New Year, new Predictions

The year
2005 comes to a close and the New Year starts. How quickly the year went by! It
seems only yesterday when I sat down to write down the predictions for 2005,
which I must admit were more or less bang on target. This means I can walk
around with my chin high. And also, this gives me an added impetus to once again
stick my neck out by making my predictions for the ensuing year.

1) Mergers and acquisitions amongst the distributors
will be gain momentum. Last year, we had one acquisition in Sahara taking over
SES. The New Year will see not only acquisitions but also mergers amongst the
smaller distis who are looking at building up their toplines, without which
there very existence will be at stake.

2) The importance and clout of Regional Distributors
(RDs) will go up considerably. This trend has already started and will now
accelerate as principals look at penetrating every nook and corner of the
country. In addition, RDs will give them a much larger footprint in terms of
number of cities served and also number of resellers catered to.

3) Channel partners will diversify their business.
This is another trend, which is already visible. More and more partners have
added other lines of business, not necessarily in the infotech arena. Some have
opened nursing homes, some have got onto SMS marketing, some have got into
herbal products and a number of them have added property portfolio.

4) Incidents of fraud cases will rise exponentially.
For quiet some time now, cases of fraud amongst the channel community were few
and far between. In the last two years they had almost died down. Now that
business is booming, plenty of fly-by-night operators are entering this
business. Also, earlier fraud cases were mainly happening in the metros. Now, we
see a lot many cases happening in the smaller towns.

5) The share of PC assemblers will continue to be
steady. Contrary to the claims made by industry bodies and others, assemblers
are not going to ride into the sunset. While their market share may not go up,
it will not go down either. They will continue to enjoy 40 percent plus share.

6) Delhi will have a mega IT show. In the nineties,
the biggest IT trade show of India-Comdex-used to be held in Delhi. And now,
not even a small show is held. Rather, other smaller cities have been holding
trade shows regularly, thanks to the local channel associations.

This is set to change with PCAIT-Delhi's premier IT association-planning to
organize a big IT show.

I am pretty sure of my predictions. However, if
anybody thinks to the contrary, please drop in a mail. I would welcome the
feedback from our readers. In the meantime, have a great new year.

Asim Raina asimr@cybermedia.co.in