Philips Forays into IT Accessories And Peripherals

Philips Electronics India has announced its foray into the IT accessories and computer peripherals segment - even as it's made tie-ups with distributor SES Technologies. The channels have welcomed the initiative by saying that this will give partners additional leverage with a significant market share in the IT accessories and computer peripheral segment. But they also chose to give a word of counseling that the vendor should take all necessary steps to ensure proper service and backend support. Gunjan Srivastava, director (Entertainment Solutions, Consumer Electronics) of Philips Electronics India, said that they're a leading player in the sound and entertainment accessories business, and this foray into IT accessories is in line with their strategy to bolster the PACP (Philips Accessories and Computer Peripherals) business. "Keeping our brand promise of 'sense and simplicity', we're offering the latest range of our innovative global products to our consumers," said he. According to him, this, combined with SES' strong distribution network would help the company achieve the desired leadership position by 2010. In the first phase of the launch, Philips will be introducing Digital Versatile Disk (DVD) writers, mice and keyboards, multimedia speakers, webcams, and external hard disk drives in the market. The company aims at leveraging SES' strong network of 52+ branches and reaching out to the target audience across India. Kurian Chandy, CEO of SES Technologies, said that with this alliance they're enhancing their product offering across PC components, peripherals, and accessories to provide customers a wider range of leading-edge technology products. He appeared confident that with PC penetration on the rise and people getting discerning on their technological needs, they shall be able to make a success of Philips range of products. Reacting on the development, Kirit Soni, proprietor of KMS Computer, Bhavnagar, said that a vendor like Philips foraying into IT segment would help channel partners boost their business. "By name itself, Philips is a sought after brand," he said. According to him, Philips has a wide range of products backed by superior design and technology. A few partners in Mumbai, however, chose to suggest that the vendor should take necessary steps to live up to the market expectations as regards the service and backend support issues. Only last year, the company had many problems related to backend support as well as the huge gap between what incentives the company offered and what the dealers demanded. The matter had also come to the notice of the metropolitan-based Trade Association for Information Technology (TAIT). After running into rough weather over backend incentives, Philips is now facing a precarious situation, with its channel partners fast opting out of any business tie-up with the vendor, owing to product unavailability and unsettled incentive dues. In December 2006, Mumbai-based Triune Marketing India, a onetime Star Partner for Philips, had stopped dealing with the company completely, saying that Philip products weren't available even with the distributors. Another channel partner, Hitesh Dedhiya, partner of Modera Computers, also had echoed a similar view, saying they'd stopped dealing in Philips products since April 2006 due to the backend incentives issues