Panaji: Highly potential but Largely unexplored...

Blessed with the unexploited nature, Panaji which is also known as Panjim carries a great legacy of Portuguese culture. The city which is one of the most preferred choices of tourists is the prominent commercial hub in the state of Goa. With major IT giants, especially in the software and animation industry are keen set up their business here, Panaji is set to emerge as the IT destination of Goa.

Prospects for IT

One of India’s smallest and most peaceful state capitals, Panaji is the headquarters of North Goa district. It is the major commercial and industrial hub followed by Margao and Vasco. Availability of good infrastructure facilities, availability of power, high literacy rate and better educational and healthcare facilities are the major advantages that have attracted attention of IT hardware giants. Apart from that a large percentage of the population in Panaji is conversant in English, thus, making the city a front runner to emerge as a hub for IT and ITES industry and Electronic Manufacturing Industries.

The availability renowned educational institutions such as the National Institute of Technology NIT Goa, Birla Institute of Technology and Science – BITS Goa, Goa College of Engineering (GEC), other Engineering Colleges and the upcoming Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) makes the state ideally suitable in producing highly qualified IT manpower.

Aiming to bolster the IT growth, Goa Government is encouraging and inviting private investments in knowledge based industries at large. The government has recently published the IT policy draft in which the government has offered several incentive schemes to pull IT companies in the state. The policy targets to make Goa the most preferred destination for investors in the sectors of IT, ITES and Electronics System Design and Manufacturing (ESDM) that will lead to inclusive growth and employment generation. The government has proposed setting up IT Park, AVGC Park and Electronic Manufacturing Cluster (EMC) and IT Training Institutes to offer all sops to the IT industry.

Panaji at a Glance

Number of Resellers: 40-50 (Approx)

Key Verticals: Education, Tourism and Mining

Key Brands: Net Protector, Quick Heal, K7, HP, Acer, Lenovo, Canon, Epson, D Link, Digisol

Prominent IT Association: Goa IT Business Association (GIBA) and Computer Dealers Forum of Goa (CDFG)

The hardware growth and challenges

Panaji is the major commercial and industrial hub followed by Margao and Vasco. The city represents around 30 percent of Goa’s total IT reseller community. Panaji also has concentration of NDs, RDs and sub- distributors. NDs like Ingram Micro, Redington, Supertron Electronics, neoteric, Rashi Peripherals are present in the city. Almost all the major brands have their exclusive distributors in Panaji.

Though Panaji is the most important city in the state, it is still far behind in producing handsome revenue figures in IT sale compare to other major cities in the country. Like other emerging IT markets, Panaji IT market has also severely affected by the E Commerce business. Apart from the online challenge, the declining growth in the Assembled PC business is the reason of worry for assembler resellers.

“Consumer’s growing inclination towards branded PCs and narrow difference in the price have made difficult for the assemblers to sustain in the market. The assembled PC market is on the verge of shut down in Panaji. Earlier, assemblers used to assemble nearly 500-600 machines every month. Today, the number has come down to almost 150 machines”, said Nagraj Prabhu, owner of Yash IT Solutions.

Resellers also blame government’s free laptop distribution scheme which has allegedly snatched their major portion of business coming from the education segment. Manjunath K. N owner of Sigmaz Computers said that the free laptop distribution scheme was a major threat to small resellers and dealers.

There is wider scope for IT companies in Panaji to improve on their service support and product availability and pricing. Sudhir Prabhu, owner of Softek Marketing said, “There is very thin gap in dealer transfer price and MRP in products like laptops. Therefore, resellers find it difficult to earn margins on such products.”

IT resellers and dealers have demanded proper policy implementation on part of the government and proper support from the brand owners. Resellers have urged the government to regulate online sale in order to provide level playing field to both online and offline channel partners. Goa IT Business Association (GIBA) and Computer Dealers Forum of Goa (CDFG) are the two prominent IT Associations that highlight and fight for the channel interest.

No reason to stay behind

Panaji has no reason to stay behind in terms of IT growth as the city has all the attributes which are essential for IT to grow. However, it requires boosts from the government and of IT companies need to look at the city beyond just a distribution market. Software segment is largely unexplored in Panaji and the government needs to work on heavily to rightly channelize the local talent to have a growth story in software industry.

Interview: Nagraj Prabhu, Owner, Yash IT Solutions

1. What are the prominent challenges faced by the IT resellers in Panaji?

Nagraj Prabhu: E Commerce is the major challenge which has severely impacted the channel ecosystem. The second major challenge is declining demand for assembled PCs. The assembled PC market is on the verge of shut down in Panaji. Consumer’s growing inclination towards branded PCs and narrow difference in the price have made it difficult for the assemblers to sustain in the market. The demand for assembled PCs is declining day by day. Earlier, assemblers used to assemble nearly 500-600 machines every month. Today, the number has come down to almost 150 machines.

2. The government of Goa has recently published a policy draft on the IT policy? What are resellers’ expectations from the government for betterment of the IT business?

Nagraj Prabhu: We feel that the policy should be draft taking into consideration the interest of hundreds of IT professionals in Goa. The locals should get the benefits under the policy and they should get a fair chance to do business. We feel that while pulling investment in the IT sector from outside, the government needs to ensure that it will not hamper the interest of local people.