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Ongole, Andhra Pradesh
Ongole is a coastal town in Andhra Pradesh. It has earned recognition for the famous breed of oxen found here—one of the best in the world. This may paint a picture of an agro-based economy, but apart from agri farms, agri-business and food processing industries, many small-scale units for producing shoes, paints, pharmaceuticals, metal goods and hardware have been set up in the town. The industrial park proposed by the Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation will soon change the face of the town.
Being a small place, Ongole has spawned many tiny business outfits which later moved shop to big cities seeking growth. The channel community sees lack of skilled manpower and business entrepreneurship behind this migration.
The absence of software companies and big industrial ventures has affected the town’s performance. But it is catching up fast; the market now shelters about 50 dealers and resellers with about 200 computer installations per month. Lenovo and HCL are the leading brands in the town, and for the past one year the growing number of educational institutes has generated a huge demand for laptops among youth. Intel rules the chipsets and motherboards market. According to Koteshwara Rao, CEO of Ravisa Computers, general awareness is confined to TV ads, therefore people know about Intel but not about AMD. Assembled products are favored over brand names.
The demand for desktops and printers comes largely from the home segment, followed by the government sector. According to Vasubabu Nanapanenei, owner of Shah IT Services, the home segment accounts for about 45 percent of the market, the government about 20 percent, while the rest is shared by SMBs and SOHOs.
The district authorities have now decided to computerize all government departments; this has created a lot of tendering opportunities for local dealers. Though the government offices have easy access to big dealers in Hyderabad and Vijayawada, they prefer to place their orders with the Ongole channels for their quick service. “Earlier many large customers including government placed orders with resellers in big cities. However they faced serious support issues. Hence, over the last couple of years they have turned to the local channel,” says Maheswer, CEO of Ongole Computers.
No national distributor has a branch at Ongole; the nearest branch is at Hyderabad, Vijayawada or Chennai. A handful of the regional distributors like Lalitha Computer Shopee, Ravisa Computer and Inteli Computer source products from these large cities and supply locally.
The channels in the city are not contemplating having a local association to collectively address pressing issues like warranty support, product availability, etc. “In the past we have made several attempts to start a channel association but without success. With the IT market growing in the city and channels maturing we are positive of starting a channel association soon,” says Maheswer.
Profile
Rama Koteswara Rao, CEO, Ravisa Computers, Ongole
From Internet café to solution provider
Ravisa Computers is one of leading channel players in Ongole. The company has varied businesses including retailing, solution provision and tendering. It is also an authorized partner of Epson, HCL, IBM and TVSE. Its clientele spans government, home users, local hospitals and small businesses.
| Company Snapshot | | Company | Ravisa Computers | | CEO | Rama Koteswararao | | Year of inception | 1998 | | Products | Printers, servers, desktops, laptops | | Verticals | Corporate, home segment, government and hospitals | | Brands | IBM, HCL, Toshiba, Epson, TVSE, Compaq, Lenovo | | Turnover (2006 - 2007) | Rs 3 crore | | Employees | 11 |
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About nine years back Ravisa started as an Internet café with two employees. Today the company has a turnover of Rs 3 crore.
Over the years the company has built capabilities to execute large IT projects. In early 2006 it executed a Rs 46 lakh government project to computerize schools in the district. Under this, the company deployed printers computers and servers in about 167 schools. Impressed by Ravisa’s solutions and services skills, the government recently awarded it a Rs 1 crore project.
The company aims to achieve a turnover of Rs 4.5 crore by the end of this year. “We have an HCL exclusive store, and are planning to open a Lenovo exclusive store very soon. This year we plan to set up base in the neighboring Guntur where the IT market is maturing and we see good opportunities to expand our customer and revenue base,” adds Koteshwara Rao. In retail, Ravisa expects large opportunities in mobile computing space. “We are seeing a significant transition from desktops to notebooks,” says Koteshwara Rao. |