By Ramdas S
Brushing aside speculations regarding the termination of its sub-distribution program, Intel India has clarified that it will continue to evolve the Channel Supplier Program.
Over the past two years many leading SDs of Intel have dropped out of the program. The fact that they hadn’t been replaced for so long created a market speculation that Intel was planning to discontinue the sub-distribution model. Intel has however clarified that there would soon be announcements regarding new partners.
“The Channel Supplier Program continues to be an important element of our distribution strategy. It’s an evolving program that has helped increase availability of our products among many smaller partners,” explained Ashok Nair, Channel Business Manager, Intel, South Asia. “We do admit that over the past two years many partners have dropped out of the program for strictly business reasons. But we will soon sign new partners in Ahmedabad and Bengaluru.”
“We are constantly taking feedback from the market as well as from Channel Suppliers to further strengthen the program,” he added.
While there is a lot of interest among partners from class B and C cities to sign up as Channel Suppliers, Intel has not decided on expansion plans yet. “We are actively considering expansion options, but for the moment we will be sticking to the top eight cities. We are yet to ascertain the potential benefits of moving the program to upcountry, especially since our national distributors have a special focus on those regions,” said Nair.
He further added that measures taken by Intel to reward distributors for providing market penetration has paid rich dividends, as the number of partners billed directly by distributors has grown by 90 percent. “Today we see directly billing Intel products in over 400 towns across the country, which means our tier-2 market is growing.”
Nair also said that the overall turnaround on RMA has reduced, since Redington has started offering localized RMA support in all regions. |