Indian IT Channels make their decision on partnering with principles i.e. vendors based on brand image and product margins, reveals a new survey from Springboard Research.

The turnaround time in resolving issues is also an important parameter for the IT Channel partners.

The IT Channel partners expressed the highest satisfaction on technological strength of products while the lowest satisfaction turned out to be for the availability of vendor-provided financing, rewards & incentives and credit period.

“The area of greatest channel importance is also the area where the industry performs the worst –financial metrics,” said Tirthankar Sen, Research Director - Partnering Research at Springboard Research. “Vendors should clearly understand the financial considerations of channel partners and seek strategies to address their concerns. If vendors can help their partners become more successful in offering services – where margins are higher – they can help address margin and pricing challenges more successfully,” Sen added.

HP emerged as the overall industry leader in terms of channel satisfaction followed by HCL, IBM, Microsoft, SAP and Lenovo.

IT Channel firms in India are still inclined towards hardware products with revenues from this stream comprising as much as 63 % to the total revenues from IT Channels stream. The trend is more peculiar in tier II cities.

Another trend  included in the report says that channel firms are struggling with increasing their top line and are now restring to cutting down costs. “Most channels appear to be focused on growing with existing vendors rather than adding new ones. As such, vendors should properly measure the effort of adding new channel partners and ensure investments in existing partners is not stretched too thinly. Helping existing channel partners expand their geographical footprint is a strategy worth evaluation,” said Sen.

The survey was conducted in 12 cities in India involving 333 channel partners.