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Sanjay Kumar Biswal
Proprietor,
Xcel IT Care
How big is Balasore’s IT market?
Being a small city, Balasore has a small channel community that comprises 13 active resellers—each selling nearly 150 PCs per month. Despite the slowdown, the city has witnessed a 35 percent growth in demand.
What are the drivers for IT growth?
The home segment dominates demand for IT products, contributing over 60 percent. The educational segment contributes 20 percent, corporate 10 percent, and government 10 percent of the total demand.
The city houses a large number of manufacturing companies including Birla Nuvo, Solar Park, JSW, Birla Tyres and Balasore Alloys, but their demands don’t aid IT growth as most of them source products from their headquarters located in metros.
On government front, the DRDO and several state economic development boards look at fulfilling their demands through tenders.
What are the buying trends?
Among home users and students, notebooks continue to outpace desktops. The notebook to desktop sale ratio is 70:30. Home users also demand for peripherals and lifestyle products like MP3 players, digital cameras and home theater systems. We have also witnessed a shift in consumer’s demand from assembled to branded products. The ratio of assembled to branded products is 60:40.
The corporate segment is fuelling the demand for desktops, notebooks, networking products like routers and high-speed cables and enterprise products like servers. Some of the smaller manufacturing units, which are already using computers, are now investing in networking, connectivity solutions and business applications like ERP.
What are the key challenges for resellers?
Over the last two to three years, the city has witnessed a rise in the number of partners. This has led to an increase in competition. The margins have become meager due to the cut-throat competition in every segment. Post-sales support is another major problem as most of the service centers are present in Bhubaneswar.
What are the activities organized by the city’s IT association?
While Balasore IT Association has been defunct for over a year, the resellers are planning to start an association for the city. |