Being at the end of the world, and with past issues like Apartheid, South Africa has had a different and sometimes less than optimal method for providing sales, services and support of IT equipment. The aforementioned issues have resulted in a vendor -> distributor -> reseller -> client arrangement which sometimes works well and other times not.
Each link provides the following respectively:
vendor: product and ( sometimes follow-the-sun ) support
distributor: a placeholder and presence for the vendor in SA as well as logistics services ( ie. the vendor doesn’t need to spend money and resources on local presence and services)
reseller: sales, consulting and support services, as well as a direct interface with the customer
client: purchasing goods and support the supply chain ( in return they get delivery, support, consulting, etc. )
There are a number of issues at all these levels; I’ll go through these one by one.
Vendors that don’t distribute directly in SA face a number of challenges in terms of product acceptance, advertising and product face time, entrance into the market and channel model. The latter is a particular bug bear as we’ve often seen local representatives of vendors, or the vendors themselves, bypass the very model they’ve set up and go direct to customers. Arguments for this include the proferred inability to cater for the larger client … One wonders why resellers go through all the sales and technical training/certification offered by the vendors. Considering the fact that the vendors themselves do not have adequate technical resources in the country, this is a serious oversight on their part.
Distributors often don’t retain the necessary technical support personnel ( with the corresponding certifications ) that is required as part of their distribution agreements. They also don’t do the appropriate amount of product placement/advertising that is often funded, through a rebate system for example, by the vendor. Other issues such as stock holding, logistics issues and poor channel relations can make the supply channel a problem.
Resellers are the front-end to customers and as such require good sales and technical knowledge of the products they are punting. This can be a highly challenging environment as the consulting services on offer should direct customers to a path that is suitable to their requirements. Business value is something that should be looked at primarily with technical features and ability a secondary factor.
Customers – the pain in the reseller’s rear-end. Seriously though, vendors generally provide support mechanisms that are often overlooked by end-users, who in turn rely too heavily on the reseller for assistance. If you’ve paid 10-20% of product purchase price for SLA, use it!!! Customers also can be overbearing and abusive in terms of their requirements – resellers exist to provide functions mentioned above – they need a corresponding level of assistance from the client. Resellers would not exist if clients took all the advantage. So clients expect something for nothing but when things go south, they’re quick to knock on the reseller’s door …
VARs/Solutions Providers – software development houses come to mind here, often fleecing clients of their hard earned money. What is this business about quoting a client for a development project, and then dragging the project out and increasing the costs as they go along? It seems this is how software development works these days. Clients: don’t take it!!! Specify time milestones and penalties!
This is just a short synopsis of some issues in the supply chain; to have a fresh and healthy IT sector, all areas of this chain need to drop the greed and concentrate on supplying good value to businesses.