Cyberstar striding well on its journey!

Do tell us something about your company and the size of it.

Founded in 1999, Cyberstar Infocom is, today, one of the emerging distributors of IT software, peripherals, networking products and components in India, Singapore, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Nepal. Backed by a highly professional and motivated team, Cyberstar operates across 36 locations including 23 branch offices in India, each fully equipped with local warehousing facilities, and does business with over 3,700-plus active reseller partners across the country. 

Cyberstar Infocom recently inaugurated its two new offices in Bhopal and Raipur, as a part of its ongoing efforts to expand its reach across tier-2 and tier-3 locations in the country. The new offices act as channel development centres and provide regional distribution support for its channel partner network in central India. We are registering strong business growth, quarter on quarter, across all our product lines from central India, and setting up these direct offices in Bhopal and Raipur enables us to offer better logistics and just-in-time distribution support to our growing base of reseller partners across these regions.

What kind of solutions and services does your company provide? How do you place yourself as different from those of your competitors?

For its vendors, Cyberstar acts as a value-added sales force, leveraging its well-qualified team, technical capabilities, logistic services and customer relationships to distribute their products in a most cost-effective manner.

For us, maintaining relationship at both the ends is very important. So, we seek to stand out with our channel engagement policies. Our commitment towards higher QoS across all channel transactions including conflict resolution, aggressive packaging of channel offers and pre- and post-sales support is highly regarded in the industry.

Which are the brands you are associated with?

Presently, we distribute Adaptec, Panda Security, Belkin, Acer, Creative, Hitachi, HP Procurve and ODD, Lexmark, Panduit, Tally, Transcend, WeP Peripherals and Wipro Infotech products. 

Any major partnerships that you have signed, of late?

Yes, our association with Panda Security is a recent one, out of the lot. And they have signed us as their exclusive distributor for India. 

How do you keep the distributor-channel relationship healthy?

Given our diversified portfolio, we have had to perfect a unique channel engagement model designed to maximize sales while maintaining per transaction profitability with our partners. We are constantly educating partners on ways to exploit our portfolio for business advantage. In addition, we do pass on leads to select partners whenever an opportunity arises. All these small activities add up to keeping our channel relationships healthy and productive for all the parties concerned.

Do you engage your partners in regular training programmes to get them accustomed to latest technologies and solutions?

Our channel managers spend considerable time with key reseller partners helping them in pre-sales support, inventory management and pricing/ margin negotiations. In addition, we conduct regular vendor sponsored product training programmes and also send out periodical information updates to help them better understand what, how and when to sell. 

Recently, we rolled out a 23-city road show covering all locations where the company has a direct presence. Before that, we had successfully conducted roadshows for the newly launched Hitachi external hard drives across Kolkata, Delhi, Chennai and Mumbai. These are part of our ongoing efforts to promote the brands we are associated with amongst channel partners and end-customers.

What kind of challenges you face with while operating in a competitive market (like credit policies, DoA- Dead on Arrival, etc., smooth schemes re-imbursement)?

Maintaining profit margins on both the distributor and partners side is increasingly becoming challenging. The unavailability of the right information also hampers the decision making of credit limit.

How is your 3-year gameplan to cross 1,000 crores in turnover by 2013 going on?

In the first twelve months of our 3-year roadmap, we have already covered significant ground across all our stated objectives. We look forward to strong top line and bottom line growth in the second year as well and will continue to expand our product offerings as well as reach across India and SAARC.

Is there any success mantra you want to share with our readers (future entrepreneurs)?

My mantra is very simple - shoot for the stars and focus on service/ product quality, customer experience and consistent superior project/ transaction execution. All these can enable you achieve your goals. 

For more contact: 
beenish@varindia.com