Savera Digital India is engaged in distribution of various types of IT products, and is a key distribution market player with a nationwide reach, robust product portfolio and superior service in India. Formed as a local company in 2004, Savera continues its evolution today by striving for excellence with its products and services. From a humble beginning as a hardware dealer and service organization, Savera experienced significant growth by achieving a high level of customer satisfaction and staying on top of the technology curve. Gopal Pansari – Director, Savera Digital India Pvt. Ltd. takes us through his last year journey and shares his upcoming plans for further growth.
DT: What have been the crucial milestones of your company during year 2017?
Mr. Gopal: Year 2017 that started on a low key note due to the demonetisation effect of last November is now on the upswing with positivity around for business. For us as a company, we have been consistently redefining our business strategies since inception and this year was no different. This year we strengthened our focus on regional growth and brands that have India setup. (Canon, TVSE, LG, Sony, Lenovo). This has helped us in gaining foothold in regions where our local presences is strong and that has been helping leverage the growth to other regions as well. It can be said as a bottom up growth.
DT: What were the major challenges for distribution business in India?
Mr. Gopal: With 2 major policy decisions happening with a span of around 6 months, there were some challenges going to be thrown up. The effect of demonetisation could not be anticipated and so it sunk the markets, particularly for the peripherals and component segment. But GST as it was announced before hand – we had anticipation regarding the same and had been well prepared to tackle it. Overall, apart from the 2 mentioned road blocks, the usual stuff of none and delayed payment cycle is still hindering the distribution business. The implementation and tax structures of GST though initially were a major hurdle, but with quick support and decisions from the government it has smoothened the business in the last quarter.
DT: How GST changed your business affair in year 2017?
Mr. Gopal: After the initial hiccups, GST is surely proving to be a game changer and a business enabler henceforth. With tax structure across the country coming on parity, companies like us who are not present in each and every nook and corner of the country are finding it easy to gain foothold and do biz with ease. The graymarket that uses to thrive on regional price disparity is almost vanished and providing relief to customers by getting the right kind of price and availability across the geography.
DT: What's your channel strength currently in India? How do you plan to boost channel strength in year 2018?
Mr. Gopal: Currently we have more than 5000 partners enrolled with us across 210 towns and cities with most of them doing business on a regular basis. With margins becoming paper thin and products in components and peripherals segment being available online across the geography, we have started diverting our attentions towards enterprise segment where even though the business cycle may be slow – but returns are much higher and consistent. We hope to continue thriving in this in year 2018.
DT: What will be new vendor agreement we may see in year 2018? Please share if you have any plans to boost product offerings under your distribution company.
Mr. Gopal: This is an ongoing business process and we keep adding new brands as and when the right time permits.
DT: Please share your current revenue and market growth rate. What is target for year 2018? How do you plan to achieve this target?
Mr. Gopal: The previous year we had clocked figures of around 235 crores and plan to achieve around 15 – 20% in 2018. The plan is to keep investing in our partners, manpower, marketing and biz development and the results will fall in place.
