Sambalpur, Orissa
Sambalpur is an ancient town mentioned in the book of Ptolemy (2nd century CE) as ‘Sambalaka’ situated on the left bank of the river ‘Manada,’ now known as Mahanadi. Sambalpur is the divisional headquarters of the northern administrative division of the state, and a very important commercial and educational center. It is also the headquarters of Sambalpur district. The town derives its name from Goddess Samleswari who is regarded as the reigning deity of the region. Places like the world famous Hirakud Dam, its lake with the winged winter visitors from Siberia, and the leaning Temple of Huma attract tourists.
The present situation of the IT sector and the local channel partners is a mixed one. In a certain way it is quite promising since there is growing IT consciousness among the local population. They are realizing that owning a PC is now a necessity. There is good demand from students and educational institutes.
Besides, there are many steel and iron ore industries coming up in the city like Vedanta Alumina, Bhusan Steels and Aditya Alumina. These are giving a boost to the economy. The growing size of the corporate sector in the city will bring enormous opportunities for local channel partners, and foreign investment in the state will boost the IT sector.
There are more than 20 partners in Sambalpur district who are serving the local demand from the home, government and education sectors. The assembled desktop market is quite large, but now the local customers are demanding more of branded desktops and laptops. HP, Compaq, Lenovo, HCL and Wipro are the brands which are selling the most.
 | Pawan Joshi, Proprietor,
Computer Books & Software |
Says Pawan Joshi, proprietor, Computer Books & Software, who started his IT business in Sambalpur in 1999, “Being in this IT trade for more than eight years I have seen that a partner’s graph is not on the upside. The major drawback of our district is that vendors and national distributors don’t give us enough attention. Traditionally, the eastern part of India has always been neglected by the big multinational IT/BPO companies. Due to that we local partners have been suffering. But over the years the situation has improved. Companies like HP, LG, Wipro, HCL, Epson and Lenovo are setting up their infrastructure in the state, and have appointed their regional and national distributors in Bhubaneshwar, but being more than 300 km away from the state capital we face several issues related to service and replacement of products.”
Joshi said that the majority of channel partners are working toward becoming value-added service providers. Currently, most of the channel partners are doing PC integration, networking and AMC.
States Anup Agrawal, owner of Nexgen Communications, “Last year our turnover was Rs 5 crore, and this year we are betting for close to Rs 8 crore. With the advent of iron and steel factories in the city, we are quite eager to work for the corporate sector in the coming days. Recently we have done the implementation of wireless networking at Sambalpur University and a local NGO office. For networking we are using Cisco and Netgear products.”
Last year saw the establishment of the local Samaleswari IT Association (SITA), which is also an active member of the Bhubaneshwar-based IT Association of Orissa. Informs Joshi, who is also an incumbent secretary of SITA, “SITA has 20 members on board; the ground situation of channel partners is not so healthy. The growing differences between vendors and local partners is calling for quick attention. The factors affecting channel business are growing internal competition, increased price undercutting by distributors, and lack of clear price protection policies by vendors. Also the reduction in credit period recently and warranty issues have hampered industry growth. Vendors are not honoring the sale date of the dealer for warranty.”
Despite so many issues, Joshi is hopeful that if service centers of major brands open locally, it will boost growth. Says he, “We sell a notebook (adding a margin of Rs 1,000) to the customer, who compares the price with the Bhubaneswar market and finds it costly. But the after-sales-service culture of the Bhubaneswar market and the Sambalpur market is totally different. In Bhubaneswar, a dealer’s job is over after selling the product, but in Sambalpur it doesn’t end till the warranty period is over. We have to give a hundred bucks to the courier for up & down service for one notebook to the Bhubaneswar service center and back since all the major service centers and national distributors are situated over there.”
The association is also creating IT awareness and appraising local partners with upcoming technologies.
The need of the hour is to get new Indian and MNC hardware and software companies to enter the state and directly embark a on a dialog with local channel partners. |