The verdict is crystal clear. Samsung is the new Channel Cham pion. For the twice channel champion HP, it is time to ponder over where it has rubbed the channel the wrong way as partners have voted it to the second place.

Like in the past two years, this year too, DQ Channels India commissioned IMRB to undertake the annual Channels’ Choice Awards Survey. The survey spanned 10 cities where 602 partners cast their votes for vendors to determine the DQCI Channels’ Choice Gold and Silver Awards for best hardware and software products, best marketing support, best post-sales support, best commercial terms, best online support and best relationships.

The DQCI Channel Champion-Gold Award has gone to Samsung on the basis of it winning five Gold awards and the DQCI Channel Champion-Silver Award goes to HP with the partners voting the vendor to one Gold and four Silvers.

Best Hardware Products
Samsung emerged as the winner for the Gold award for the best hardware products with nearly one out of every three partners voting in its favor in this category. Intel emerged at second place. Samsung’s domination, however, was not as strong in the eastern part of the country as it was in the other three regions where it emerged at the top of the table. Interestingly, HP emerged at the top in east.

Good product quality and reliability emerged as the top reason among channel partners for their choice, with over 62 percent partners citing the same. Says Amar Babu, GM, Channels, South Asia, Intel, "Our products are technology-driven feature-rich premium products and partners have liked the quality of our motherboards and have been pushing them among end-users."

The second most cited reason was good after-sales service. Clubbed together, both reinforce the argument that the channel wants to sell products that come with least hassles. The third most cited reason emerged as good demand from end-customer or product pull. Says Vivek Prakash, VP, Samsung India, "Our success can also be attributed in our ability to run pull-programs effectively."

Best Software Products
You don’t have to be an oracle (no pun intended) to predict who would have taken this award. Microsoft emerged at the top to bag the Gold award for the Best Software Products, with more than half of the partners voting in favor of the company. Incidentally no other award category sees such a skew towards one particular vendor. And this sweep is seen across all regions. On the second spot to bag the Silver is Symantec for their Norton anti-virus. But the gap separating the two can be termed as more than wide.

Ease of use emerged as the most cited reason for the choice by over one-thirds of the partner population. Says Joy Ghosh, Country Manager, Symantec, "One of the key benefits is the easy installation and use of the product. Customers too find the product easy to use and hence partners have to provide minimal after-sales support." And in saying this, it was as if Ghosh could read what was on the partners’ minds, for product reliability and end-customer demand were the next most important reasons for partners in deciding the best software products.

Best Marketing Support
"When the going gets tough, the tough get going," is a saying not too many in the channel seem to stick to. During the recent slow times, which are not over as yet, more and more partners were looking at vendors to bail them out. And many a partner cried foul that vendors were not providing enough advertising support. So it came as no surprise when Samsung topped the table here again to get the Gold award for the best marketing support.

HP came in at the second spot in this category. During last year, HP has strengthened its process of centralized demand generation and distribution under its Customer Information Center (CIC). HP officials observed that closure rates were higher if inquiries came in through the CIC. Says Prasenjit Sarkar, Commercial Channels Head, HP India, "Our inquiry distribution matrix ensures that customers’ needs and the partners skill sets are best matched." HP is now in the process of integrating upcountry market locations too under the CIC.

Adds Vivek of Samsung, "We have institutionalized processes and this makes things simple and predictable and the channel likes predictability."

Apart from advertising support, promotional activities were another aspect that the channel indicated in the survey as playing a critical role in determining their choice for the award. It is here that Prasenjit feels the new HP will now have an edge. "With a broader product portfolio, we will be able to offer bundles and schemes that were not possible earlier." And more and more of this bundling across product categories can now be seen. Incidentally Samsung also resorted to cross category bundles during last year, the bundling of the Lexmark printer with their monitor being a case in point.

Best Post-sales Support
It’s like watching a rerun on the local cable network. The best marketing support winners follow the same order here too. Samsung again takes the Gold followed by HP at the silver position. Interestingly Samsung leads over HP by a substantial margin across all regions. Satisfactory service and easy replacement were the top reasons that swayed partners in making their choice.

Best Commercial Terms
And this again looked like the rerun of the Best Post-Sales Support and the top two slots going to Samsung and HP respectively.

Credit did not emerge as the most critical factor in the commercial terms awards. As many as two in five partners felt that payment structure was more critical than credit period. Incidentally just half as many thought that credit was the most important criterion.

Margins came in as the third most often cited reason under this award. Samsung’s domination of this award was complete. It not only came on top of the table across all regions but also across all partner categories. "It is our endeavor to ensure that our partners conduct their business with ease," says Vivek of Samsung.

Best Online Support
HP emerged at the top for the best online support award, followed by Intel. HP enjoys a considerable lead over Intel across all regions except the south where Intel tops the tally. Says Amar, "Intel has the larger corporate goal of transforming itself as the 100 percent ebiz corporation.   So, when there is focus from the top, things become that much easier."  The top two reasons cited by maximum number of channel partners were the factor of always-available online support and good after- sales support. Incidentally, telephone help lines and daily updates were considered not as important.

Best Relationships
Business in this part of the world runs on relationships. Says Vivek, "Indians are an emotional lot and have a higher EQ than their western counterparts." And it was precisely this aspect that most vendors today work towards.

While most vendors have been successful in building bonds with their partners and their organizations, now they are devoting a greater amount of energy and time to deepen and strengthen these.

Samsung here again emerged at the top to take another Gold and HP took home another silver. Says Vivek, "We took our relationship with our partners to the personal level to enrich the same." This, the company did on the strength of the information that they had collected over the past three years.

HP is also known for its close proximity to the channel. It was prompt in clarifying its position and policies after the merger in its Partner Empowerment Policy. Says Prasenjit, "In India, the policy was sent out much sooner as compared to other parts of Asia Pacific." The task for HP during the last six months was mammoth as it had to ensure that the merger is successful at the ground level too. And HP ensured it did. HP officials today are in a position of quoting cases where pre-merger Compaq partners are bringing in orders for HP products and vice versa. HP has also put in place an elaborate mechanism to ensure that accounts are mapped and no conflict arises at the ground level. It is here that schemes and incentives programs play an important role to keep the partners and their workforce motivated. Samsung’s NetGains and HP’s E-Points, which will now see a new character, have been instrumental in building a mind share for the respective organizations.

Channel Champion
After emerging at the top in five of the seven categories, Samsung emerged as the clear and deserving winner: the Channel Champion-Gold for the year. Samsung emerged at the top of the table across all regions except the eastern part of the country, where partners clearly chose HP as the favorites. But it was not good enough for them to take the Gold award. While the partners rated product quality and overall response as the top reasons for their choice, Vivek of Samsung had a different story to tell. "Our objective is to help partners grow and at times we act as consultants to them to even refine their business model," says he. "We have tried to be patrons to our partners," is how he puts it. Prasenjit feels that even in the light of adversity, the channel should be given an opportunity to grow. Many times it comes through measures as simple as reducing of prices. Vivek further adds that Samsung emerging at the top was a team effort. "People running the channel are critical," he says. He feels that the best measure of their success comes from the desire in the channel to do business with them, which he says is very high. Vivek is looking at the new year with a clear focus on the customer. "Customer activation is going to be the key focus," says he. And all that to make selling easier for partners. And Prasenjit too is quite gung ho about the days ahead. Says he, "We have a lot going for us now, than we did before the merger or immediately after it."

Strengths & Weaknesses
In order to find out the relative strengths and weaknesses of the vendors that came out as the most preferred vendors by different channel partners, we have run a Chi-Square test. Using the data, we first computed the expected satisfaction scores.

The observed satisfaction scores were then taken and the differences between the observed and the expected values for these vendors were plotted to provide an insight to the channel partners’ perspective about those particular brands. The analysis provides only a picture of the relative strengths and weaknesses of the individual brands. And that the interpretation regarding any one brand cannot be compared with any other. It is not an absolute measurement and must be used relatively for individual brands. Also, negative scores are relative and against the positive performance of that brand. Therefore, it can be interpreted that if the brand is strong in certain parameters then it is relatively weak in the other for which the scores are negative, hence, there is an opportunity to perform better in those areas. Let’s look at how the Channel Champions performed.

While the channel is satisfied with Samsung’s after- sales programs, it would not hurt to proactively respond to channel issues, the channel thinks more can be done. And interestingly the channel thinks Samsung needs to get more innovative in its product launches. Coming to HP’s performance, while partners are more than satisfied with it with regard to their Internet intensive processes, after-sales support and organising of events and promotions, partners find recognition through ads lacking. HP definitely needs to communicate about its CIC to its partners. But like the cliché goes; a pat and a brickbat go together.

Mohit Chhabra
DQ Channels India