive rather than individual incentive. This led to increased ownership and motivation among the entire product team to deliver results,” Budhay highlighted. Going forward, Budhay would concentrate more on retail. “Exclusive retail stores are expected to grow, and we will focus on HP World. We may also tie up with another brand.” n Performance highlights

company snapshot

Grew 28 percent to record revenue of `45 crore

Company: Business Algorithms

Retail grew 28 percent to `18 crore

Year of inception: 1988

Repeat customers and customer referrals contributed 25 percent to the retail topline

Director: Reeta Budhay Number of retail stores: 1 Turnover FY2011-12: `45 crore

Added Apple products and sold around 45 Macbooks and 80 iPads per quarter

Turnover FY2010-11: `35 crore

Took measures for tighter credit and inventory control which resulted in better profits

Principals: HP, Apple

Computer Reseller News

Employees: 45

01/01/2013 www.crn.in

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IT World

Jagannath Patnaik, Director, Channel Sales, Kaspersky Lab, South Asia, presenting the award to R Rajnikanth, CEO, IT World

oimbatore-based IT World grew 59 percent from `17 crore in FY2010-11 to `27 crore in FY2011-12. R Rajnikanth, CEO, IT World, attributed the growth to the addition of new retail outlets, innovative consumer schemes and aggressive consumer marketing. “In the last fiscal we opened four new HP exclusive retail stores—three in Chennai and one in Coimbatore—each with more than 1,500 sq ft of retail space. The new stores contributed more than `6 crore to the topline.” The company’s seven existing HP exclusive stores—four in Chennai and three in Coimbatore—grew by 20 percent. Around 78 percent of the company’s revenue came from notebooks; desktops contributed 10 percent, printers 6 percent, and accessories and software 5 percent. Last year the company decided to get aggressive with its marketing and spent `36 lakh on consumer promotions and marketing. “To promote our new stores and generate more footfalls for the existing ones we increased our marketing budget by almost 44 percent,” said Rajnikanth. The company advertised in weekend supplements of leading newspapers and also ran some out-of-the-box campaigns. “We organized a drawing competition across more than 30 schools in Chennai and Coimbatore, and established a connect with more than 3,000 students. We offered products at discounted rates to these students, or offered them special discount coupons. As a result, we received a good number of bookings at the venues and many more footfalls at our stores,” informed Rajnikanth. The company ran round-the-year schemes such as free bundling of digital cameras with notebooks. “With all these activities we increased footfalls to our retail outlets by over 20 percent and also increased our conversion rate to more than 30 percent,” said Rajnikanth. The company started weekly training programs, and for this purpose invested `6 lakh in creating a training facility equipped with acoustics, projectors and a video conferencing facility. Informed Rajnikanth, “We invested a further `2 lakh during the year to get experts to train our employees.” IT World believes that performing employees must be rewarded, and therefore offered special bonuses for performers— bonuses which sometimes amounted to more than their salaries. “This not only helped us to reduce attrition rates but also motivated the staff to sell more,” Rajnikanth remarked. The company expects a topline of `50 crore by the end of FY2013-14. n Performance highlights Grew 59 percent to record a turnover of Rs `27 Opened four new HP exclusive retail stores—three in Chennai and one in Coimbatore Spent `36 lakh on consumer promotions and marketing Ran round-the-year schemes such as free bundling of digital cameras with notebooks Invested `6 lakh in creating a training facility

company snapshot Company: IT World CEO: R Rajnikanth Year of inception: 2007 Number of retail stores: 11 Turnover FY2011-12: `27 crore Turnover FY2010-11: `17 crore Employees: 120 Principals: HP, Microsoft, Quick Heal

best retailer

advanced markets

mid-size

Large

RealTime IT Concepts

Care Office Equipment

Dhaval Valia, Associate Publisher & Executive Editor, CRN, presenting the award to Ashwin Kukreja, Director, Realtime IT Concepts

umbai-based RealTime IT Concepts witnessed over 12.5 percent growth with a turnover of `36 crore in FY2011-12 against `32 crore in FY2010-11. Growth in topline was led by retail business, which grew 47 percent from `15 crore to `22 crore in FY2011-12; sub-distribution contributed `14 crore. “Over the past two fiscals, we have been focusing on our retail business and have reduced our sub-distribution business. As a result, revenue from retail business in the last two fiscals has tripled. We opened two new Canon Image Squares during the last fiscal which added significantly to our topline and bottomline growth,” informed Ashwin Kukreja, Director, RealTime IT Concepts. Presently, the company has two exclusive Lenovo stores and three Canon Image Squares in Mumbai. While the two Lenovo stores contributed 40 percent of the retail revenue, Canon stores added 60 percent. “For the Lenovo business, we recorded good numbers in AIOs and high-end notebooks. At Canon outlets, our focus was on high-end digital SLR cameras and our monthly turnover from the three stores averaged around `1.2 crore. In addition, we sold steady number of Canon lenses and Wi-Fi printers,” disclosed Kukreja. RealTime implemented some innovative marketing campaigns to increase footfalls and convert leads into deals. “We began offering free photography workshops to those purchasing high-end DSLR cameras. This led to 25 percent increase in our footfalls and we sold an average 300 DSLRs per month. Further, we made good money in lenses and printers. To promote printers, we created hotspots which helped us push our Wi-Fi printer sales,” detailed Kukreja. During the last fiscal, RealTime spent `10 lakh on marketing and promotional activities. “We invested in in-mall branding, advertisements in leading newspapers, and signed annual contracts with directory services like Just Dial for lead generation. We also developed internal infrastructure for lead tracking and follow up. Leads were SMSed to the closest store manager for faster closure. As a result, 15 percent of these leads translated into actual business,” he informed. In the current fiscal, RealTime is targeting 25 percent growth with retail to grow at more than 50 percent. The company plans to add one more Lenovo and Canon store, each. “We expect retail business to form 80 percent of our business with subdistribution revenues further reducing. Moreover, we are test piloting an online store for camera professionals by January, 2013,” said Kukreja. n Performance highlights

company snapshot

Grew 12.5 percent to record a turnover of `36 crore

Company: RealTime IT Concepts

Retail grew 47 percent to `22 crore

Year of inception: 1996

Opened 2 new Canon Image Squares in addition to the existing one Created hotspots to help push Wi-Fi printer sales Spent `10 lakh on marketing and promotions

national

Director: Ashwin Kukreja Number of retail stores: 5 Turnover FY2011-12: `36 crore Turnover FY2010-11: `32 crore Employees: 40 Principals: Canon, Lenovo, Microsoft

Closed 15 percent more leads through a new lead management system

Hemant Shah, Managing Director, Care Office Equipment

hmedabad-based Care Office Equipment grew its overall turnover by 18 percent to garner `198 crore in FY2011-12 compared to the previous fiscal’s topline of `167.5 crore. The company’s revenue from the retail business grew a modest 10 percent from `63 crore in FY2010-11 to `70 crore during the last fiscal. Care currently has four multi-brand showrooms—three in Ahmedabad and one in Vadodara. It also has three Dell exclusive showrooms—one each in Ahmedabad, Vadodara and Rajkot. “Last year we opened a warehouse at Changodhar, Sanand. We also added several new products and brands to our multibrand stores to offer more choices to customers,” said Hemant Shah, Managing Director, Care Office Equipment. Care added consumer electronics (CE) at its multibrand stores and this contributed 15 percent to the revenue. “We have been selling CE products such as LCD/LED TVs, refrigerators and washing machines from our 12,000 sq ft flagship store in Ahmedabad for the past couple of years. In 2011 we decided to retail CE products in a more focused way and began selling them from all our multi-brand stores,” informed Shah. Innovative customer marketing schemes increased footfalls by 30 percent across its stores. “We have annual contracts with leading newspapers. One new marketing initiative was a contract for ads at Café Coffee Day and McDonald outlets across Ahmedabad,” said Shah. Last fiscal the company spent a total of `4.5 crore on consumer marketing. Care also expanded the footprint of its authorized service centers to provide wider access and faster turnaround. “Post-sales support is key to both our distribution and retail business, hence we operate our own service centers. We offer our own brand of AMC packages to retail customers. We beefed up our call center and increased its capacity to 50 engineers to offer value-added services,” Shah informed. Care’s priority in FY2011-12 was the deployment of SAP ERP and CRM. It invested `30 lakh in rolling out SAP across all key functions. Said Shah, “We have implemented industry best practices in distribution and retail using SAP ERP and CRM.” The company expects 25 percent growth in retail this fiscal. “We have added tablets and home security products to our retail counters. Our plan is to open seven multi-brand stores covering all major locations in Gujarat by the end of 2013,” said Shah. n Performance highlights Grew 18 percent to record a turnover of `198 crore Retail grew 10 percent to `70 crore Added new products and brands to its multi-brand stores Signed a contract for ads at CCD and McDonald outlets across Ahmedabad Expanded the footprint of its authorized service centers for faster turnaround Invested `30 lakh in rolling out SAP across all key functions

company snapshot Company: Care Office Equipment Managing Director: Hemant Shah Year of inception: 1998 Number of retail stores: 7 Turnover FY2011-12: `198 crore Turnover FY2010-11: `167.5 crore Employees: 320 Principals: Dell, HP, Asus, Sony, HCL, Norton

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Winning together The second CRN Distribution and Retail Summit held in Pune from December 11-13, 2012 witnessed participation from 80 leading partners from across the country and was a heady concoction of knowledge sharing, networking, display of latest technologies, and the annual CRN Xcellence Awards 2012 n abhijeet mukherjee

he second edition of the annual CRN Distribution & Retail Summit was held at the Orchid Vits in Pune from December 11-13, 2012. The event saw 80 of India’s leading sub-distributors and retailers in attendance. The 3-day summit had a mix of technology presentations, workshops, displays of the latest technologies and a panel discussion. It also witnessed the CRN Xcellence Awards—Distribution & Retail 2012

n Manohar Malani, CEO, NCS Computech, spoke about the changing value paradigm for IT distribution and retail companies

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ceremony wherein 15 awards were presented to leading retailers and distributors. There was also some entertainment including a belly dance, Hindi film dances, as well as a karaoke night. The conference program was anchored by Dhaval Valia, Associate Publisher & Executive Editor, CRN, and Kavea Chavali, Emcee and Host. Here are some of the highlights of the summit.

n KL Lalani, Chairman, Lalani Infotech, shared the best practices and tools for future success in distribution and retail business

Knowledge sessions

Changing the value paradigm of your company: Manohar Malani, CEO, NCS Computech, spoke about the ingredients of a successful organization and the dos and don’ts that an organization should follow to succeed. Malani defined an organization as a collective service delivery capability which is the sum total of individual capacities. He highlighted the importance of the 4Ms— men, money, materials and markets—

n George Thomas, CEO, Aldous Glare Trade, stressed on the need for channel collaboration and winning together

driven by 1P, passion, to create another P, profit. He said that energy disruptors such as a lack of trust, individualistic approaches, a lack of direction and aninertia of process hamper the progress of an organization. “We waste our time in following certain processes,” he remarked. “This also diverts our energy to resolving inner conflicts, as a result of which the energy flows from the customer direction to team management. Why do we need an individual-based performance measurement? If every unit contributes, it will make the organization profitable.” There has been a considerable shift in how companies function in the current scenario. To explain the context Malani quoted Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric, who said, “The end of an organization is near when the change outside is greater than the change within.” Malani explained that to be successful organizations should recognize the change in the external environment and adapt to it. Creating a successful IT distribution & retail business: KL Lalani, Chairman, Lalani Infotech, in a SWOT analysis, highlighted the strengths and challenges of the current IT distribution and retail scenario. According to him, the strengths of regional distributors, sub-distributors and master dealers are defined by the growing trade, the status of their organizations in the marketplace, and their balance sheets. “A good credit facility provides more opportunity for expansion, vendor support and purchases,” Lalani said. Laying bare the market conditions Lalani continued, “Profit margins are shrinking in the distribution business. We have to seek not only price protection but also regular updates on pricing and schemes. Besides, there is a greater need to bundle products and adapt to new marketing techniques apart from calls, email and SMSs.” Providing solutions for aging stocks, Lalani urged partners to set an average for inventory days, seek support from OEMs to liquidate stocks, and request them for target reductions. On the issue of delayed payments he asked partners to implement a billing policy of post-dated cheques (PDC),

a practice popular among national and regional distributors. Partners not comfortable with PDC can open new party accounts. He said another solution is to charge additional interest against delayed payments. Lalani urged the channel associations to be proactive to stop poaching. Citing an example he said that Compass, the IT channel association in east India, has a policy to refrain from the poaching of skilled manpower. “Both the OEMs as well as partners comply.” Speaking about retail Lalani said that retailers earn better margins, have the facility of purchasing on credit but selling in cash, have direct access to the end user, and don’t face the problem of aging stock. He however acknowledged that retailers are being threatened by online portals, LFRs, and now the arrival of foreign retailers due to the government’s approval of FDI in multi-brand retail. “Provide personalized services and support, enable fast buying and selling decisions, improve local reach, stock SKUs from LFRs, and invest in infrastructure,” he advised. Trends & challenges in IT distribution & retail: George Thomas, CEO, Aldous Glare Trade, took the audience by storm with his energized presentation highlighting the need for changes for IT retailers and sub-distributors. “Our businesses are like paper boats which lack direction and float wherever the wind takes them, or like motor boats which accelerate but cannot put a sudden brake when things go wrong. It is important to take stock of our businesses and understand if things are on the right track,” he stated. Thomas said that distributors should stay relevant to the changing market conditions in order to survive. “One should take risks and venture deeper into the sea for better results.” Highlighting the opportunities being presented by low-cost tablets he said, “The decline in the prices of tablets has been a great enabler. Android support for tablets has not only decreased piracy but also made applications easily available to the common man. 80 percent of the applications available today are free.” Thomas also emphasized the importance of collaboration among

n Panel Discussion: (L-R) Paramjit Singh Juneja, CEO, Secant; Ashwin Kukreja, Director, Realtime IT; Satish Villait, CEO, Bitsy Infotech; Vinod Mulchandani, CEO, Aarvee Computers; and Reeta Budhay, Director, Business Algorithms, discussed the trends, opportunities and challenges in the IT retail and sub-distribution business

n Rakesh Jain, CMD, Supreme Computers, spoke about the need for internal changes to win external battles

n Reeta Budhay, Director, Business Algorithms, shared best business practices followed by her organization

n KR Jayaram, VP, MMD & Channel, ECS Biztech, highlighted retail best practices adopted by his company

n Dushyant Mehta, CMD, Mediaman Group, shared his mantras for work-life balance

n Jayant Shete, President, CMDA, announced the plans to form a pan-Maharashtra channel association to fight threats and challenges together

n Kshitij Kotak, CEO, Fortune Grecells, mesmerized delegates with his workshop on Swear by the Deep Sea

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partners. “We are not here to predict the future but to create it,” he said.

n Suneel Agarwal, Marketing Guru and CEO, TwithSuneel, conducted a workshop on how to develop and market brands at no cost

n Nitin Verma, National Distribution Manager, Fujitsu, spoke about the benefits of partnering with the company

n Santosh Pandey, Distribution Manager, Global Commercial Channel, Dell, elaborated on the company’s PartnerDirect program

n Alok Gupta, MD, Unistal, gave a product overview of Protegent and highiighted the benefits of partnering with his company

n Jagannath Patnaik, Director, Channel Sales, Kaspersky Lab, South Asia, shared the company’s success highlights and future plans

n Satish Mantri, VP, Marketing, Sakri IT Solutions, elaborated on his company’s association with Kaspersky

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The processes behind successes: Rakesh Jain, CMD, Supreme Computers, gave a few mantras to succeed in a business. By using anecdotes and examples he captivated the partners. “Get out of your comfort zones. Create an enemy if you don’t have one. Innovate, think big and take responsibilities head-on. If you have to eat a frog, staring at it for an entire day will not help. You have to push the envelope,” he insisted. Listing some dos for partners Jain said, “Train yourselves, invest in automation, follow check-lists, conduct weekly reviews, and pursue a problem till it is solved.” He emphasized the importance of positive thinking with the help of a story about two stone-breakers. Explaining the difference in their approaches he said, “While one found his work routine, the other who was more positive took pride in his work and said that his stone would be used to build the tallest cathedral in the world. In this way, your attitude will give you an extra edge.” Getting into the habit of doing one degree more is the habit of winners. “Do what you have to, then prepare for the extra mile,” he proposed. About team building, Jain said, “True leaders will focus on teams and not on themselves. A year from now, within your organization, you will not be judged by how popular you are but by how well you recognize the talent of your team-mates. A strong team will go an extra mile to meet deadlines.” Best practices: Reeta Budhay, Director, Business Algorithms, and KR Jayaram, VP, MMD & Channels, ECS BizTech, spelled out the best practices of their respective organizations. Budhay focused on the strict quality control measures her company follows to control old stocks. “In a study we found that aging products had the maximum negative impact on our bottomline essentially because they are sold at a higher discount. We automated the inventory so the system now sends out alerts about aging stocks to product heads every week. We also conduct surprise checks in warehouses to check for old stock or inventory pile-up.”

n Sandeep Ramani, COO, Envent, spoke on how partners can profit from selling the right PC and mobile accessories

Besides, the company has adopted a vertical strategy for growth. “Achievers are rewarded every month. We conduct workshops and training to enhance skill-sets. We organize family gettogethers and picnics, and also sponsor the education of the children of our staff members,” she said. Jayaram of ECS Biztech shared his mantras for success in retail. “An internal team conducts a survey before we open a store. We purchase the store as a long-term investment in property. We are now expanding to tier-3 and -4 cities to avoid competition from LFRs.” The art of work-life balance: Dushyant Mehta, CMD, Mediaman Group, spoke about the importance of having a worklife balance. Chanting shlokas from the Bhagwad Gita, he illustrated the importance of performing duties toward the family even while being dedicated toward work. “It is difficult to maintain the balance, but not impossible,” said Mehta. CMDA Pune: CMDA Pune informed the attendees about the role that the association plays in mitigating vendormember disputes and well as its role in influencing policies. Informed Jayant Shete, President, CMDA Pune, “We organize various activities for our members including a Diwali mela, health camps, blood donation camps and a sports day. We also organize an IT Expo every year and get a fabulous response. We are currently working on a framework to unite all the IT associations across Maharashtra to form a federation that will actively take up common issues plaguing the community.”

Panel discussion Outlook & strategies for tech distribution & retail: The panel, which comprised eminent speakers such as Ashwin Kukreja, Director, Realtime IT; Vinod Mulchandani, CEO, Aarvee Computers; Paramjit Singh Juneja, CEO, Secant Technologies; Reeta Budhay, Director, Business Algorithms; and Satish Villait, CEO, Bitsy Infotech, set the pace of the discussion with a recollection of the year that was. Dhaval Valia, Associate Publisher and Executive Editor, CRN, moderated the session.

n Chandrahas Panigrahi, Country Manager, Consumer Business, AMD, talked about the future trends in computing and AMD’s product roadmap

Speakers were unanimous that the year 2012 was more or less flat. They said that the best method to ward off bad business was to move to retail, add new brands or open up more branches. The panelists accorded much importance to team empowerment and equitable delegation of responsibilities. “I delegated day-to-day responsibilities to my employees and moved to the drawing board, sketching business strategies,” said Villait. Budhay spoke about the benefits of the SAP ERP which her company implemented to streamline its backend and improve performance. The panelists said that layered distribution will soon be a thing of the past, and that 2013 will be the year of the convergence of different form factors. “New devices such as smartphones and tablets are gaining immense popularity,” Juneja pointed out. The panelists also discussed the threat from the increasing popularity of e-commerce portals. They said LFRs will be another threat though FDI is still a distant threat because government policies regarding it are still unclear.

Workshops Swear by the Deep Sea: Kshitij Kotak, CEO, Fortune Grecells, mesmerized the audience from the word go with his ‘Swear by the Deep Sea’ philosophy which emphasizes relying on your own strengths. “I would prefer that you learn how to feed yourselves than feed you for a lifetime,” he said. Taking a cue from the adage, ‘A known devil is better than an unknown angel,’ he urged the partners to not only break free from their shackles but also move away from their comfort zones. “Between two evils, one known and the other unknown, at least try to meet the unknown evil. It may save your life or show you a path you never pondered before. This is the philosophy of Swear by the Deep Sea,” Kotak explained amidst a huge round of applause. He expanded on the philosophy with the help of interesting anecdotes and videos of cricket matches. Contextually, he asked partners to distinguish between a satisfied and a dissatisfied customer, and scout for cross-selling and deepselling opportunities in both the cases.

Smart branding and marketing: In an interactive workshop, Suneel Agarwal, Marketing Guru and CEO, TwithSuneel, recommended ways to market and brand companies for free. “Look around and there are any number of ideas floating to help you build your brand,” he said. Dishing out the ingredients of a good brand Agarwal said, “A good service efficiently spread by word of mouth, reliability, attractive product displays, a warm smile, and improved and updated technical skills are the keys.” Taking a leaf out of the corporate culture followed by MNCs, he said that these companies earned fortunes by implementing the basics of brand building. For instance, a UPS company abroad is giving training about the benefits of safe driving to the drivers of all vehicles carrying its logo. The drivers then automatically feel responsible toward the brand and behave like brand ambassadors which in turn projects a very positive image of the brand in the eyes of the consumers.

n Rajesh Maji, VP, Corporate Affairs, Albion Infotel, spoke about the benefits of partnering with the company

n Mannan MA, Country Manager, India & Saarc, Corsair, shared the company’s journey from being a memory to an IT component company

Technology tracks Partnering and succeeding with Fujitsu: Nitin Verma, National Distribution Manager, Fujitsu, explained the company’s efforts to provide a green environment. With an ISO 14001 certification, Fujitsu has scaled the ladder with an environmental protection program stage VI to reduce carbon emissions up to 15 million tons by the end of 2012. He concluded his talk with information about backend rebates, growth bonuses, joint strategic planning and joint pipeline management. Dell’s PartnerDirect program: Santosh Pandey, Distribution Manager, Global Commercial Channels (GCC), Dell, spoke on the developments in the company’s PartnerDirect program and its benefits. “Dell intends to lead in the new virtual era where leadership is defined by customer-driven solutions that are open, capable and affordable. Dell provides solutions which unlock enterprise efficiency and which are delivered without compromise. It is a customer-inspired solutions provider,” said Pandey. Explaining the program he said

n Asus displayed its latest routers and motherboards including Sabertooth P67

n Canon displayed its new range of Pixma E-series inkjet printers

n Fuad Carim, Sales Manager, Foxconn, spoke about the company’s new products particularly the Nano PC

n Vinay Shetty, Country Head, Components Business, Asus Technology, shared the product and channel strategy of his company

n Albion displayed its cloud offerings for consumers and SOHO

n Aldous Glare displayed Eken range of tablets for which it is the exclusive national distributor

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n Corsair displayed the entire range of gaming products from headsets, cooling fans and RAM

n Envent showcased its entire range of tablet, smartphone and PC accessories

n Foxconn showcased its range of products including the Nano PC

n Fujitsu displayed the latest range of notebooks and desktops

n Kaspersky showcased the entire range of its AV products including mobile security

n Quick Heal displayed its entire range of mobile security products for Windows and Android devices

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GCC is active in north America; Europe, Middle East & Africa; and Asia Pacific & Japan, and has provided tremendous knowledge and experience globally in communicating effectively to the channel, through the channel, and directly to end-users. Worldwide it has more than 94,814 registered partners and more than 2,454 certified partners. Speaking about the program’s journey Pandey said that in September 2012 Dell and Digilife Distribution & Marketing Services (DDMS) announced a strategic partnership for the distribution of Dell’s enterprise-class products in emerging markets. “This is a first-of-its-kind engagement for DDMS and Dell in the market. DDMS will deal in a wide range of Dell’s enterprise product categories including servers, storage and networking products in India. The partnership with DDMS will extend the reach of Dell’s enterprise solutions beyond tier-1 cities and propel its focus to target mid-market customers with open, easy to deploy, and affordable solutions,” he added. Profitability with Protegent: Alok Gupta, Managing Director, Unistal, gave a product overview of Protegent which has been providing antivirus, Internet security, data security, data care and data recovery products, solutions and services since 1994. “Our company has over five million licensed users across the world and is headquartered in New Delhi, with regional offices in Mumbai, Kolkata and Bengaluru, and overseas offices in Dubai, Oman and Malaysia. The company has development centers in Noida and Pune, and a distribution channel of more than 5,000 partners,” Gupta informed. He said that the company’s product, Protegent 360, is a complete security software. Another product, Protegent Pro, provides Internet security and also data backup solutions. The price of Protegent 360 is `700, and Protegent Pro is `350. Uninstall also distributed gift vouchers to partners who correctly answered the quiz on Protegent product portfolio conducted at the end of the session. Winning with Kaspersky: Jagannath Patnaik, Director, Channel Sales, Kaspersky Lab, South Asia, spoke

n Unistal showcased its range of Protegent AV products which come with data recovery

about the global trends in software security including consumerization, mobility, digital data, malware, cloud and virtualization, and global IT threats such as cyber threats, mobile threats, hactivism, attacks on online banking, targeted attacks and private data stealing. Patnaik also spoke about the company’s history, its financial performance, top management, employee strength, and products and solutions such as Kaspersky open space security and targeted security solutions for business. He also spoke at length about Kaspersky Lab’s SMB and home products. In addition, Patnaik emphasized the company’s global partner network, customer base and sponsorships. Satish Mantri, VP, Business Development & Marketing, Sakri IT Solutions, took the audience on a journey starting a year back when it was a national distributor of Kaspersky Lab and distributor of Airtel Voice. Today, it is expanding its retail base for Kaspersky and spreading its wings to Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka for Aircel Voice. The company is also entering the electronics space in association with Appotech, and the USB storage space with Tech Titan for T-Drive. In addition, Mantri highlighted Sakri’s other plans to venture into the corporate and SMB market with UTM, security and storage products. “We are expecting revenue growth of 40 percent YoY, and targeting `220 crore for the next fiscal. We will build a team of 250 people and increase the number of branches to 15 by the end of 2013,” said Mantri. Technology meets creativity: Sandeep Ramani, COO, Envent World Wide, started by asking why some people with less resources have been able to succeed and become popular while others with huge resources failed to make any mark in history. Ramani explained that Envent was started in 2011 with a passion to create innovative products; the company’s products now include easy-to-use accessories for Apple and Samsung users as well as consumer-friendly peripherals for IT. “Envent is a professionally owned and run organization with key stakeholders carrying a combined

n AMD displayed notebooks from various OEMs based on latest AMD processors

experience of more than 60 years across the IT and telecom segments. Our brand name is derived from the word ‘invention.’ The orange color depicts boldness, and the brightness depicts youthfulness. There are no sharp edges in the logo which represents human science; the color gradients depict range, options and flexibility.” The company’s mission is to create a brand associated with the new India, with best-in-class quality products and the guiding principle of an open and candid working environment. Ramani spoke about how Envent products are innovative. The company has come up with nano projectors, alcohol testers, kid keyboards, smartphone photo printers, and optical mice with a 3-year battery life, to name a few. “Envent is spread across nine operational service centers across India, and has CE-, FCC- and RoHS-certified products,” he added. He also spoke about Envent’s retail presence through 1,000 retailers, 33 ISDs, shops-in-shops, and on-ground activation at key locations to drive sell-out. “We are also running Facebook campaigns and building up a presence on YouTube.” Winning with AMD: Chandrahas Panigrahi, National Distribution Manager, AMD, provided a brief overview of the company and said that AMD India plays a significant role in the design of microprocessors, the AMD family of accelerated processing units (APUs), system-on-chips, graphics and media solutions. He spoke about AMD’s various notebook processor specifications, APUs for notebooks and tablets, its Radeon graphics for notebooks, as well as its 6300, 4300 and 3300 server series. Speaking about PC trends, Panigrahi highlighted how the transformation of mobile computing devices happened over the years. Content consumption in terms of Internet, social media, online gaming and casual gaming has increased tremendously. This has increased the demand for mobile computing devices with lower battery consumption, lighter weight, higher processing power and improved graphics. “The transformation of device usage

and consumer behavior is boosting the growth of the consumer notebook market. Now is the time for convergence. 50 percent of the young consumers are active online and this is throttling the PC gaming software industry—thus the need for video graphics,” he said. Partnering with Albion for cloud services: Rajesh Maji, VP, Corporate Affairs, Albion, explained how an association with the company can help partners reap the benefits of its multiple product lines. “We stand committed to ensure maximum customer satisfaction by adhering to the highest quality standards in the technologies, products and services delivered. We strive to continually improve our quality management system through state-ofthe-art technologies, proficient human resources, motivation and an enabling environment,” said Maji. With regard to Albion’s advantages, Maji spoke about the company’s team of 35 people, intellectual property of more than 10 products, dedicated focus on new product development and continuous improvement, proven project management methodologies with strong technical expertise, cloud computing technologies for creating solutions for SMBs and consumers, and customization of cloud applications for industry verticals. He added, “You can easily show the unique differentiated value to your customers, attractive commission and pricing structure to beat your competitors, dedicated centralized and regional partner support team, training and development program to equip you to address the market, BTL marketing through road-shows, events, conferences and seminars endorsed by industry thought-leaders, and ATL marketing through ads in the electronic and printed media.” Corsair: From memory to components: Speaking about the latest trends in PCs, MA Mannan, Country Manager, India & Saarc, Corsair, said that smartphones and tablets are the products that get the entire buzz while the hype for ultrabooks is largely created. The desktop is limited to enthusiasts and gamers, the notebook is completely evolved computing, while

n Alok Gupta, MD, Unistal, gave away the Passport Lucky Draw prize, a MP3 with wireless speakers, to Arun Managave, CEO, Aditya Peripherals

n Delegates attentively listening to one of the workshop sessions during the event

n Ajaya Kumar, CMD, Park, Alok Gupta, MD, Unistal and S Karthikeyan, MD, Bloom Electronics, gave away a lucky draw prize to Ramesh J, Country Head, Sales & Marketing, Ralco Synergy

n Ajaya Kumar, CMD, Park Network; S Karthikeyan, MD, Bloom Electronics; and Alok Gupta, MD, Unistal, gave away a lucky draw prize to Vijay Advani, Director, Creative Peripherals

n Foxconn’s Fuad Carim and Siril M and Dhaval Valia, Executive Editor, CRN, gave away the Foxconn lucky draw prize to Sanjay Agrawal, Director, Mainframe Computers

n Suneel Agarwal, CEO, TwithSuneel and Shekhar Gawade, ASM, Asus, gave away the Passport Lucky Draw Mega Prize, a Asus AIO, to Sandeep Dhoka, Director, Ortek Computers

n Satish Villait, CEO, Bitsy Infotech received the Passport Lucky Draw prize, a Eken tablet, from Regy Abraham, National Business Manager, Aldous

n Alok Gupta, MD, Unistal, gave away the Passport Lucky Draw prize, a MP3 with wireless speakers, to Reeta Budhay, Director, Business Algorithms

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nRakesh Jain, CMD, Supreme Computers, mersmerised the audience by singing popular Kumar Sanu songs in his melodious voice

n Vipul Golecha, CEO, Prestige Computers, sang a Kumar Sanu song during the Karaoke Night

n Sanjay Agrawal, Director, Mainframe Computers, sang at the Karaoke Night

n Rajesh Maji, VP, Corporate Affairs, Albion and Sourabh Chaudhury, Head, Business Development, OST, danced with the belly dancer

n Kavea Chavali hosted the awards ceremony

n 13 different vendors displayed their latest products at the event

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the segment of consoles is still dormant. “The jury is out. Intel is pushing ultrabooks like crazy but the adoption is far slower than expected. Consoles are very static and are being squeezed by smartphones, tablets and home entertainment. Smartphones, tablets, notebooks and desktops are here to stay,” said Mannan. Explaining why desktops are still unsurpassed, Mannan said they provide the richest computing experience, offer the best performance, and are stationary, configurable and personalized. Mannan also gave an overview of the company, its products, and the market opportunities before it. Foxconn Nano PC: Fuad Carim, Sales Manager, Foxconn, spoke about the concept of the Nano PC which is gradually picking up in India as well. Carim set the ball rolling by first providing a company overview as most partners were not much aware of the brand. “Foxconn was established in 1974 by Terry Guo with $3,000. Today the company, headquartered in Taiwan, is a Fortune-500 company with revenue of $100 billion and 1,300,000 employees,” informed Carim. Carim spoke in detail about each of the company’s products, explaining the specifications, advantages and uses of the PCs in day-to-day life. He spoke about the company’s entire range of Nano PCs which includes the AT-5570 (a fanless AMD SKU meant mainly for graphics use), AT-5250 (also fanless but on the Intel platform), AT-7300, NT-I1250 and the NT-A3550. Explaining the advantages of these products Carim said that these devices are light-weight, green and save energy, besides being powerful and flexible. “They can be used in digital signage, as media centers or smart TVs. They can also be attached to monitors as spacesaving PCs, as well as thin clients for cloud computing,” added Carim. At the end of the session Foxconn also gifted its latest Nano PC to Sanjay Agrawal, Director, Mainframe Computers, who won it in a lucky draw. Asus future plans: Asus was the Associate Partner for the event. Vinay Shetty, Country Head, Component Business, Asus Technology, gave away

n Team CRN

awards for the category of Best Value Added Sub Distributor–Emerging Markets and Value Added Sub Distributor – Advanced Markets. He elaborated the company’s performance highlights and its future plans. “We are proud to be associated with CRN and it is an honor to give away the CRN Xcellence Awards to best performers of our channel. Our partners form an essential part of our business and we will continue to provide them the required support,” he said.

Karaoke Night Rakesh Jain, CMD, Supreme Computers, enthralled the audience with his melodious voice by singing Bollywood numbers. Most of his songs were originally sung either by Kumar Sanu or Kishore Kumar. Jain performed songs from films like Aashiqui, Border, Kati Patang and Yarana. Jain’s performance was much appreciated by the audience and he kept getting requests for repeat songs. Jain’s performance was followed by a Karaoke Night where other delegates joined in. Vipul Golecha, CEO, Prestige Computers sang a Kumar Sanu song while Sanjay Agrawal, Director, Mainframe Computers also tried his voice singing and humming a few Bollywood numbers. The musical extravaganza went on till 1 am.

Passport Lucky Draw Another attraction for the delegates was the Passport scheme where delegates were rewarded on visiting all booths. Those who got their Passport stamped by all booths were eligible to participate in a lucky draw. The lucky ones won gifts ranging from `1,500 to `35,000. Sandeep Dhoka, Director, Ortek Computers, won the Mega prize in the lucky draw—an Asus desktop based on Intel Core i3 processors running on Windows 7. Satish Villait, CEO, Bitsy Infotech, won a 7-inch Eken tablet worth `6,999 from Aldous Glare. Reeta Budhay, Director, Business Algorithms, won a MP3 player with wireless and rechargeable speaker sponsored by Unistal, Arun Managave, CEO, Aditya Peripherals, also won the Unistal sponsored prize. n

Organised by

FABULOUS MARVELLOUS MAGNIFICENT These are some of the words that best describe the recently concluded CRN Distribution & Retail Summit 2012, the annual knowledge retreat for leading sub-distributors, regional distributors and retailers from around the country. Our sincere thanks to all the sponsoring partners, delegates and speakers, without whom this wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have been possible.

Gold Partners ÂŽ

Exhibitors

Presenting Partner

www.crn.in/cdrs

Associate Partner

channel buzz CMDA IT Expo achieves new heights With 30,000 visitors, 100 exhibitors, and several innovative initiatives, the IT Expo in Pune was a great success

he Computers & Media Dealers Association (CMDA) Pune recently organized its 15th IT Expo from December 6-9, 2012. The event was a huge success with nearly 30,000 visitors thronging the exhibition and conferences. Nearly 100 IT products and services companies exhibited at the expo which had a total exhibition space exceeding 40,000 sq ft. Major brands that participated in the expo included Intex, IBM, Lenovo, Samsung, Sony, Canon, HP, Acer, Western Digital, Dell and Digisol. Intex was the Gold partner and IBM was the exclusive partner for the CIO Conference. Quick Heal sponsored the Technology Tracks while CRN was the exclusive IT media partner. Said Jayant Shete, President, CMDA, “The CMDA Pune IT Expo has become one of the largest events organized by a channel association in the country. This year we added several new initiatives including two

key highlights l 100

exhibitors; new pavilions created for IP surveillance and enterprise products.

l 30,000

visitors including 3,000 business visitors.

l Exhibitors

reported a cash turnover of `2 crore during the four expo days.

l CMDA

clocked advance bookings of `3 crore for the next year’s expo.

l Awards

were presented for best products, most innovative products and best exhibitor.

l Seven

tons of e-waste was collected during the event.

l For

nostalgia, a dedicated zone was created to showcase computers and printers from the 80s and 90s.

l CMDA

circulated its 2013 Members Directory to over 20,000 visitors.

n (From L-R) Deepak Agarwal, Secretary, CMDA; Jayant Shete, President, CMDA; Vidyadhar Anaskar, Director, Vidya Sahakari Bank; Deepak Shikarpurkar, IT Evangelist; and Ratnesh Rathi, VP, CMDA, during the inauguration ceremony.

n Vidyadhar Anaskar, Director, Vidya Sahakari Bank, speaking about the importance of partner credibility in the market

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n Jayant Shete, President, CMDA, speaking about the current economic conditions and the future outlook for the IT industry

new exhibition zones for displaying enterprise technologies and IP surveillance solutions. In addition, we organized 10 business seminars for SMB business owners covering various topics from cloud computing and business intelligence to marketing and branding. As a result, we saw a substantial increase in business visitors over the previous years.” The expo was attended by nearly 3,000 business visitors, including IT decision-makers from large companies and SMB business leaders. According to Shete, the exhibitors reported a cash turnover of `2 crore during the four expo days and advance bookings of `3 crore. The IT Expo was inaugurated by Deepak Shikarpurkar, IT Evangelist; Member, Governing Board, Maharashtra State Board of Technical Education; Director, Autoline Design Software; and Director, SEED Infotech; and Vidhyadhar Anaskar, President, Maharashtra Sahakari Bank

n Ajit Gokhale, MD, Mobien Technologies, talking about growing importance of mobile applications at the technical conference

n Ratnesh Rathi, VP, CMDA, highlighting achievements of CMDA in 2011

channel buzz

n (From L-R) Deepak Agarwal, Jayant Shete, Vidyadhar Anaskar, Deepak Shikarpurkar and Ratnesh Rathi launching the CMDA Members Directory

n Visitors looking at old PCs and components displayed in the IT Nostalgia zone

Federation, and Director, Vidya Sahakari Bank. Anaskar said that all Sahakari banks in Maharashtra will offer zero-interest loans to dealers who would be verified by the association. Shete said that the process will begin soon, and that the association will process a list of defaulters and share it with its members on the CMDA Website. He added, â&#x20AC;&#x153;A formal procedure for a tie-up with the Vidya Sahakari Bank will be soon initiated.â&#x20AC;? Shikarpurkar described the IT Expo as a unique platform to get the entire IT ecosystem in one place and discuss the future of technology to enable businesses and individuals. Here are the highlights of the IT Expo. Business Conference: This year CMDA started a new initiative to attract the business owners of SMB organizations with a dedicated conference program that talked about how technology can be deployed by small businesses to enable their organizations. It also focused on imparting knowledge of how to manage marketing and branding, and garner business intelligence. The conference had sessions on cloud-

n Suneel Agarwal, Marketing Guru, giving branding lessons to CXOs

based solutions for SMBs, a branding and marketing workshop, and keynotes on gaining insights by using business intelligence and how to make a business green in every aspect. CIO Conference: For the last four years CMDA has been conducting a CIO conference at the event. This year too the association had a strong CIO conference program with the topic, How IT Enables Growth and Drives Business; the conference was attended by 150 CIOs and IT heads. The CIO conference was sponsored by IBM; Tobby Zacharias, Country Manager, Inside Sales, Telecoverage, IBM India, delivered the keynote. Technology Conference: A separate conference program with 11 sessions was conducted to highlight new technologies, career opportunities and the latest technology trends. Experts spoke about cybercrime, cloud computing, mobility, ISV relations, software piracy, 3G/4G technologies, IP surveillance and information security. Awards: CMDA presented awards to the exhibitors on the final day of the event. Trophies were presented for best products in different categories, best exhibitor, most innovative products and best

n Tobby Zacharias, Country Manager, Inside Sales, IBM India, being felicitated by Jayant Shete during the CIO conference

n CXOs attending an interactive business session

enterprise zone. E-waste Collection: As part of its corporate social responsibility, CMDA has been collecting e-waste from businesses and individual users since last year. This year too the organization, along with its e-waste partner, Hitech Recycling India, offered these services at the event. Nearly seven tons of e-waste was collected during the event where buyers who gave up their old gadgets were offered a fixed rate for different types of hardware. IT Nostalgia: CMDA created a dedicated zone to showcase computers, parts and printers from the 1980s and 90s. This helped visitors to appreciate the technology advances made by the IT industry in the past decade and create more awareness about the evolution of the industry. CMDA Directory: CMDA circulated its 2013 Members Directory to over 20,000 companies and business visitors. 5,500 directories were circulated to corporates before the event, while 15,000 were circulated to channel partners, high net worth individuals, and business visitors. n

To feature your companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s events in CRN, send write-ups with photographs to editor@ubmindia.com

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channel buzz TAIT shines with COM-IT COM-IT, held in Mumbai witnessed participation from 100 exhibitors and 50,000 visitors including vendors, channel partners, CXOs and consumers

he Trade Association of Information Technology (TAIT) organized the fifth COM-IT Expo 2012 from December 13 to 16, 2012, in Mumbai. Inaugurated by Sushil Solanki, Commissioner, Service Tax, Mumbai, the expo was attended by approximately 50,000 people including vendors, channel partners and CXOs; and supported by 100 exhibitors. It was a mix of a conference and exhibition. In his keynote address, Solanki spoke about the benefits of GST. “GST will be a game-changer as it will merge all local and national taxes. The levy will be the same for everyone. If taxes were the reason why you could not achieve mass efficiency, things will change.” Suryanarayan B, Director, Sales, Intel; M Gurudutt, Director, Transaction Business, Schneider Electric; Raj Kumar Rishi, Director, Consumer Sales, PPS, HP India; Bimal Raj, CEO, Smartlink System; and Shoaib Ahmed, President, Tally Solutions, detailed the benefits of partnering with their respective companies in a discussion on Technology Landscape & Opportunities for Channel Partners in 2012. They also spoke about the green revolution and the increased acceptance of IaaS. The highlight of the day was a panel discussion on the CIO and vendor relationship which was moderated by Anoop Mathur, President, CIO Choice. Panelists included Subhas Palkar, CIO, Indofil Industries; Zoeb Adenwala, CIO (Global), Essel Propack; and Radhakrishnan Pillai, CIO, Super Religare Laboratories. Sanjay Mehta, CEO, Maia Intelligence, represented the vendors. The panel listed some Dos & Don’ts which partners should follow for a first-time approach.

The two most important Dos were building and sustaining a relationship. “When a CIO changes his job and moves to another one he will think of you as a possible partner for any new IT opportunity,” said Adenwala. Palkar said that relationships go a long way for partners who perform well, stick to their SLAs, and are ready to go an extra mile. Pillai pointed out, “CIOs are close-knit, and good performances get talked about. For a solution well implemented, a CIO can refer you to his peer scouting for a partner for a similar solution.” “Publish case studies,” Palkar advised. “CIOs are interested in reading about deployments, new solutions, and newer ways in which solutions are implemented.” According to the CIOs, a partner should route his calls through a landline, or send an SMS introducing himself and the nature of his visit. Avoid spamming the mailbox and keep going for cold calls, they recommended. Later, in a competition for the best booths, VC Kotak, Professor, Shah & Anchor Kutchhi Engineering College, adjudged Digisol as the Best COM-IT Pavilion; Intel as the runner-up for the Best COM-IT Pavilion; Arihant Info Solutions as the Best COM-IT Stall; Protronics as the runner-up for the Best COM-IT Stall; Krish Products as the Best Innovative Technology Exhibitor—Hardware; and Mipsum Soft Solutions as the Best Innovative Technology Exhibitor—Software. Summing up the overall experience, Pravin Dhoka, Treasurer and Secretary, TAIT, said, "COM-IT was successful, and we are happy with the footfalls. The response from vendors is also very positive and a majority of them have confirmed participation for the next year.” n

n (From L-R) Pravin Dhoka, Secretary, TAIT; Sushil Solanki, Commissioner, Service Tax, Mumbai; Champak Raj Gurjar, Director, TAIT; Rushabh Shah, President, TAIT; Ajay Parekh, co-Director, TAIT, during the inauguration ceremony

n Champak Raj Gurjar, Director, TAIT, addressing the audience during the conference

n Delegates attentively listening to the panel discussion

n (From L-R) R Pillai, CIO, Super Religare Laboratories; Anoop Mathur, President, CIO Choice; Subhas Palkar, CIO, Indofil Industries; and Zoeb Adenwala, CIO (Global), Essel Propack, at the CIO panel discussion

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shadow ram GET

Can HP fulfill the UP deal?

hile HP may have won the lowest bid for UP government’s tender for the supply of 1.8 million notebooks, a few analysts have raised questions over the bid. HP won the L1 bid quoting a price of `19,058 per unit while Lenovo quoted `21,500, HCL quoted `23,500 and Acer bid `25,500. “It’s a huge gamble HP has taken. If you read the fine print of the contract, there are several potential loopholes in the tender payment terms,” explained an analyst. A PC OEM who also qualified for the bid said that the price quoted by HP is too low and expressed doubts whether HP can fulfill the deal. However, HP’s Neelam Dhawan has reportedly said that the company is keen to supply the entire quantity. n

Personal

“I would like to spend a day with Indian soldiers” Suryanarayan B, Director, Intel, South Asia is responsible for sales in India and South Asia. He has more than 18 years of experience in the industry. Prior to his current position he was Marketing Manager, Server Platform Group, Intel. If not in the IT industry: I would have been an actor.

Arunabh Ghosh

Biggest Passion: Indian classical music.

Behind the wheels: Ferrari. Gadgets I can’t live without: My Blackberry. Weekends are for: Catching up with email and sleep. Favorite holiday destination: Goa. Hate the most: Waiting for the perfect plan for execution. Favorite Movie: The Hunt for Red October.

Total PC Protection 2013 Call :

098 22 88 25 66 092 72 70 70 50

Favorite Stars: Harrison Ford and Rajnikanth. Role Model: Dr APJ Abdul Kalam. Ultimate ambition: To help make quality healthcare available in every village. Wildest thing I have ever done: Went for trekking in the Himalayas. Thing I most want to do in life: Practice Vipassana. If I became the PM: I would focus on building the country’s Infrastructure. Celebrity I would like to spend a day with: The soldiers protecting us at the border. One person I would like to meet and why: Dr APJ Abdul Kalam–for his humility and passion for child education. Deepest and darkest fear: Natural resources getting depleted. n

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— CRN Network

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