|
|
|
|
|
Sun Rising in The East
By
Nirendra Dev
Mumbai, Apr 22, 2007
For long, eastern India has been designated as the laggard region in terms of adopting newer technologies including IT. But there has been a major change in the scenario during the last four-five years with the region making a bid to catch up with the rest of the nation.
In retrospect, it was only in the late seventies and eighties that militant trade unionism in the gateway state of West Bengal and administrative slackness in Bihar that kept corporate houses wary. The business establishments at various layers being the initial adopters of IT, the technology boom was only seen in hubs like Bangalore, Hyderabad and outskirts of Delhi like Gurgaon.
Our interactions with partners reveal that these changes are owing to many factors. The principal factors among them being the shift in the government policy in West Bengal, change of government and a visibly improved official apparatus in Bihar.
Augmenting all these is the Prime Minister s look east policy. The response from the channel from across the region is that there has been change in the policies of almost all the state governments for the better. In other words, the ground feeling is that the government functionaries know that they can refine the welfare of the people through IT.
Eastern India, comprising Orissa, Jharkhand, Bihar, Bengal, Assam and seven other states, has been lately witnessing steady demand for IT products and infrastructure facilities like networking, not only from the respective state capitals but also from the upcountry markets.
Partners like Pawan Kumar Agarwal, Datamation in Guwahati finds tremendous growth in demands for PCs, printers besides the proliferation of notebooks and digital cameras.
In fact, in some northeastern states there has been an overwhelming 100 percent growth and resellers are already talking about post-sales service, warranty replacement woes, etc.
In Orissa, unlike earlier, all three key distributors Ingram Micro, Redington and Neoteric have established their offices and people no longer have to run to Kolkata for meeting various IT needs.
Resellers in Bhubaneshwar strongly voice their opinion about the varying prices for the same product. It creates confusion in the channel community and there is also a possibility that some vendors are overcharging resellers in this state, they complain. This is more detrimental as Bhubaneshwar is a major hub for Orissa and any such issue will harm the growth of the business for further penetration in the state.
Among the products that are doing well in Orissa are laptops and camera phones. The brands that are strong in these two categories are Lenovo, HP, HCL and Samsung for laptops and Nokia, Sony for camera phones.
D-Link seems to be one of the preferred brands for networking although there are bigger players like Cisco as well. In the lesser known district town of Angul in central Orissa, the partners are able to push 40 desktops a month, the demand being mainly from the home and SOHO segments.
In effect, people see a general turn around in the attitude and as a result vendors are also pumping in money with greater emphasis on hunting for prospective partners. However, there are certain inherent issues which ought to be studied in their totality.
Recently in Meghalaya's capital Shillong, partners could not capitalize on a Rs 1.5 crore project for a microprocessor based traffic signal system as the order was passed on to Webel Mediatronics, a company owned by the West Bengal Government.
The biggest dampener is the payment cycle, and ironically the smaller the states are the more is the trouble. Some states in the region like Nagaland or Manipur are perennially in financial crisis since 1990 when the government of India brought in a significant change in funding pattern following Ninth Pay Commission report. "With the government of Nagaland it is in terms of Rs 10 lakh and pending for years as the state is never out of financial crisis," laments Guwahati-based Mukesh Singh of Anku Computers.
True, the channel cannot do much about it. But the industry and the government coming together can help tackle these issues and use the opportunity for greater IT penetration both for improving the quality of life by enhanced e-governance initiative as well as making fast buck by the vendors.
Enhanced focus from vendors on this region can enable the cities and smaller towns here to develop their own market and win new and retain existing customers. And I do see things already moving in that direction.
Under the Prime Minister s Office Look East policy the government is encouraging greater IT penetration under various schemes under North Eastern Council (NEC) and also eyeing to foster better working relations with southeast Asian countries.
Vendors are also moving in, even as I see partners and small time sub-distributors trying to leverage the opportunity by doing among other things, plunging into tie ups with channel partners in larger cities like Kolkata and Bhubaneswar. As the traditional phrase goes, there is truly a goldmine.
|
Disclaimer |
ITNation
(India) Pvt. Limited and its sites:
www.channeltimes.com, www.techtree.com
and www.cxotoday.com provide
Comments and discussion boards as a professional medium
for the various businesses of the IT industry to discuss
business problems. Gossip, personal attacks and unsubstantiated
charges are prohibited. Messages posted on this Web site
as discussion threads or Comments (Content) are solely the
opinions of their creators and do not necessarily reflect
the opinions of ITNation (India) Pvt. Limited or its sites
www.channeltimes.com, www.techtree.com
and www.cxotoday.com.
All individuals who post material to this web site are solely
responsible for all Content that they upload, post or otherwise
transmit via the Web Site. |
| ITNation
cannot vouch for the authenticity of the user or company
names or e-mail addresses associated with posted messages.
Under no circumstances will ITNation
India Pvt.Ltd. or ChannelTimes
be liable in any way for any Content, including, but not
limited to, for any errors or omissions in any Content,
or for any loss or damage of any kind incurred as a result
of the use of any Content posted or otherwise transmitted
via the Bulletin Boards. |
| ITNation
reserves the exclusive right to edit or remove messages
containing inappropriate language or other material that
could be construed as libelous, potentially libelous, or
otherwise offensive or inappropriate. Discussion forums,
bulletin boards and chat facilities are provided by ITNation
solely for the convenience of those who make use of the
service. ITNation does not endorse the products and services
or other offerings mentioned in messages. |
|
|
|
|
|
