Interviews

Increasing Quality Partners Top Priority For Satcom Infotech

Satcom Infotech
Vinod Kumar
MD, Satcom Infotech

Satcom Infotech, which has complete focus on the security software distribution has planned to increase the number of partners and vendors in the next fiscal. The company works as an Indian representation for few companies.Vinod Kumar, Managing Director, of the distribution firm, in an exclusive chat with Channel Times, shares the market dynamics in software distribution, double taxation, challenges in cloud and more.

Excerpts…

Channel Times: As a leading distributor of security solutions software, what are the challenges in the current taxation differences?

Vinod Kumar: First of all there is dual taxation of service tax and sales tax on software licenses. Lot of end users challenge the same and it is a herculean task for the partner and us to convince them. Secondly each state has their own methodology of handling the dual taxation. Some have a policy of charging the sales tax on the service tax also whereas some state charges sales tax on the basic amount. The lack of clarity leads to a lot of conflict and delay in payments.

CT: How many partners do you deal directly with in India?

Vinod: We have over 100+ partners all over India.

CT: What is your distribution structure?

Vinod: We operate from Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai and Jamnagar. We have dedicated support centres in Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi. We carry inventory of all models of hardware at our head office in Mumbai. We have demo stock at all sales offices, which are available to partners to showcase to their prospects.

CT: What are the products you are dealing exclusively, either master distributor or Indian representation, in India?

Vinod: We are master distributors for Sophos, GFI, Infowatch, Smoothwall and Wave Corporation.

CT: For those products, how do you bridge between the partners and the vendors?

Vinod: For our dedicated partners we are the face of the vendor. As a value added distributor, we take onus on product performance, pre-sales, post-sales support, pricing and all deliverables. Even with some of our vendors having local presence partners always have the choice of getting a dual level of sales and service support from the OEM as well as us.

CT: What is your view on double taxation in the country?

Vinod: It leads to ambiguity as well as increased burden in post order processing and filing of returns and also increases the overall cost of the product to the end user.

CT: Please explain the frequency of schemes and rebate programs you do for your resellers?

Vinod: All our registered partners who have undergone certification on our products qualify for rebate programs which are announced every quarter . There are variety of schemes which include increased margin on each order, special incentives for sales personnel of partners .

CT: What are the top three plans for the forthcoming financial year?

Vinod: Increasing coverage in India by adding manpower in the Eastern Region, to target on doubling the top line and adding two vendors and at least two dozen new partners in untapped regions

CT: Please explain your company’s performance in the last fiscal?

Vinod: We have grown significantly in this fiscal in terms of sales revenue, number of order, acquiring new customers and surpassing expectations of our vendors.

CT: Explain about the joint marketing activities you have for the resellers.

Vinod: We have marketing activities planned in advance for each quarter wherein an approved budget is ear marked for expenditure. This is available for various activities such as lead generation, training and certifications programs, sales and networking events , creating events for prospects of specific partners, participation in third party events by way of speaker participation, exhibition etc. Some of the activity is planned and done by us, some are done on recommendation of partners.

CT: Today, every software vendor is concentration on ‘all-cloud’. Companies like Adobe are concentrating more on Cloud only. Please share your view on the same.

Vinod: Yes it is the future and India is just gearing up for the same . Though it has taken some time primarily due to bandwidth and privacy issues the market for the same is going to grow significantly in India. Our vendors also have solutions based on cloud and we have already delivered and implemented few of those in India.

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