GYA

The traditional reseller channel continues to face the heat from two fronts- growing success of power retail as well as eroding re-export opportunities for some premium brands. Re-export opportunities are challenged as vendor further improve their in-country distribution reach in several countries and further the instability in some of the MENA markets although a passing one for sure, has been a deterrent. The scenario no doubt presents formidable challenges. There is a need to fight back and win additional support from vendors as well as their confidence. It would need some alternative approaches that can radically pull up their ability to reach some growing customer segments locally such as the wide sweep of SMB customers. The approach could be extended as well as into wider regional markets in GCC or even further.

There is a need for collaboration amongst the resellers. There may not be one but several alliances that could come together on the basis of perhaps focusing on some complementary product lines which would help boost their profile as one stop providers or at-least a broader suite of products even with SMB segment customers .

After all, they already do some trading amongst themselves as well. Perhaps the way they work together could be taken up a notch further.  While it sound quite improbable in the scenarios we are used to in the channel, it would be perhaps a good strategy to share common resources for Business development and therefore divide the overheads. These sound highly idealistic, no doubt but given the overwhelming challenges that stare in the face of the channel, some out of the box approaches are clearly the need of the hour. Is it feasible to have a shared sales force that has targets to meet with each reseller they work with? I leave the thought with you but of course such moves would require a lot of trust and which needs to be fostered by each of the involved resellers.