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Follow UsMD: K Jaishankar www.ingrammicro.com
Back to Growth: FY13 augured well for Ingram-growth was back to double-digit and it reclaimed some lost space. While in FY12 Redington overtook Ingram, but FY13 saw Ingram edging out Redington by a whisker. In FY13 Ingram worked with a singular focus on augmenting its core business. Interestingly, Ingram has grown better than Redington during FY13. Aggressive growth strategy worked, but yet the industry is rife with challenges as the overall mood in the distribution industry is down and beset with severe working capital issues that is manifesting in various challenges-from extended payment cycles to cash flow issues.
New Mandates: Ingram broad based its portfolio and added new vendors. Asus appointed Ingram as a national distributor for component business which means it would distribute Asus desktops, AIO PC's, LCD monitors and projectors. Similarly it entered into a pact with Western Digital as a national distributor for entire range of WD products in India.
Broadening its Horizon: With an aggressive go-to-market strategy, Ingram took on to opportunities that are of strategic fitment and aimed at adding value to its partners. It also carried on its focus on identifying the growth engines of the future and made early investments towards bringing these technologies to the market through its partner ecosystem.
Future Proofing: With data center, networking, and cloud services being industry's growth engines and the future of IT, Ingram made some moves that can strengthen its emerging tech market capabilities. Its strategic alliance with Netmagic to distribute the latter's managed hosting and cloud services with a focus on SMB and its alliance with SatNav to cash in on the navigation boom gave it the emerging markets edge.
Consumer Market: With nearly 40% of its business coming from the consumer segment, Ingram focused on building consumer services and strengthened its presence in the space.
New Investments: Ingram began to offer logistics services to number of telecom players globally and India. In India, the company tied up with JAINHITS to offer logistics and supply chain optimization services. Ingram also forayed into surveillance and security and AIDC (automatic identification and data capture) segments to enhance its portfolio.
Outlook: Distributors are cautiously optimistic while looking ahead at FY14, much depends on the IT spending patterns and uptake of large orders from PSU and governments sector that holds the key, but with elections around the bend, growth might take a hit.