Top 16 Distributor Chiefs of 2016

By: Anushruti Singh

Ankit Parashar

Mayank Shishodia

Giant online footprint can be seen all over India, but even today some things will never change. Traditional Distribution channel is popular even in today business scenario. Here take a look at Top 16 Distributor s of India, which are top of their world.

INGRAM MICRO INDIA

India’s number one or we might say ‘Shahenshah’ of national distributors had a good year. Notwithstanding, acquisition by Tianjin Tiahai, Ingram Micro India is demonstrating more traction. Entirely focusing on traditional business, in FY16 its revenue came up to 19,600 crores.

Atul Gaur, Executive Director – Mobility, Ingram Micro

India said, “We have a significant increase in our products and constantly upgrading our services. Overall, we have 2000-plus channel partners and 100-plus vendors in India. We act as a bridge between technology providers, OEMs and address customer needs via our capabilities.”

Even after acquisition by Tianjin, Ingram’s performance has not deteriorated, but has rather got better. India operations are clearly showing good results.

The company is endeavored to increase its portfolio in the cloud business. Ingram Micro Cloud is a new feather in its cap. Recently in October, the company became a distributor for Microsoft Cloud. Earlier to that Acronis was also added to the Ingram Micro Cloud marketplace.

"We are pleased to enhance the Ingram Micro Ecosystem of Cloud and differentiate our Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider offering with the addition of Azure to our broad portfolio of cloud solutions," said Jaishankar Krishnan, Senior Vice President and Chief Executive, Ingram Micro India. "By automating the delivery of Azure and making available the necessary resources and tools for transformation, our reseller partners have the capability to quickly build a successful Azure practice and deliver greater value to their customers."

Ingram Micro has 3.5 billion inventories worldwide and recently acquired a company, Aptec which expanded its footprint to Middle East and Africa. In the month of April, Ingram Micro also bagged distribution of most powerful phone, iPhone.

Ingram Micro has dived deeper into the education market by becoming the first distributor to partner with Pearson for digital learning solutions for resellers. Through the Ingram Micro Education Services (IMES), the company delivers education services specially designed and crafted by specialists to meet the customers’ needs. The company has ambitious plans on becoming one of the top commercial education centers in India.

Company also works for delivering competitive advantage to channel partners in form of Business Intelligence Center, which offers IT vendors and solution providers a number of customizable programs and services.

REDINGTON INDIA

In Bollywood, when we talk about the Director’s first choice, few names come on the top. When we look Shahrukh Khan and Kajol Jodi, Karan Johar is the director what comes in our mind. If we look teaser or poster of film directed by Kabir Khan, Salman Khan is the name what audience like to have for that film. And yes, when the film is fully powered with flying car stunts and Comedy and Starring Ajay Devgan, it is obvious that the film would have been directed by Rohit Shetty.

If we talk about the distribution model for Apple in India, there is only a one name comes in our mind, Radington India. Redington is one of the largest distributors for Apple in India. When I Phone had a decline in their global shipment and revenue in 2016, I Phone sales in India on the country grew from 200K units per quarter with the contribution of Redington. So we can say that If Salman film is going to release under Kabeer Khan Banner or Shahrukh and Kajol is coming in Karan Johar style, producers don’t take tension about the collection and revenue. Having the revenue of Rs. 13398 cr. in last FY15-16, company have grown overall both on top and bottom line by about 12% plus on the top line and about 10% plus on the bottom line. In India and overseas, company have again grown both top and bottom line India and overseas. Outside India has grown by 14% on top line and about 12% plus on the bottom line.

Talking about the proportion of revenue contribution between IT, non-IT and services for Redington by 2017, Redington anticipate the ratio of their IT and non-IT businesses to be at 65% from IT Div and 35% from non-IT Div. “While we would not like to rank our vendors since we consider all vendors in our portfolio to be of great importance to us, a few of our large vendors from revenue point of view (IT and non-IT), in no particular order, are Apple, HPI, HPE, Microsoft, Lenovo, IBM, Cisco, Oracle, Autodesk, Acer, Xiomi, Google and Samsung,” shared P.S Neogi, Joint MD, Redington India.

Sometimes Director keep on experimenting in different genre films with other stars and because of the experience and their excellence, films gets boom on over the audience. Like Prakash Jha experimented from Damul and Mrityudand in Social Issue and current issue like Satyagrah has been liked and appreciated by audience. Like the same, becoming a premier Cloud distributor, Redington is doing pretty good in this field too. Company has already elaborated on the Digital Transaction Portal. Neogi shared on the same and said, “We would keep upgrading this portal continuously, adding to its features and functionality. Through Redington Cloud Academy, we provide training and education to our partners to understand and commence their journey into the cloud space”.

“Our team members follow up on the training program to jointly work on a six-month cloud business plan with the partners and hand-hold them to start their cloud business activities. Our Solution Architects help partners not yet having in-house skills to discuss with their customers on transitioning specific work-loads to cloud. We are in the process of developing our Cloud Managed Services Practice to help our partners with Consulting, Migration, Implementation and 24x7 Support Services”, he added further.

Redington is transforming itselves into their extended arm to address the market as growing numbers of Indian customers start Cloud adoption in their IT usage for their valued vendors in the Cloud space.

On the performances of Nook Micro Distribution, Cadensworth, ProConnect Supply Chain and Ensure Support Services, Nook Micro and Cadensworth have been / are in the process of being re-integrated in to Redington as the specific purpose for which these subsidiaries had been created have outlived their utility. Talking on ProConnect and Ensure Support Services, Neogi added, “Since these are independent organizations, we would recommend that they address your queries to them directly and we would be happy to provide you with the coordinates of the concerned individuals in both the companies.”

Sharing the experience as the only VAD working with Autodesk Neogi shared, “We feel privileged to have been chosen by Autodesk to be their primary partner as they transform their GTM in India. It has been a unique experience to re-structure ourselves and re-skill our team to effectively carry out Autodesk’s new GTM, accelerate their penetration in the Indian market place and act as their extended arm and force-multiplier in the market”.

Talking about the future strategies in by Bollywood directors, Karan Johar is now focusing new verity of films. His newly produced computer-animated Bollywood film Koochie Koochie Hota Hai is going to launch soon. For Redington, company likes to work towards participating effectively in all areas line Non IT and ecommerce which offer growth opportunities. Company is focusing and appreciates the opportunities these sector presents, without disturbing the engagement and equilibrium of our traditional channel. The sales to e-commerce segment in no way impacts on their engagement and business with traditional channel partners. The product models and product pricing is fixed by vendors and in many cases the SKUs have differentiated specs from ones that company sell to their channel partners.

SAVEX TECHNOLOGIES

Giant online footprint can be seen all over India, but even today some things will never change. To buy daily share of vegetables, you will always go to a sabjiwalla, bargain for the prices, and come back with free dhania and some hari mirch. Same goes for traditional channel business. If a vendor has to set up its mark in the market, even today indirect sales is the right answer. Distributors are like bridge between producers and ultimate consumers.

But gone are the days, when a National distributor like Savex was only accountable for inventory and were considered as banks. In this fast track business world, they have to keep up with the shifting pace of the technology.

In the last 3 to 5 years, many distributors have emerged. They are playing key roles in market creation and development of channel financial needs for longer credit. They are working along with vendors; even competition has leveled-up.

Still recovering from the fall due to demonetization, one of the latest trends being noticed is; distributors are reaching in Tier - 4 and 5 cities. What this kind of geographical penetration shows?

According to Anil Jagasia of Savex Technologies, “Even today, more of the traction (in terms of revenue) comes from offline channel, we are working along our vendors, creating market, doing road shows and technical shows, moving towards upcountry market, because we need to keep up with the customer expectations in the world of online.”

Apart from addressing challenges and other traditional channel partners, online is still a little concerning black spot on the collar, distributors are bound to make a balance between the two. Jagasia says, “Online will be a meaningful pipe for the consumer in the years to come similar to what happened with the entry of LFRs a decade back. Though, we have engagements with most E-tailers like Amazon, Snapdeal, Flipkart and others. Our other presence is hpshopping.in which is the vendors flaghip store in the digital world. Here, the sales are minimal as the products generally sold are high-end products and that too at full MRP. We continue to be a channel company investing along with our partners in growing the market and penetrating newer geographies. We have a National presence with 42 warehouses and 86 sales offices catering to over 7500 partners across the country.”

While Samsung is the biggest contributor for Savex, the other major OEMs include HP Inc, HPE, Logitech, Microsoft, Lenovo, Benq and Philips, Ubiquiti and Pitney Bowes.

However, in recent months Samsung’s reputation has taken a beating, which obviously would affect business. Also, Chinese mobiles are bit shockers for business too. But Jagasia claims, “There has been no loss for Samsung and in fact they have had a record sale of phones in October, better than ever with many new markets opening up. There was no loss to the channel as the goods have been withdrawn before delivery. Its business as usual with several exciting new models is lined-up for release in the first quarter of 2017.”

So, with tumultuous ride in FY16, Savex’s full frame agenda is to focus on SMBs and adding on more partners, as one of the biggest challenge of distributors is to retain them.

HCL INFOSYSTEMS

Once the India King but now remain only Noida’s, HCL was one the best Indian Company who competed with many Multi National Companies but now only remains to a limited circle . Having more than 15 offices in Noida region HCL was once the ‘Kumar Sanu’ of Industry but now not doing that much. HCL Infosystems serves in four areas 1.HCL Infosysytems Ltd. takes care of Consumer and Enterprise Products Distribution   2. HCL Services Ltd. serves in Enterprises, Care and Global Services 3. HCL Infotech Ltd. handles Systems Integration & Solutions and 4. HCL Learning Ltd.

HCL Infosystems is having almost 3500 channel partners, including more than 800 deeply specialized enterprise distribution partners. Their Pan-India network presence covers 15000 cities and above 600 districts. They are further expanding the enterprise product portfolio with addition of leading international technology brands because you can take away King’s Kingdom but not his Regality

Q3 FY16  was not that much good for HCL Infosystems in terms of Consumer Business as revenue contracted to 20% because of the Weak demand environment for the product portfolio and sector going through significant brand entries and exits. Their was a slight flight taken by Consumer Business in Q1 FY17 as Consumer Business revenue increased 4% Q-o-Q due to Growth in feature phones segment and consolidation of channel partners but the happiness was not for the long time because again Consumer Business revenue declined 6% in Q2 FY17 due to demand in feature phones segment let down by supply side constraints.

But the story was not same for HCL Infosystmes in Enterprise Business, the Enterprise Business revenue increased in FY16 34% Y-o-Y on 9 month basis and 19% Q-o-Q and Enterprise Products Distribution recorded highest ever revenue growth of 72% Y-o-Y and 48% Q-o-Q and in Q1 FY17 Enterprise Business revenue increased 3% Q-o-Q because Enterprise Products Distribution recorded 5% Q-o-Q growth but Enterprise Services revenue was flat Q-o-Q, essentially due to rationalization of contracts. But god knows how it is effected in Q2 FY17 the Enterprise Business revenue increased 8% Y-o-Y but declined 15% Q-o-Q because Enterprise Products Distribution - revenue growth of 21% Y-o-Y but declined 27% Q-o-Q and Enterprise Services - revenue decline of 3% Y-o-Y and growth of 2% Q-o-Q

In terms of System Integration the condition was normal HCL Infosystems, In Q3 FY16 System Integrations the Key projects moving towards commercial closure, pending order book at Rs. 1,180 Cr

In Q1 FY17 SI the Key projects moving towards commercial closure, pending order book at Rs. 1,100 Cr and HCL Infosystems Inaugurated the Defence Communication Network project which is the largest single satellite network in the Indian Defense Forces, spread across the country; integrating communication between the Army, Navy and the Air Force

In Q2 FY17 System Integration: Valuable Digital Credential as we executed “e-PDS Solution” – Smart Rations

HCL Infosystems has a team of business development managers to support their channel partners. In terms of Pre-sales practice, they provide Mobility, Security and Device management. Their solution based Valued Added Distribution (VAD) structure extends support in all the stages of sales process. In the pre-Salesstage, they offer Consultancy Services, end-to-end technical support for quotations, Presales & Sales Trainings and Joint Customer Meetings. In the Sales Process - Sales & physical deployment of IT technologies: Installation, Configuration, Optimization & Logistics. In the Post Sales stage, they support their clients with Maintenance, Training, Technical seminars and After-sales support services.

Development of customizable enterprise solutions makes them a competent player in providing a vast range of services to the leading OEMs in technology space.

HCL Enterprise Distribution has partnerships with the leading global brands across the Enterprise IT space. They aim to be recognized as the first and most trusted choice for Principals, by strengthening their enterprise presence through our extensive pan-India network of deeply specialized enterprise distribution partner.

For example, this year they partnered with Blackberry to enhance their enterprise mobility portfolio to business customers in India and they are the exclusive partner of Microsoft for Surface range of products in India both for commercial & consumer sector. They have been associated with other leading brands such as HP, Microsoft, Dell, Fujitsu, Symantec, Veritas, Lenovo, Acer, LG, Toshiba & and many more.

COMPUAGE INFOCOM

They say India is a young and developing country. According to reports, by 2020 the average age in India will be 29 and it is set to become the world’s youngest country with 64% of its population in the working age group.

Many organizations are already enjoying the benefits of this young workforce and their talents in business world. Compuage Infocom, one of the leading IT distribution companies claims to have 85% of their workforce fewer than 35 years of age. Most of this belongs to sales and marketing department.

Atul Mehta, Chairman and MD of Compuage Infocom said, “I am not saying that people above 35 yrs of age are not productive. But, we are a sales organization and here most of the sales and marketing team comprises of young generation which is workaholic, thus giving us more results.”

This helps in enhancing operational efficiencies and organizational productivity. That perhaps explains why Compuage managed 23% profitability in FY16 on a revenue of Rs 3100 crore and Mehta expects an even healthier bottom line this year on a top-line growth of 15% to 30%.

That’s why, when demonetization struck many companies and slowed their progress, Compuage stood strong. “There was a very slight slowdown in consumer business in November while on commercial front I don’t see any challenges due to demonetization. I can say that business was normal and quarter will end in positive note Y-o-Y,” asserts Mehta proudly.

One of the important KRA’s in distribution line is to maintain cash flow and credit management, where Mehta claims that Compuage does not feel any challenges. “We are fairly, tightly administrating credits, right from the process of collection of documents and monitoring of collection of payments. Yes, sometimes payments get delayed, but it is fairly under control.”

Majorly focused on offline business, Compuage Infocom operates in across 650 cities in India with help of more than ten thousand channel partners. It deals in 30 different brands out of which, HP, Cisco, Microsoft, Samsung and Asus are major players in terms of revenues.

In figures, 65% of total revenue comes from IT brands whereas non-IT contributes 15% of the revenue. While it also has a small service arm which includes 51 service centers with 130 engineers. “Our product support service part is very small, in terms of revenue this arm contributes less than 2% of the total revenue” admits Mehta.

In FY 2016-2017, Compuage has turned in almost 7 to 8 new brands, some of which are Sandisk, Xerox, LG, Linksys, etc. The company is also focusing on strengthening roots into upcountry markets, especially in North East regions. In enterprise segment, Compuage has enhanced penetration and sales team in this space, with all the partners for better results.

IRIS COMPUTERS

The acquisition by Inflexionpoint two years back was a major event that fueled new growth aspirations for Delhi-based ND Iris Computers. Post the acquisition, the distri­bution business has witnessed major growth signs. Later Inflexionpoint embarked on X10 Financial Services, a new venture to tap the opportunity of channel financing to the partners in the supply chain industry through the wide network of branches of In­flexionpoint subsidiaries across the country. Iris is working closely with X10 to finance its partners.

The good show in FY16-17 was backed by im­pressive gains across all the brands. During the year, some large orders ranging from government enterprises to large corporations helped drive growth. Iris supplied twenty two thousand tablets to AP government (agriculture departmen) in a deal worth Rs. 22 crore and eleven thousand tablets to Shri Chetnya group for Rs. 11 Cr. It also supplied around ten thousand desktops to Kendriya Vidyalay group for Rs. 42 Cr and three thousand desktops to Telangana government Panchayat.

Another key highlight was some large brands like BENQ, Philips, Huawei, and LG joining hands with the company to leverage its relationships with its commercial enterprise channel partners.  The partnership with Dell for distri­bution of the company’s enterprise and end-user products and solutions was another feather in the cap for Iris which is looking at further strengthening its partner network.

Financial analysts rate Iris highly because of its established track record in the IT product distribution business in India, its well established distribution channel, with a pan-India presence and, the company’s practice of availing insurance against all customers. The ratings also factor in the robust credit appraisal and recovery systems the company has in place, which have resulted in minimal write-offs over the last five years.

Iris derives maximum operational and financial benefits from being a part of the Inflexionpoint Group, which includes new tie-ups with leading IT hardware product vendors, and funding flexibility by way of extended credit period from key vendor and group entity Dragon Tech Distribution, which together comprise the bulk of the company’s purchases. The promoters have recently infused ~Rs 7 crore as equity during Q1 FY2017, to support growth. Further, the company has adequate sanctioned bank limits, which have been enhanced periodically, helping it to grow at a CAGR of ~19% over the last five years.

Iris is although to some extent constrained by the highly competitive nature of the IT hardware distribution industry and the resultant low operating margins due to the presence of a number of large domestic and international IT distributors. As is inherent in the industry, Ingram’s operating profitability has remained stable but low at ~2%. Iris is also constrained by its concentrated vendor base, with the top three vendors accounting for ~67% of the total purchases (Lenovo, the largest vendor for Iris, accounted for 35% of purchases) thus exposing the disti to supplier concentration risk. However, the strong market position of the vendors and ICL’s long relationship with them partially mitigates this risk.

RASHI PERIPHERALS

One of the best National Distributors, Rashi Peripherals which is based out in Mumbai is doing a good job in market and competing very well with other top distributors in India.

Having 9000+ partners, Rashi Peripherals is covering 750 Towns and Cities of India which almost equal to the other top distributors and this vast coverage across India is the USP for Rashi Peripherals.

The top contributors in terms of revenue for Rashi Peripherals are Apple, Lenovo, Intel, WD and ASUS and Rashi Peripherals is also one of major distributor behind the high sales of these popular brands in India. Rashi Peripherals’ strategy is very good they cover almost all the cities across the country to expand their network for betterment of business.

According to status of Rashi Peripherals they have a very long list of IT Principles as well Non IT Principles and the names are ADATA, AMD, AOC, APC, Apple, ASUS, Belkin, Bose, Google, Crucial by Micron, ECS, Fitbit, HP, Intel, Qleadtek, Lenovo, Logitech, Netgear, Nexus 6P, NVIDIA, Plantronics, SanDisk, Toshiba & WD.

Rashi Peripherals is focusing equally for its each and every principle to establish them in market very effectively and to boost their sales as much as possible.

Rashi Peripherals is very well in their credit management systems and they have implemented SAP almost 10 years back. Hence there are no sudden challenges in credit management but business challenges continue always which is part and partial.

Biggest challenge in the distribution industry is the inventory, as distributor is expected to fulfill the demand of the vendor and also resist dumping on channel partners. In Rashi case further gets complicate as they have 53 branch offices with 53 warehouses. There is very thin line in between the two and so far we have been able to curtail and control our inventory.

They have the fair share in channel, GT-General Trade, LFR and Online. They have dedicated vertical catering to retail and they do lot of marketing activities to fulfil the demand and expectation of retail. Their team is capable of doing in-shop branding, product positioning and visibility, sell out schemes and also consumer activity for demand creation.

The immediate reaction of the market was that the sky has fallen however as days progress they all realized that things haven’t as bad as it appear to be. For consumer products November was slower than anticipated and December also will be slower, however they have seen improve business sentiments and business should get normalize in coming months.

SUPERTRON ELECTRONICS

Consistency is a must sought after virtue in almost every domain. Reason why Virat Kohli is a superhero in Indian cricket (played well in Australia, South Africa,  Sri Lanka and India); or for that matter Aamir Khan in Bollywood (almost all his movies are counted among the top box office earner and get critically acclaimed too).

Kolkata-based Supertron too scores for its consistency in performance amidst Indian tech distribution. Formed in 1993 with Rs 2 lakh as capital, Supertron clocked Rs 1647 crores in FY16. Even financial analysts like ICRA acknowledged Supetron’s consistent growth in revenues while maintaining profitability, by addition of new products to its portfolio, which has led to strengthening of the operating profile of the company. The increasing number of tie-ups with leading IT hardware, product and mobile vendors is expected to drive growth going forward. Increasing scale of operations, leading to economies of scale, along with addition of better margin products have led to some improvement in profitability as well; a trend expected to continue going forward.

Tight control on working capital has led to a healthy RoCE. The ICRA rating continues to factor in the established track record of the company in the IT product distribution business, and its strong distribution channel, supported by a network of intermediary partners, thereby enabling SEPL to have a diversified geographical presence and the consistent equity infusion by the promoters since FY12, to support the growth in business which has had a favorable impact on the capital structure of the company.

Like Kohli or Aamir, Supertron too was having a fabulous FY17, till it got derailed by the demonetization impact, though as per CMD V K Bhandari, the company’s pre-planning and H1 performance helped them turn the corner in December. Having targeted Rs 3000 crores top-line in FY17, by the end of H1 Supetron had clocked Rs 1480 crores and was well on track to meet its target. Demonetization has thrown in some spanner, but Bhandari is hopeful of an overall 30% growth in top-line.

“This year was very good to us specially the initial period.  We have targeted to grow approximately 30% and we are already on course to go beyond the expected. Demonetization was difficult time for all of us, but we have not faced any serious challenges. There was slight downturn for us in the last two months, but things are starting to improve now,” adds Bhandari.

Like Kohli’s favorite flick shot that accounts for a significant majority of his runs, for Supertron too Dell is its biggest strength contributing the maximum to its coffers. Other than Dell, Supertron portfolio includes servers, desktops, laptops, PC components, peripherals, memory modules and storage products with nearly 20 global brands including Seagate, Acer, Lenovo, Samsung, D-Link, LG, TP Link, ZOTAC, AMD, among others. There are constraints due to Supertron’s relatively concentrated vendor base, with Dell, Acer and Seagate cumulatively contributing to a significant share of the top-line. However, the strong market positions of such vendors mitigate concentration risks to an extent. Just like Kohli is continuously and consistently adding newer strokes to his repertoire, Supertron has added 5 new vendors to its portfolio including the likes of Corsair and non-IT brands like Gionee.

Continuing with the Kohli and Aamir analogy, Supertron has also looked at geographical as well as strategic and tactical expansion as well. Today, the company operates through its 37 branches (stock and sell) which were 35 earlier and 19 satellite branches in India which was 18 earlier with a robust network of approximately 10,000 retail points.

Though Supertron derives the maximum revenue from offline channel, it also has a strong presence in online as well. Supertron is in business with many e-commerce companies and with LFRs too.  With the recent Gionee addition, Supertron has also reached out to the entire segment of business operations.

SAVERA DIGITAL INDIA

William Shakespeare wrote 400 years back “What’s in a name?” In 2016, Kareena Kapoor and Saif Ali would be wondering ‘everything’ is in a name (as long as it is Taimur). For the Savera management too, it was the name that mattered in 2016 as the Rs 250 crore distributor (headquartered out of Mumbai and Kolkata) renamed itself as Savera Digital India from Savera Marketing, purposely to move ahead with the changing pace of IT industry.

The renaming was reflective of Savera’s decision to revamp its distribution structure and design a clear roadmap of adding Enterprise IT solutions to its portfolio. By adding more brands and product portfolios, Savera enables its partners to maximize their takeaways from the opportunities that Digital India opens in future. Savera feels renaming reflects these positive changes well among its partners and market.

In sync with its new avatar, Savera has recently expanded its profile and also jumped into the software category. “We are working on adding more niche products like IoT and cloud computing. Recently, we have added QuickHeal in the software category. So, we are continuously focusing by changing our distribution models and expanding our profile with this jump in software market,” informs Gopal Pansari, MD, Savera Marketing.

Overall, Savera has 13 brands as national distributor in their bucket like Rapoo, ViewSonic, Huntkey, Thermaltake, Hitachi, among others and 40-45 brands as regional distributor including Canon, Sony, HP and Lenovo. Other than QuickHeal, AsRock motherboard was a significant addition to the portfolio in 2016. In 2016, Viewsonic, Rapoo and Hitachi were the three top contributors in terms of revenue.

The shift from a traditional distributor to one with more niche categories (Savera Digital) in its portfolio is like Sunny Leone moving from her traditional forte and starting to act in hard-core theater films. And unless Ms Leone does not want to fall flat on her face (and other nether regions of her body she is more comfortable displaying), she has to make significant improvements and improvisations.

Likwise, Savera too has prepared to make significant improvements and improvisations. Pansari informs of plans already in place to deal in niche products along with the volume products and maintaining an ideal balance by creating different verticals for niche and high-end products.  “We are planning to deploy separate verticals for high-end products and niche products as well as we are making separate teams for all categories of products. We have done all the recruitments for the same and will implement from April 2017 onwards,” he adds.

When Sunny Leone wants to become Smita Patil, there are bound to be ways she has to look at expanding her range. Similarly, Savera too has looked at expansion, both geographically and even in its non-IT line of business. Savera Digital is currently spread around 230 cities in which they are catering to 5000 channel partners. The company is directly present in 16 state capitals, with 2016 being the Go South year with new branches in Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Chennai.

In non-IT category, Savera has mobile retail shops in Kolkata (including a Samsung café) and now focusing to get some more mobility distribution in the western part of India. Contributing 10-20% to the total revenue pie, this seems to be a growing lucrative area for Savera. Taking the Ms Leone analogy further, even if she plans to jump from XXX films to art films, it makes sense to keep an avenue open for Bhojpuri films too.

While the name change was indicative of future ambition, Pansari and Savera are careful to keep themselves well-grounded in the present. After all, 2016 had its fair share of challenges - demonetization has nearly annihilated the whole retail market leading to 20-30% of dropped business in the IT market.

Result: Savera has recorded 5-10% revenue decline in this period, though Pansari is optimistic that in the next quarter they will make up for it, once money starts flowing in the market again. Overall, while H1 of FY17 was good, a demonetized H2 might result in a conservative 5-10% growth overall for Savera.

CREATIVE COMPUTERS

With the declaration of demonetization on November 8, 2016, industries and distribution sector also began its thought-process to deal with its impact.

Similarly, one of the leading distribution company Creative Peripherals had a fall of 25% to 30% in business. Conditions are far better now, said CEO, Ketan Patel, “there was a slight slump in business in month of November but now we are rapidly moving back to normal.” Surprisingly, demonetization has also sorted out the problem of late payment which was the big headache for distributors; everybody needs earnings on time.

Today, distributors have integrated and directly linked to sales and marketing. Programs are designed to convert real-time sales and marketing projections into orders. So, to be in the real game, Creative Peripherals has also introduced Creative Business Partner (CBP) – a new concept of business transformation for existing entrepreneurs and start-ups. By becoming a CBP, person will represent Creative Peripherals in his region as the head of business including the leading brands from Creative’s portfolio. This program will enhance the partner in managing sales and business development.

"Relationship of distributor and partner is B2B and it is about both parties winning. To accomplish this, we have introduced CBP. Individual with a sharp acumen for running all-round businesses and are visionaries, who want to put themselves on rapid growth track to create massive businesses in new region can be CBP. We have successfully signed-up few CBPs to begin with and doing the business and planning to penetrate across PAN India with this program," said Ketan Patel.

Currently, with a family of more than 175 employees and more than 5,000 channel partners, Creative deals in Samsung, AOC TV, Transcent, Netprotector, Phillips and GoPro Cameras. Where IT and non-IT business split is in 70:30 ratio. However, it is said that the channel orientation has totally changed. There is no demarcation line in IT and non-IT channels.

One more interesting fact, changing lifestyles of public is helping in growing revenues of distributors. Creative recently added Go Pro successfully in its portfolio. And it is actually helping it to ramp up its sales due to increased purchasing power of Indians.

“Middle class income is growing, and purchasing power is increasing. More people are coming under earning bracket of median age. First month after launching Go Pro, we had sales of 2.5 crores and the next month, we are right on track after demonetization,” said Patel.

Creative has presence in 28 cities in India while it is planning to expand its footprint in North East part of the country. Soon, they will be opening some branches there.

MODI INFOSOL

Demonetization, the big phenomena like ‘BIG BANG THEORY’ has affected all business verticals in 2016. November was epicenter of this change business percentage was down to the ground.

Modi Infosol too felt the heat, “In November, business was affected, sabhi afra-tafri mai the, however, business picked up in December.”

Shyam Modi has a very different opinion about demonetization, “people have cash at home, especially middle class. After currency ban everything is in bank. My thinking is that people will spend more and in result business will boom” he said.

New Delhi based Modi Infosol is a reputed name in IT distribution fraternity. Sometimes back it initiated its focus towards make in India concept. Company has established their own brand AXL which has a wide range of power bank, pen drive and tablets. In extension to its brand, company has introduced three more products under AXL.

For more than 28 years, Modi Infosol is in distribution business. Revenue for FY16 was 160 crores, for FY17 - main focus area is to expand geographically. It deals with vendors like Asus, HP, Microsoft, super micro, Edimax, Lenovo, Acer, Vsnl, Samsung, Intel, Schneider, etc.

With fast changing pace of distribution model Modi Infosol is also focusing to expand its operations in different geographies and to increase channel strength. Shyam Modi, Director and MD, Modi Infosol said, “this year we have added some more vendors to our portfolio, and their contract will start from January 2017. Beside them, we are in talks with some more brands. We have added operations in Punjab, Gujarat, MP, UP, and Haryana. We are planning to add our office in South and collaborated with several vendors in East region.”

Working with more 400 partners, Modi Infosol’s main focus is to strengthen its channel and to promote AXL. Secondly, company is also focusing on projects from Government. “Our new focus area is government projects as we are expecting a good amount of orders of air conditioners for data centers. We are also continuously evaluating new products and services which in turn help us to reach out to new set of partners and geographies.” said Modi.

“We will also appoint more regional distributors, who will take care of local business,” he added further.

Company has a service center in Nehru Place – a well known for IT market. It gives service for Asus and AXL. Operating margins has always been an issue in bizworld. Modi Infosol is trying to improve sales and takeout more margins and increase more profitability.

SAKRI IT SOLUTION

Do you remember the famous jodis down the years, either from the tinsel world or from the world of sports? Starting from Laurel-Hardy to Raj Kapoor-Nargis to Jay-Veeru in celluloid to Yuvraj-Kaif, Sachin-Sourav and Leander-Bhupathi in cricket and tennis, jodis have worked whenever there is best coordination mutually, and the two play for each other and perfectly know the game of each other .

Pune-based IT distributor Sakri IT Solutions is also famous for building such strong and long-lasting jodis. It had Kaspersky as its OEM partner for years; and in February 16 this year Sakri IT Solutions and ESET had ventured into s new relationship. The jodi is going strong with Sakri working to promote ESET as much as it can and help to establish ESET in the Indian market in a strong and stable manner.

In last few months since the addition of ESET, Sakri has tried to consolidate its product portfolio. “We have added ESET to our product portfolio which had become the main product for us now” said Ravi Kantimahanti, CEO, Sakri IT Solutions. Being basically in the process of consolidation this year, Sakri is doing restructuring trying to find out solutions for businesses which are not giving bottomlines.

Looks to be a right step by Sakri of course in this period of demonetization when businesses are down.  New Friend ‘ESET’ will be in major focus for them this year, to establish the business and streamline things. “Once ESET will be established then we will focus on other allied products; for now we will now focus on Software and Security products”. The Key OEMs for Sakri IT Solutions are the one you all know, yes it is ‘ESET’ and second one is ‘Vintron’

Sakri IT Solutions has 10000+ partners directly or indirectly and focusing on Tier2 &Tier3 cities and checking out how deep can they penetrate to establish their products. The distributor is doing business both online and offline. “But offline is bigger market for us compare to online. But everything comes with its own benefits. Online give us mileage, advertising and branding which plays a key role in sales” asserts Ravi Kantimahanti.

Sakri is happy with its new friend and does not have any intentions to make new friends. In other words, Sakri is not planning for any expansion in business but focusing only on business consolidations which is a good step. The motto seems to be secure what you have in present and do not waste it in greed of more in future.

COMGUARD INFOSOL

The part of a Spectrum Group, Comguard Infosol is one-spot solution for all information technology needs. It started with a vision to improve information technology security standards in India. With the expert handpicked team and within short time span it reach on phenomenal heights. The company which was started few years back is now possessor of huge product portfolio and working as leading value added distributor.

Comguard Infosol maintaining the highest level of authorization in its security products with best-in-class partner, top-level manufactures and emerging IT security companies like Accunetix, Akansha Group, Array Networks , Content Keeper, Data Locker, DeepIdentity, EnGenius, Fatpipe, GateProtect, GFI, Ghangor Cloud, Infoblox, Kaspersky, Landesk, Nexus, NNT, Positive Technologies, Tridium, and Yealink .

Antivirus, Application Delivery Solutions, Application Security, Data Protection Solution, DNS/Dhcp and Ipam (Ddi), e-mail security, endpoint encryption, identity and access management, intelligent network solutions, intrusion prevention systems, privilege identity management, secure configuration management, security incident and event management, single sign on (sso), unified threat management, vulnerability management, web filtering and security, web vulnerability scanner, network analytics and monitoring, network performance management, end-user it analytics solution and fraud prevention.

Comguard Infosol has recently gone on-board with Deep Identity as its official value added distributor for stimulating the growth of their trend-setting solutions in India. Industry recognition and awards have come Comguard’s way for its discerning ability to provide value addition to product offerings while effectively helping customers to make the most out of them. Comguard Infosol has invested in its inherent strength in infrastructure, technical skills and customer service to create a niche space for itself in the product distribution terrestrial. This has given it the boost to expand its business into different states.

Deep Identity is a leader in the IT Space providing innovative, comprehensive & unique solutions to address Identity Governance. It is a company based out in Singapore, with its presence in Philippines, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Dubai, London, India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. It offers a layered approach that permits better visibility and controls, ultimately automating compliance management in a cost-effective manner. It provides business with the relevant reporting and analytics to improve IT security, maintain compliance and eventually minimize business risk.

Harish Rai - Country Manager of Comguard (India) said, “We are all geared up to show some good business to our newly added Vendor and I am optimistic that my team will pull it off this time too. But honestly speaking Deep Identity has some amazing products which is a must have in our high tech corporate culture and we look forward to promote it for its features more than for the deal we hold.”

Another key recent milestone was Akanksha Group Signs up Comguard Infosol as a Distributor Akanksha is Enterprise focused on Digital Enablement of MSME’s in the manufacturing, agriculture and healthcare sectors. It aims to help these sectors scale better level of growth and development across the world with the help of technological innovation. Akanksha has signed up with Comguard Infosol  – a leading value added distributor for IT security and enterprise software products as its Master Distributor for it Business Process Automation Suite for India and SAARC Region.

INFLOW TECHNOLOGIES

Inflow Technologies is a niche player in the IT Infrastructure Distribution and Services industry providing Value Added Distribution in Information Security, Networking, AIDC & POS, Infrastructure & Application Software, Storage Management and Electronic Security products & related Services in South Asia with revenue run rate of more than 1200 crores.

Inflow has a direct relationship with 40+ Global Technology vendors & is headquartered in Bangalore with presence in 15 locations. Inflow operates through 3 Business Units with total team strength of 262 including 24% technical (Pre & Field). The Promoter team members have a collective relevant industry experience of 225+ man-years. Inflow does business through 1350+ channel partners & one or more solutions is offered to more than 6500 end customers.

Some of the key recent milestones from the organization are the awards and recognitions received from vendors like Cisco & others. Inflow has also signed up with HPE covering the entire range of Networking, Storage & Servers. This has increased their addressable DTAM substantially. On the professional Services front, where our channel partners backline Security & Networking services, the distributor’s business revenue increases by over 100%

With focus on The DQ Channels, business increases by over 100% from more than 700 plus SME channel organizations, Inflow technologies is set to cross INR 10bn revenue in current FY.

TECHNOBIND SOLUTIONS

2016 is the year of specialization, in almost all domains. Be it cricket where you need specialists with 20-20 skills to meet the demands of IPL or in movies where you need to become a finicky specialist like Aamir Khan. Seem like the Jack of all is gradually going out of fashion. IT distribution cannot be an exception with TechnoBind becoming the first Specialist Distributor in the Indian IT channel space, in the space of data.

 Why data?

“Because data is one area which is not that much commoditized and therefore, there is a lot of scope in this area for distributors and all stakeholders like resellers and partners. As we all know, data is the area which is still exploding and the challenge for managing and handling data is becoming more & more complex. Furthermore, cloud and mobility are also adding in terms of challenge which means there is a lot of hope for technology vendors and technology specialists and this is the primary focus of Technobind by which we are going to market,” explains Prashanth G. J., CEO, Technobind.

 Has specialization worked in 2016?

Opening records of Dangal or the success of the likes of Hardik Pandya prove its success. Technobind too belongs to this category. The last 12 months were extremely good both in terms of revenue and growth whilst with skyrocketing confidence they are now planning to double their digits every year. “Our last year revenue was Rs 60 crores which we already crossed and we are trying to make it Rs 100 crores this year,” says Prashanth G. J. This sounds eerily close to Aamir Khan whose PK was the biggest grosser till date, and now Dangal is trying to overtake that.

However, while the world always loves to see the good results, what often gets missed out is the hard work one puts in to achieve these good results. No different in the case of TechnoBind too which is present in all the major cities – Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, and Hyderabad.  It has more than 500 partners across India. There is another presence in Singapore too which looks after Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh and other SAARC countries.

 What is in Future?

The top five contributors for Technobind in terms of revenue in 2016 are Commvault, Tintri, Infinidat, Huawei, and Druva. The first half of 2016 was utilized in consolidating the alliances they had over last year. But in second half they added two OEMs to its portfolio viz. Everest and AMI Storage. The most prominent was Everest in Enterprise Management solutions and also in Application Management.

Specialization or being niche often leaves one with the task of creating new trends and avenues for the rest. TechnoBind tried doing its bit in this regard throughout 2016 by actively playing a role in the cloud market. Not only it announced new business unit for Cloud, it tried to help partners to make their customers adopt cloud, whether supplementing them in terms of technology which helps their customers to move to cloud or supplementing them with technology which will make their customers more secure when they have adopted cloud or moved to cloud.

Technobind also supplemented skills to their partners to educate their customers more about cloud or to help them in anyway needed. Technobind also provided tools to their partners to move to cloud as well. While this sort of handholding is great, it also needs a constant monitoring to oversee whether the lessons have been learnt well. The proof of the pudding will be if Technobind’s cloud partners are tomorrow able to reach out to customers on their own.

RAH INFOTECH

Life just gives you situations; it is how you think or handle the situations which make them tough or easy. Let’s take God of Cricket Sachin Tendulkar. When bombarded with bouncers by Brett Lee or Shoaib Akhtar, Sachin never flinched or cried but rather turned it to his advantage by employing the upper cut over slips. RAH Infotech too has turned adversity into opportunity - when the whole nation was reeling under demonetization impact, RAH Infotech believed that demonetization will bring business to them.

Why does RAH think that demonetization is a ‘MAUKA’ and one can easily smash a ‘CHAUKA’ on it. Says Ashok Kumar MD & CEO, RAH Infotech, “This time of the year is good for us, because after government’s decision to ban 500s & 1000s old currency notes, people are submitting old notes to banks and this has suddenly increased the transaction rate in banks. This translates into more demand in banking solutions and will definitely bring business for us. We are seeing growth in this time of demonetization; banks will invest more in IT Sector for their betterment and this will be a golden period for us.”

Anyway, both FY16 and FY17 have seen solid and sustainable schemes from RAH Infotech; there was a 50% growth last year and RAH expects to continue with the same momentum this year. The company has believed in ‘Karma Kar Phal ki Chinta Na Kar’ and therefore has not been pulled back by any constraints. Their 50% growth last year came from Radware, Microtek, Forescout, F-Secure, Gemalto - truly ‘Hum Paanch’ packs a solid punch.

While these five are RAH’s old friends, like every man - it also needs new friends to grow. The new OEMs who came into the RAH fold in 2016 include Net South, WinMagic, Actifio, Data Resolve and Device 42. These new principles helped RAH increase its top-line by 5% during FY16.

Geographically, RAH is present in all major cities like Gurugram (Head Office), Ahemdabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kolkata, Mumbai, New Delhi (Regional Office), and Noida. It has also marked  its presence in the international market with offices in Dubai, Nepal, Singapore, U.K. and U.S.A. Rather than investing in too many areas and losing focus, RAH Infotech is not on online medium and also does not have any Non IT OEM.

Margins are always a challenge for every distributor so as for RAH Infotech, but big players always train before the game as ‘SULTAN’. A pre-plan, most of the time leads to success, if everything is done systematically than there is a less chance for error. “Margins are always challenge, we always put extra margins so that, we can manage things easily without any loss”.

RAH Infotech’s plans for 2017 are very clear; they will take several more steps in the field of data. They will try to add some more products in cloud. “OEM’s are coming up with the solutions, we are moving towards data for that we are building a team to manage” says Ashok Kumar.