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Vendor bashing, literally
Recently, the CEO of a South-based regional distributor (RD) took matters into his own hands (in more ways than one) when a leading PC vendor allegedly refused to cough up the distributor’s claim of Rs 35 lakh in back-end rebates and discounts that were pending for over 12 months.
Shadow’s sources revealed that the distributor physically roughed up the local manager of the vendor, and threatened him with dire consequences if the payment was not forthcoming. A few slaps and a couple of threatening calls later, the vendor flew down a senior manager from Mumbai to sort out the matter. Within 24 hours, a sum of Rs 10 lakh was paid to the distributor, with a written commitment to settle all dues within the next 30 days.
Naturally, when contacted by Shadow, the vendor refused to comment. The RD, while confirming that it had large claims pending with the vendor, also refused to say anything on the matter.
Other distributors, when asked to give their take on the episode, said that pending back-end rebates are increasingly becoming a big issue in the channel, especially with the growing credit squeeze. A few even defended the distributor’s energetic behavior, saying that vendors not keeping their commitments need to be taught a lesson.
Shadow doesn’t endorse violence of any kind, but believes that vendors need to be more aware and prompt to partner needs to avoid such physical altercations in future.
Resellers’ own country
Some leading IT resellers in Tamil Nadu (TN) are unhappy with their counterparts from the neighboring leafy state.
What is the cause of this unhappiness?
Well, the TN resellers allege that vendors are giving undue pricing support to a few resellers in Kerala, and also encouraging them to sell interstate. “How else can they bag large projects in TN without the support of vendors? Despite paying interstate taxes of over 5 percent, they outbid local resellers in four out of five large projects,” grumbled a TN-based government reseller who lost one of the projects to a reseller from Kerala.
However, resellers in Kerala brushed aside allegations of extra-generous vendor support. They believe that Kerala resellers are better deal-makers, and won the projects on their own steam by convincing clients of better deliverables and post-sales support. “Price-wise, the difference was only a few hundred, but the customer needed assurances of deliverables which our competitor in TN wasn’t able to give,” explained a Kerala reseller. |