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Ramesh Nashi
Proprietor,
Infonet Computer Systems
How big is the Belgaum IT market?
The potential of Belgaum IT market is huge with about 50 active resellers doing regular business. On an average, a reseller is able to sell 50 desktops and about 15 notebooks in a month. The growth has been considerable over the last couple of years with the growth rate being around 85 percent.
What are the drivers for IT growth?
The IT business has been fairly good here. Though the market is dominated by the home segment, there are a number of industrial establishments driving the demand. Also, the emergence of engineering colleges in and around Belgaum is helping the growth of IT business. Overall, the home segment constitutes about 40 percent of the entire market while the rest is contributed by the corporate and education segments.
What are the buying trends?
Apart from peripherals, the demand for notebooks is also increasing. Since the price barrier is reducing, there is a possibility that consumers who are a little tech-savy and looking to buy a desktop can be persuaded to invest in notebooks by resellers.
What are the key challenges faced by resellers?
Post sales service is the main problem here. Vendors like AOC take more than 15 days in providing support. This automatically results in loss of business. Other than HP and Lenovo, none of the vendors have a service centre here.
We do not get any kind of training from the vendors nor have they conducted any channel meet for the past eight months. We do not even receive any information about new products introduced by vendors. It would really help us if vendors take the initiative to train and educate us on new products and technologies.
What are the activities organized by your association?
We had an association under the name of Belgaum Information Technology Association but it is defunct currently. Earlier, we used to have meetings at least once in 15 days but of late, none of the members have time for the association. |