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www.dqweek.comJan 28-Feb 3, 2013The DQ Week2 F o c u s — c o m pa s s & G c av e n u e

Kolkata partners court retail agressivelyavisheK RaKshitKolkata, January 23

Of the different prominent channel tiers in both upcountry and metro locations, retail

segment has emerged as the most prominent one spinning the largest bottomline for the partners involved in retail. The topline, however, still remains with the distribution houses because of the sheer capacity of volume.

The retail market in Kolkata, accord-ing to The DQ Week grew by anywhere between 14 – 18% in the last fiscal thanks to some prominent retailers making it big in their trade and revis-ing the modus operandi according to the need of the hour. Prominent players like Eastern Logica, Computer Exchange, Lalani Infotech and Saboo Computers have led the retail move-ment and most of the channel players are focusing on retail, either through expansion of counters and branches or by tuning their existing business model according to the demands of the retail segment.

eastern logica ventures into retail telecom

avisheK RaKshitKolkta, January 23

Eastern Logica Infoway Ltd (ELIL) has been one of the strongest and prominent players in the eastern retail and distribution segment since

its inception in 2009. Formerly part of the Eastern Group of Companies, ELIL had posted a remarkable 30% y-o-y growth with its distribution as well as retail segments.

ELIL, however, has pulled up its sleeves with the major brands like Lenovo, Samsung, Sony and Seagate featuring as the top priorities for the company. Lenovo, as usual, accounted 34% of its total revenue with Samsung taking up ̀ 21.12 crore. However, ELIL has now ventured into retail segment only with Lenovo with its main laptop distribution principal being the Vaio product range from Sony. Samsung also featured as a prominent player with its portfolio.

“Our experiment with Samsung monitors got us a higher topline with ELIL becoming the highest seller of Samsung monitors in the east besides its retail award from Microsoft for being the winner of the Microsoft Software Campaign series. ELIL bills 60% of total Samsung monitors in West Bengal making it a preferred partner for the vendor in the east,” said Gaurav Goel, MD, ELIL.

Recently, the company has ventured into the retail telecom space with an ambitious plan to reach `250 crore by FY2013.

“We have been distributing HCL tabs which is a mix of the telecom as well as IT space as tabs nei-ther fall in the pure mobile phone based segment, neither it is a pure IT product and have met with considerable success. Also, nowadays customers want outlets to have a complete range of electronics products and so we thought of venturing into the telecom space,” said Sundeep Mishra of ELIL.

The new outlet is featuring an entire range of phones of major brands but the company is focus-sing on the high-end smartphone models and will be entering the distribution segment in the smartphone range only.

“Talks are on with major vendors and princi-pals over tie-ups which I think will be finalised by January-end. We have a strong presence in West Bengal whereby we bill to 290 outlets which are all potential cellphone partners for us and so, we have a huge opportunity in telecom distribution”, Mishra added.

Logica Telecom is expecting to reap at least `8 crore from the retail telecom segment and another `25 crore annually from the forthcoming telecom distribution venture.

gaurav goel, Md, elil

gC avenue, Kolkata

sunstrike telecom builds it channel for

tabletssandhya MalhotRaNew Delhi, January 11

Delhi based Sunstrike Telecom, a subsidiary of Hong-Kong based Sunstrike International, is looking to take the channel route in a bid

to tap the burgeoning tablet market in India. The company has recently launched its Optima Smart brand tablet and accessories including power banks and portable speakers for the various market verticals.

Sunstrike International is a renowned global telecom distributor for handset makers like Apple, Motorola and LG, tablets and flash drive providers. Sunstrike International has its operations across the globe including, India, US, Miami, Hong Kong, London, Shenzen, Toronto.

In India, the company has two of its own brands—Rage mobile phones and recently launched IT prod-uct Optima Smart tablets and accessories, which are catering to telecom and IT channels.

The company is already in the field of telecom and selling 1.5 lakh Rage mobile phones per month in rural and semi urban India. With Optima Smart tablet, it will tap India and Sub-Continental market through its IT channel, a channel which has not been yet taken fully by any other tablet players. In the first phase of expansion, the IT products will be majorly driven by IT and shortly it will be available to the telecom channels as well.

With the introduction of tablets, presently, the company is in the process of building its robust IT channel partners, and at the same time it will also be available to telecom channel, when all the models of tablets will be completely launched by end of this month.

The company is headed by Capt Chanpreet Singh, MD. To cater to the IT channel, the company has recently appointed Sanjeev Soni as director, sales, IT. Soni has more than 16 years of solid experience in IT industry. He has worked at various IT distribution houses.

Speaking to The DQ Week, Soni talked about their go-to-market strategy. He said, “We are looking to appoint IT channel partners to distribute our tablets in the market. To begin with we will be taking regional distribution model. We are likely to complete our chan-nel building exercise by end of this quarter. We are in talks with regional distributors to appoint in state like Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan followed by southern and western regions by the end of February. As of now nobody is looking at this IT channel, therefore, we want to establish our brand as the most preferred tablet vendor in the IT channel distribution.”

Sunstrike has already appointed its regional distributors for eastern region and Delhi and Haryana market. The company has initiated its alliance with Kolkata based Savera Mar-keting, and for Delhi and Haryana region, it was roped in Delhi based Exclusive Systems and will have a twin tier distribution struc-ture in place to cater IT retailers.

The company will be appointing one-two regional distributors in major A-class cit-ies and looking to have 100-150 IT retail-ers in each city. The company has recently

launched its calling tablet—V tab and W tab. It will also launch its third model of Optima tablet in the coming month. Apart from tablets, the company is planning to roll out other product category like smartphones and hybrid mobile devices. For the distribution of forthcoming products, it may appoint national distributor.

Besides, its own brand, the company does distri-bution business for Strontium memory and USB, Sandisk, and recently, it has been appointed by Philips as exclusive distributor for micro SD cards and USB. The company has a team of 150 people and has 17 branch offices across India.

“Presently, most of the products which we have launched are at testing level and waiting for market response. The company wants to position its tablet as quality and affordable pricing to the consumer. It will be soon start its marketing activities next month and also in the process of selecting online distribu-tors, who will be focusing at 30-40 portals,” Soni explained.

On the service support front, the company has 387 franchises centers and 8 owned repair centers.

According to Singh, “Currently, our mobile phone gets distributed by 150 telecom partners, but for our tablets our plan is to first cover IT channels at the same time we are talking to our existing telceom chan-nel, we may start tapping telecom channels when our entire range of tablets models will be available by end of this quarter.”

Sunstrike has already appointed its regional distributors for eastern region and Delhi and Haryana market. The company has initiated its alliance with Kolkata based Savera Marketing, and for Delhi and Haryana region, it was roped in Delhi based Exclusive Systems sanjeev soni , director, sales, it, sunstrike telecom

n e w s F o c u s — c o m pa s s & G c av e n u e 3www.dqweek.comJan 28-Feb 3, 2013

The DQ Week

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www.dqweek.comJan 28-Feb 3, 2013The DQ Week4 F o c u s — c o m pa s s & G c av e n u e

www.dqweek.comJan 28-Feb 3, 2013

The DQ Week 5“Compass has been a very strong association”

avisheK RaKshitJanuary 23, Kolkata

You have been a very senior member of Compass. How have you seen the modus operandi of Compass and the IT market evolving over the past 5 years?

Compass is a very progressive association and we have been very successful in helping the IT trading industry to mature. Five years back, one of the key focus for Compass was developing the trade as IT was in a budding stage. Previously, we needed to guide as well as educate the customers or the target users about adop-tion of IT and benefits of the gadgets. Now, customers and the IT industry have matured and Compass now needs to address present concerns of the trade. I think development of the channel eco-system is crucial and we need to take up more responsibility towards the development of trade in eastern India. Also, we need to ensure that the system becomes smoother and we can increase membership.

Over the past 3 years, according to you, what has been the three most prominent activities undertaken by Compass?

In the first place, the efficacy of the Grievance Cell and the functioning system of the same has been praiseworthy. We have successfully evolved the Grievance Cell which not only takes up concerns from channel tiers and mem-bers but includes complaints from principal and vendors alike. It is very interesting to note that the solution reached upon by the Grievance cell is amicable in nature and is not forced upon.

The second activity has been the expos from which we are able to generate not only revenues but it serves as a marketing and promotional activity too. I appreci-ate the way the expos are conducted and how we have been successful enough to help the IT market gain more maturity.

In the third place, Compass has been instrumental in framing inter-association activities and has pioneered the cause for CIITA. CIITA has helped achieve unity in channels not only in Bengal but across east India. Compass

can help other markets mature and with a unified goal in mind, Compass has facilitated the point of convergence for IT issues as well as formation of generalistic goals though CIITA.

You are a ex-president of Compass. What is your advice to the current president?

My only advice to the current president is to enhance communication among the members and be member-friendly. He needs to be proficient in communicative activities and be more responsive to members.

What is your key suggestion to Compass to improve its strength in the coming years?

Compass has been a very strong association. I want to see more activities like carnivals and festive season events being organised which will boost trading. As mentioned earlier, we have been successful in helping the market mature now with a mature market in hand, we need to focus on leveraging our strengths and convert the maturity level into effective sales.

Alok Garodia, ex-president, COMPASS speaks about how the association has evolved over the years

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n e w s www.dqweek.comJan 28-Feb 3, 2013The DQ Week6

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