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Aslam Z Khan
Proprietor,
Taurus Solutions
How big is the Panjim IT market?
The IT market of Panjim has huge potential. There are approximately 20 resellers across Panjim but only 12 are active in the market. On an average, resellers sell 400 desktops and more than 100 notebooks.
What are the drivers for IT growth?
It is the home segment that is the most dominant segment followed by corporate and education segments. The home segment generates 40 percent of the sales, followed by the corporate segment contributing 35 percent while the balance 25 percent comes from the education segment.
What are the buying trends?
Notebooks and netbooks are the most talked about products in the market. Our customers are very curious about these products. We have recieved a lot of enquiries about netbooks but people are waiting for lucrative offers or schemes for buying them. Even as this new category of products make its way into the market, it is the assembled PCs which rule the roost. The ratio of assembled and branded PCs stands at 60:40. Besides this, the market also rides on buybacks and upgrade offers from vendors.
What are the key challenges faced by resellers?
A major problem plaguing resellers here is that of vendors approaching customers directly. This results in loss of business. Also, these days’ customers are aware of the prices of most IT products and often make a comparison with the prices in Delhi or Mumbai. The margins over there might be low but the volumes are huge unlike Panjim.
Another problem is that of profits. Goa is quite vast in terms of geography. If an engineer travels 30 km for any kind of post-sales issues, we are hardly left with any profit. We want the vendors to address these issues.
What are the activities organized by your association?
We have a very active IT association, Goa IT Business Association (GIBA), which has been quite successful in addressing our issues. Most of the active resellers are members of the association. The association meets once every month to discuss various issues affecting the resellers. |