Kaspersky refutes allegations of being ‘non committal’ by Platinum partners

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In a major allegation, some of the existing platinum partners of Kaspersky Lab, India (KLI) said that the KLI team and newly appointed national distributor (ND), VR Infotech have failed in honoring commitments given to the partners and their current practices were adversely hampering partners business. Kaspersky has strongly refuted the allegations stating it ‘exaggerated and misleading’.

Dhanesh Mehta, owner of the Rajendra Trading Corporation, said that during the partner meet held in Mumbai on 27th November 2014, representatives of KLI had given assurance that existing Platinum Partner status would be maintained and no new platinum partners would be added in the region. However, VR Infotech allegedly continued to appoint new platinum partners without consulting the existing partners.

“During the partners meet, Maxim MitroKhin, APAC head of Kaspersky Lab had committed to safeguard Sakri’s existing platinum partner status for next 6 months. However, commitment was neither honored by KLI team nor by Maxim. VR Infotech continued to appoint new platinum partners without consulting us”, Mehta said.

Mehta said that despite of assurance given by the vendor and ND that VR team would do business with the same platinum partner with their existing product line/SKUs, the ND did the billing to multiple partners without informing current platinum partners. Mehta said that in an emailed conversation with him, VR Infotech admitted that it had directly billed more than 10 partners in Mumbai for market fulfillment.

He noted that as per policy of Kaspersky, only one platinum partner could be appointed in each region and distribution would route through him. However, VR Infotech had appointed additional platinum partners that were allegedly causing disturbance in the business.

“This is causing disturbance to the existing Platinum partner base, thus leading to confusion and loss of reputation of Kaspersky Lab as a brand as well as hard working platinum partners like us associated with Kaspersky from long time”, he said.

Murali K, Director of Big C also said that Kaspersky did not kept its promised given in the meeting held recently and kept on adding more partners.

“There are almost five partners in Bangalore who are doing the same business. There is no MOP maintenance and not clear policy on marketing. I am there in the system and I feel that there should be only 2 partners in each region”, he said.

Another Platinum Partner, Pratapji, Owner of Madhu IT Junctions, said that the vendor had committed healthy margins on Kaspersky Lab Products as in the past. However, with VRs billing policy, margins remain same for a reseller making it difficult for partners make profit.

“Kaspersky has suddenly come up with a new channel policy which is not favorable for a healthy business. VR and Kaspersky Lab Team had committed to offer scheme to support platinum partners. However, there is no support for promotions. Their way of working is not at all suitable for us”, he said.

Ram Agarwal, owner of Pooja Tech said, “VR and Kaspersky Lab Team had committed for marketing funds for territory development. However, he has not got any marketing related assistance from the company.”

To understand their stand on the allegations by Mehta, The DQ Week contacted Kaspersky and V R Infotech. When contacted, Mr. Altaf Halde, Managing Director (South Asia), Kaspersky Lab, India, said that the way it was presented to the media and public was exaggerated and misleading.

“The way it was presented to the media and public was completely exaggerated and misleading. Kaspersky is 100% channel oriented company and always sticks to promises that we give to our partners. Even when it's not 100 percent in our favour. The promise that we gave to our Platinum Partners was related to the change of Distributor and it's main purpose was to provide confidence to all our partners at a time of big structural changes”, Halde said.

“It is true that we decided to remove one platinum partner as he was not willing to work within company guidelines. We had several phone calls, email exchange, etc. But we were not able to break the stalemate. Again, this had nothing to do with our promise of maintaining status quo during the time of transition. We very well adhered to our promise. 99% of our partners are still working together with us”, he added.

Halde said that the company was aware of the challenges related to pricing and working constantly to improve the situation.

“It is just a temporary situation and it's related to the recent distribution change”, he said.

The DQ Week approached other platinum partners from different regions to check the authenticity of the allegations by Mehta. Denying the allegations by certain co platinum partners, Naresh Arya, CMD of Unitech said that existing partners do not have any such issues with the new ND and the accusations are wrong.

“We have no issues with both Kaspersky and V R Infotech. They have not appointed any other platinum partner in Bhubaneshwar. We get all support and assistance from the companies.”

On Mehta’s allegation that the ND demanding platinum partners to contribute for marketing funds, Arya, said that the partners had not been asked to contribute for any kind of marketing funds.

Hari Verma of Sooraj Computers said that there was transparency in the working of the new ND and they have good payment systems. However, Verma said that there are less schemes from V R Infotech compare to the previous distributor.

David, Director of Ashutosh Infotech , said, “Some well wishers of the previous distributors might be spreading wrong information in the market. We do not have any pricing issues with V R Infotech and Kaspersky. Our sales have increased due to their policies in the last couple of months.”

It seems that there is huge difference of opinion among the existing platinum partners of Kaspersky which might be due to lack of proper communication and support after major business change. However, if not addressed partners issues on a priority basis, such allegations and counter allegations might affect the leading security vendor in the country.