A bigger product basket and a wider network were the two main attributes that helped national distributors grow in year 2004.

This was the unanimous opinion of the participating distributors at the recently-held National Distributor Conference 2004 in Mumbai. This unique event was organized by ChannelTimes and sponsored by Samsung India.

Business in the Year 2004 was one of the important topics of discussions. Giving his overview on this issue, J. Kulkarni, CEO, Redington India, said, "The IT industry saw a growth on all fronts. We realized that growth could come from new product lines and an important initiative was our entry into mobile business and tieup with Motorola."

"For us the service aspect is also very important. We have a separate service division that looks after after-sales support. We have service centers, which do not require too much working capital and contribute to a healthy bottom line,' he added.

Paras Shah, MD, Neoteric Informatique, highlighted the importance of going retail. "The vital thing is that industry on the whole has grown by almost 40 to 45 percent, with thw emergence of new markets. At Neoteric our concentration will now be on retail selling to large retail and departmental stores. Also, we shall see heavy investment in the B, C and D class cities.”

Another interesting aspect that came to the fore was the latest trend in business of depending less and less on government support, as pointed out by Raj Rathi, director, Cyberstar. “Businesses have grown exponentially, but the important thing is that more and more businesses have now become independent of the government,” he opined.

“We at Cyberstar have now shifted our focus to India from Singapore, as we can see big markets here. We are looking at a geographical growth for ourselves and also adding to our product lines. In India we started with four offices and now have added seven more, and in 2005 we are looking to reap the benefits.”

Rashi Peripherals is focused on providing better service to the channel and increasing its network. Said Suresh Pansari, MD, “For the channel, value addition is very important. At Rashi we strive to achieve that with providing 48-hour service to the channel and looking to make that to 24-hour service by this year-end.”

He added, “Also we are looking to increase our branches from 31 to 36. Last year the focus was networking and wireless, and we are going to grow that even further. Importantly, all business across all industries has grown and the effects of it can be seen on the economy as a whole.”

For Priya Ltd too expansion is an important focus area. Aditya Bhuwania, director, Priya Ltd, said, “Industry has witnessed substantial growth thanks to the zero-duty regime and I believe this should continue through to the next year too.

“At Priya we are stressing on reaching directly to the channel. We have, at present, over 2,000 direct and indirect partners across the country, and we are looking to increase that by exploring newer market areas. We have branches at 22 locations and plan to add eight-10 more.”

All the distributors agreed that the year had been fruitful in terms of growth and were positive about reaping the benefits of their initiatives taken this year.