Flash Drives- SanDisk Provides Value for Money

One of the new segments added this year in DQCCMR Channel Satisfaction Survey is the flash drives. The companies evaluated under this category are the usual suspects-SanDisk, Transcend, Kingston, and Sony. And not to be surprised, the company that has emerged as a clear winner is SanDisk, followed closely by its competitor, Transcend. Though Transcend scores over SanDisk on a couple of parameters, the latter is certainly the channels' choice this year. The quality that SanDisk maintains in its product lines have fairly impressed the channel partners and that is why it has scored 95 in overall product quality. The company not only offers value for money to the partners and customers but also leads in overall reliability. Besides being technological leaders and providing diversity of product range, SanDisk flash drives are very user-friendly and conform to specifications. As far as marketing support is concerned, the company has been very proactive with its advertising strategies and point of sales material.

Though it slightly lacks in innovativeness of market development programs, SanDisk has done proper allocation of funds for marketing, has been flexible in conducting localized promotions, and keeps manpower at disposal to handle the marketing activities. Nonetheless, this proactiveness in its approach would not have been possible if it had not maintained a healthy relationship with its channel partners. It has always been consistent and effective in its communication with the partners along with managing disruption due to change in personnel. It is also consistent in honoring commitments made by its personnel to the channel partners. Not lagging far behind the leader, Transcend has taken its after-sales support to a different level and this has definitely gone down well with the partners. The ratings iven by the partners suggest that the services of the company's account managers and helpdesk are very competent and always available for the channel partners. Besides, it has a great ability to provide satisfactory repair and replacement services and excellent technical expertise to resolve the problems of both the partners and the customers. Channel partners have also endorsed Transcend's product pricing, the approach towards backend incentives and its settlement, and the promptness in communicating the schemes and incentive programs to the partners.

On the other hand, Sony leads the pack in providing online support to all its partners. There is not only the richness of online resources it offers, but the online portal is also effective as well as interactive to resolve the queries of the channels. Meanwhile, as per channel partners' feedback, the momentum is certainly lacking in the case of Kingston. As compared to its competitors, the company has failed to score high on most of the parameters of this survey.