Elcom Trading: Touching A New Horizon in Retail and Distribution Business

Today, the Indian IT market has become fiercely competitive as the bottom lines are becoming thinner and thinner. Sustaining in this fierce ambience is a big challenge in itself for any vendor and his channel community. Dealing in this market scenario, Elcom has achieved a remarkable success and sustained growth since 1993. The best part of Elcom is that it adds value to its offerings and is committed to the business based on which recently the company was recognized by Seagate as the premier partner in Langkawi (Malaysia). Elcom caters to the reseller community in Delhi. It has touched a turnover of Rs.56 crore, which is 30-per cent growth compared to the preceding year’s turnover of Rs.43 crore.

Today, Elcom represents a gamut of IT and telephony products. In the component category, Elcom is a sub-distributor of Seagate Hard Drives and premium partner of Intel. Elcom represents LG as the regional distributor where it sells LG PCs, laptops, LG monitors and various other products like DVD Combo Drives, DVD Drives, CD-Writers CD ROM Drives, etc. On the PC front, Elcom sells IBM servers, laptops and desktops. Apart from that, it also deals in laptops and desktops of Lenovo. Elcom Trading also owns a “Fone and Fun” outlet, wherein value-added applications of LG telephony are put on demo. Also, the outlet is the authorized service centre for LG GSM handsets.

Growth and Success

Since its inception, Elcom has grown considerably and increased its geographic reach in Northern India. Currently, apart from having an office in Delhi, the company has got two more offices in Wazirpur and Noida. Speaking about the growth of Elcom Trading, Sunil Narang, Director, Elcom Trading, says, “The core business approach of Elcom Trading is to grow and remain as the market leader in those product categories which it deals in.”

Elcom believes in maintaining a good rapport with vendors and channel partners, which has in turn helped it to attain an immense reputation among them. Elucidating on the Elcom’s business structure, Sunil says that Elcom has got a properly mapped reseller which provides an added advantage to any vendor. Today, every vendor believes that whenever a product is being added to Elcom’s portfolio, the product gets better treatment and it goes to the right and focussed partner, which Elcom is capable of doing effectively.

For Elcom, customer satisfaction is the core part of its marketing strategy. Elcom’s strategy of providing value addition to the consumer is evident from the fact that a decade back when the vendors were not able to provide warranty because of not having direct presence in India, Elcom was taking the onus of providing a warranty for the products. Currently, the company provides first level of customer service to the customers.

In Delhi, Elcom has got more than 1,000 channel partners along with 40 to 50 partners at Noida. Elcom has always endeavoured to maintain long-term relationship with its channel partners. At present, the company provides credit of 15 to 21 days. For providing credit to the channel partners, Elcom looks at various prerequisites. Firstly, Elcom takes into account the period for which the reseller or the Systems Integrator has been present in the market. Secondly, it also considers the kind of products in which he deals and his financial background. Apart from that, Elcom also takes into consideration references from the partners with whom he is into business.

Seeing the growing retail market in India, Elcom has recently opened a “Fone and Fun” retail shop at Nehru place. It is not the first time that the company has entered into retail business. Sunil says,”“Earlier, we also had a retail store, but in that 40-per cent share was of LG and in the balance 60-per cent share we were handling component sale. But the ‘Fone and Fun’ retail shop is a new venture which we started in March 2006. The best part of this outlet is that we have opened a display window for LG.”

If we take a close look at the whole business of Elcom, it can be broadly divided into four parts and each part provides 25-per cent revenue to the company. 25 per cent comes from Seagate, while another 25 per cent comes from IBM and Intel combined. The rest of the 50 per cent comes from LG and from the Elcom’s reselling-business. But this is not the permanent business revenue structure as the equation keeps on varying from time to time.

In the end…

n course of time, the business policy and transparent marketing strategy of Elcom have prompted it to touch a new horizon. With its strong relationships with the leading manufacturers coupled with dedicated and experienced sales force team, Elcom is aiming to attain a turnover of Rs.70 crore in the next financial year. Besides that, the company also wants to add printers or high-end products in its portfolio in the near future.

Recently, Elcom Trading organized a channel partners meet at Striplex Banquet, Laurence Road, which saw a gathering of near about 100 channel partners. The event also saw personalities like Rajesh Khurana, Country Manager, India and SAARC and Amit Pareenja, Grid Manager – Channel Sales, Lenovo along with their teams In a short message, Khurana indicated Seagate’s move towards convergence of storage into lifestyle products and automobile industry where storage drives can be used for music, navigation etc.

On the other hand, Amit Pareenja focused on the competitiveness of IBM and Lenovo along with their uniquely inbuilt features. A lucky draw was also conducted and the winners were handed over with prizes.