Channel acts as the main interface between BlackBerry and its Customers

Hitesh Shah,
Director, Channel Sales – BlackBerry, India

Beliefs are strong at BlackBerry on its ability to regain a foothold in India's surging smartphone market and restore its lost sheen among Indian customers. The role of partners doubles here as they are the ones who have lent their support ever since they became associated with BlackBerry and will hence lead the brand to glory. An interaction with Hitesh Shah, Director, Channel Sales – BlackBerry, India, makes it clear as to how the brand is looking at supporting its channel in this endeavour.

BlackBerry’s relationship with channel partners has played a key role in its success in India. The channel community serves as the crucial link between the brand and the consumers and brings in critical market insights for the company that helps both flourish and create joint business opportunities. With the evolving customer dynamics, it is with the channel partners and the vendor equally that the responsibility to showcase the reliability of the brand lies. BlackBerry’s partners understand this and have been able to effectively leverage the information and technical know-how to maximize sales.

“India’s competitive smartphone business landscape has taught us to strike a chord with consumers in terms of giving them what they need, when they need it. With the help of our channel partners, we are able to create a stronger connection with our customers by offering them compelling, innovative products and services. We work closely with our channel partners to devise our retail strategy for each product/ solution,” states Hitesh Shah, Director, Channel Sales, BlackBerry, India.

Channel Programmes & Policies…

A channel-friendly company that BlackBerry is, it ensures that through its channel programmes, retailers and resellers are acquainted with the latest technology and product offerings so that they are able to aptly market the products by delivering relevant information to consumers. Some of the key strategies that BlackBerry focusses on to engage with partners are –
•    Focus on the depth of distribution rather than width of distribution and ensure that the top channel partners are on board driving volume
•    Ensure channel hygiene (price difference in channels, cross territory sales) – Trust is the highest priority for partners. BlackBerry works to establish trust from a channel perspective by ensuring that channel partners do not lose money due to cross territory sales and price wars due to VAT Arbitrage, Deal prices and Grey market

•    Ensure channel satisfaction with the right products and work on hyper local activities to drive footfall to the channels – BlackBerry works to ensure that the channel has the right product mix and drive a sell through a business model driven by locally relevant initiatives – since “one- size-fits-all” model doesn’t work when it comes to a country like India
•    Ensure high level of service support for Retailers – It is already a known fact that Channel partners are BlackBerry’s biggest brand ambassadors and they drive sales for them. Being in the business of sales where service is a key differentiating factor, it is very important for BlackBerry to ensure that they give best service to their partners to keep their faith and ensure that they support them when servicing requests come from customers

•    BlackBerry’s policies are designed to ensure a Win-Win  situation for both – their business partners and the brand
“Our customers are important to us and this means both the end-customer and the channel (which in one form is our customer) are taken care of,” says Hitesh.

In India, BlackBerry works with Redington for the consumer segment and Ingram Micro for the enterprise segment. It also works with all of the top 9 telecom carriers in the country and they are an integral part of its sales mechanism. The go-to-market is through these partners with whom it works closely to reach out to its end-consumers in the product and enterprise space.
 
Z3 launch in India…

The hype around the new Z3 and the speculation on its pricing might have died down after its launch, but BlackBerry’s efforts to make it one of the premium smartphones in the country goes on unabated. 

“Gone are the days when a consumer would knock on the retailer’s doorstep, if he intended to make a purchase. As a customer today, you visit a retailer’s website first. The next thing you know, you are viewing a TV ad promoting deals available via the retailer’s mobile app. You then dig deeper into product information, compare competitor’s prices, access additional information on your mobile device and then visit the brick-and-mortar store. As you browse through the store, you look up products online and perhaps even scan a QR code in search of a deal. This little anecdote indicates how customers now approach their shopping experience at various touch-points,” observes Hitesh.

He further adds, “We, at BlackBerry, understand the changing need of consumers and hence have begun to explore strategies beyond traditional marketing modes and are working to reach out to consumers at various touch-points in real time. It is the first time that a mobile brand has tied up with an online and offline retail partner simultaneously. This is simply because we intend to open diverse platforms for consumers to shop from.” The BlackBerry Z3 has been launched at a very attractive price point and the company aims to target the prosumers, i.e., professional consumers with this device. However, retailers say that initial stocks of this latest handset have been sold out in almost two weeks since its launch.

Going ahead…

Given the complexity of managing a distribution network, it is essential for companies to interact with their distribution partners frequently and ensure that they have a robust channel programme in place. BlackBerry tries to expand its partner base by introducing more channel- friendly policies and will maintain the open communication channel to derive action-worthy feedback from them. Apart from aiding seamless sale of products and services, the handset major hopes to help its partners understand its products and services better by offering training modules and highlighting the consumer preferences and accordingly recommend its product portfolio to be able to address the consumer demands in real time.

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Sunil Motwani,
EXCELL COM
 

"Our journey with BlackBerry started from the Day 1 when BlackBerry was launched with three models through Airtel in 2004. The trade schemes and incentives of BlackBerry are at par with market but what is remarkable is the loyalty programme and initiatives that were taken from time to time. Also the exclusive BlackBerry Retail model has helped us to grow our retail image along with the brand in the market place. One of our biggest core strengths has been our Customer Service – and this is, and will always be, our success mantra and also our highly visible presence in the prime locations of Delhi.

Loyalty programmes for customer and customer after-sales service is the core competency for growth. BlackBerry compared to other brands is way ahead on these parameters, but there is always scope for betterment and what I think is if we can constantly focus on these parameters along with product innovation and pricing, we can certainly grow in a much bigger way."

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Jaiveer Rao,
Frontline Technologies
 

"We have been associated with BlackBerry since its launch in India in 2004. In terms of channel programmes and incentives, we have seen some of the best and affordable products being launched, specially the Bold and the Curve series and currently the Platform 10 series. We have always been a hardcore supporter of the robust technology and do not forget the quality of BlackBerry. However, constant advertisements and brand visibility need to be done if the brand retention in the minds of customers has to sustain."

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Amit Galada,
Studio cell

“It has been a wonderful experience to have worked with BlackBerry for the last six years hand in hand with the brand. The support from the brand has been exceptionally good and continuing along with time and again. There has been an overall support in terms of advertising, branding, back hand incentive monthly schemes payout and all extra supports from time to time. The brand is very helpful in supporting the retailers and enhancing their profitability. The schemes are more dealer-friendly than the other brands. The margins what we make from the brand BlackBerry is much more than any other brands.

There has been seasonal support for selling BlackBerry products. The latest initiative to put the store owners as the brand icon in their respective showrooms is very innovative and attractive. This shows that BlackBerry always keeps their retailers on top. The brand can further enhance its presence in the channel by giving a few ads in papers and building awareness to the public. The brand is growing now with new models coming in at competitive prices.

Hope BlackBerry carries on their good work in future also and gets us the best from it.