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Amritsar, Punjab
Amritsar, located in Punjab, is home to Harimandir Sahib, also known as the Golden Temple. It is the spiritual and cultural center of the Sikh religion. The main commercial activities include tourism, carpets and fabrics, farm produce, handicrafts, service trades and light engineering. The city is witnessing a spurt in high-end residential property and multiplex development, courtesy the government's decision to set up a Special Economic Zone there, and the growing interest of real estate developers.
Channel Scenario
The channel community here comprises more than 100 active resellers, selling around 800 PCs per month. In 2001, 89 resellers joined hands to form Amritsar Information Technology Association to promote healthy competition amongst partners. Within five years, another reseller body called Amritsar Computers Association emerged. Last year, both the associations merged into Amritsar Computers Association, which currently has about 89 members.
Opportunities
Amritsar has a developing IT market and the demand for products is dominated by home users, educational institutions and small and medium enterprises that contribute to about 75 percent of the demand. The remaining 25 percent comes from the government and corporate segment.
Partners are largely counting on the education segment to boost IT growth in the city. According to them, wireless computing is the hot technology in this segment, with all eminent colleges already having Wi-Fi hotspots in their campuses. These colleges have made it mandatory for students to have notebooks on the campus. This has hiked demand for wireless and storage products.
Also the demand for laptops is growing faster than for desktop PCs, especially as a result of the mushrooming growth of SMBs in the last three years. According to Vikas Neb of Advance Solutions, “Mid-range laptops, ranging from Rs 30,000-45,000, sell the most in this segment. However, there is a small community of high-end consumers who dont mind buying ultra mobile laptops.”
Defense and urban development sectors regularly post requirements for after-market supplies, peripherals and maintenance. In corporate segment, many offices and even hospitals have deployed Wi-Fi networking in their campuses.
Challenges
Cases of theft in and around Amritsar have shaken the association and resellers are planning to tighten the security of their stores. There are about 10-15 retail stores in the city. In addition to this, the resellers complain that in order to empty their stocks, local dealers have started selling goods to end-users directly. As a result of which, resellers have to bring down prices in order to match the dealer-price, which implies running the business on zero profit margins. Hence, in order to ensure profitability, they have to depend on service and support.
Partner Profile
Vikas Neb,
Joint MD,
Advance Solutions
Two is a company
Teaching was a passion for the two fresh graduates—Vikas Neb and Manish Kandhar. They started coaching students on software like FoxPro and Visual Basic. Giving vent to their entrepreneurial zeal, the duo launched a formal computer training institute called Advance Solutions in a small room with merely two computers in 1997. Their hard work and perseverance paid off and within a year expanded to a bigger office with more than 50 computer nodes.
Company Snapshot | | Company | Advance Solutions | | CEO | Vikas Neb | | Year of Inception | 1997 | | Brands | HP, LG, Canon,
D-link, Seagate, Intel, Gigabyte | Primary Business | Reseller and sub-distributor | | Employees | 17 | Turnover in 2007 | Rs 5.5 crore |
Computer training no longer interests Neb. "In our business, we learnt to diversify and move ahead with it. We kept on evolving from a training center to software developer, to hardware reseller and lastly to a solution provider," says Neb. While Neb takes care of service and solutions, Kandhar handles sales and marketing.
Today Advance Solutions has transformed into one of the city's leading retailer and ASP owning a three-storey plaza. The ground floor is a format store, the first floor is the service center and the top floor is a store room/warehouse.
The company, in association with clients like OCM, a garment brand had also developed various accounting packages for SMBs.
Advance Solutions also redistributes hardware to more than 100 resellers. About 70 percent of the revenue comes from reselling to end-user, corporate and government and the remaining from sub-distribution. It is a premium partner for Seagate and Intel and exclusive sub-distributor in Amritsar region for Canon, Microsoft, D-link and LG.
With specialization in networking, the company recently successfully deployed Wi-Fi in three buildings of the Cancer Charity Hospital of Amritsar. It maintains a team of 13 engineers, who have individual certifications from D-link.
Advance Solutions has seen a growth of 30-40 percent in its business. Neb and his partner plan to venture into the solutions space. Encashing their good-will in the government and corporate segment, they aim to succeed as solution providers. |