/dq/media/agency_attachments/UPxQAOdkwhCk8EYzqyvs.png)
Follow Uspresident Non -IT: EH Kasturi Rangan www.redingtonindia.com
president IT: PS Neogi www.redingtonindia.com
Balancing Act: Redington India's performance every year in a way reflects the overall health of the computing industry as being the country's leading distributor with almost all the leading IT brands under its kitty. But as we look at FY13, the obvious challenges the industry faced were quite evident as Redington's growth went back to single digit from last year's 18%.
The Pain Areas: As we dissect Redington's FY13 business performance, like last year H1 was flat but it saw good traction in H2 FY13. The top line growth slowdown can be attributed to the huge de-growth in the components space with the TAM shrinking substantially. Added to that, the lack of liquidity in the market space made collections a growing challenge during the course of the year. Growth of exclusive RD concept accentuated the challenge as the necessity for increasing the credit exposures to such partners steadily increased.
What Helped: But despite the challenges, what helped Redington in the second half of the year was uptake from the SMB space. Also Redington managed to secure a few long-pending large projects. Moreover, the good growth in the business of some of its smaller vendors in IT space, addressing niche segments helped it mitigate the lack of growth in its larger portfolios.
The strategy: The company adopted a multi-pronged strategy and consciously stayed focused on all available, viable business opportunities, especially in the infrastructure, software, and the enterprise space and it continued to engage strongly with partners who are active in the security, voice, data, and video space.
The Non-IT: Meanwhile in the non-IT division, the growth in Apple PC business helped a lot and the smartphone business kept up the growth momentum as well. The commencement of iPhone business in the distribution space, where Redington became the exclusive partner in the general trade category, helped maintain the growth momentum in this category. The digital printing solution business from its exclusive tie-up for HP's Indigo portfolio showed great momentum as the photo-printing segment accelerated its shift to digital printing technology.
Summing Up: The focus during the year was on maintaining business hygiene by focusing on metrics like quality of inventory, efficient working capital deployment, control on manpower cost, sharp thrust on timely AR collection, and overall cost control-and this ensured a decent FY13 for Redington.