The capital city of West Bengal is gearing up to be the next IT hub in the country. The West Bengal government is leaving no stone unturned to promote IT in the state and in the process has also earmarked 100 acres of land for its Bengal Silicon Valley Tech Hub that is coming up in the city. Big data analysis, animation & gaming, cyber securities, and drones are a few of the key focus areas that the government is eyeing.
While on one hand the government is keen on attracting large IT investments to the state, the IT channel market on the other hand appears to be going through a rough patch. With the current market all parched up, partners are of the view that it will take little time to revive before it is up and running again.
Says Pawan Jajodia, Proprietor of Mohit Electronics who mostly deals with consumer products, “The present market situation is below average – it is not too good but it is not going that bad as well. Customers do not have cash to spend on IT products. Whatever they had to buy, they had already purchased during the pandemic, when WFH was in full swing. Because of which the IT industry had seen a big boom. But now the market has gone back to pre-pandemic days.”
Rajesh Saboo, Director – Saboo Computers also shares his opinion along the same lines. “The surge in the demand among customers was there till October 2021. But after that the market has gone down 30-40%. While the consumer market is still going slow, the commercial market is showing some signs of revival since June owing to employment generation opportunities. There have been job openings in the IT, logistic, real estate and the hospitality sectors because of which the buying pattern is changing again.”
The only market that is showing an upward trend is the services and the warranty market. “Customers of both consumer and commercial products will need services for the products that they have bought. The products that were bought during the lockdown are nearing the end of their warranty and they will now seek to extend it for another two-three years. So this is one area which will never go down.”
However K L Lalani, Founder & Chairman of Lalani Infotech is slightly of a different view. According to him, the consumer market has grown post pandemic. Products like laptops, security & surveillance products and printers continue to generate a huge demand from customers.
“However, it is just the reverse in the commercial market where demand has gone down considerably. While the corporate sector can be seen making a few purchases, the spending from the government on IT is not very satisfactory, which is why the market condition has not been very favourable of late,” Lalani explains.
But at the same time, he is very optimistic of the Tech hub that is coming up in Kolkata. “After this ambitious project is set up, Kolkata will not only become an important IT market but it will also act as a catalyst to the growth of the IT ecosystem in the state,” cites Lalani.
The challenges that the eCommerce marketplace has posed for offline retailers a few years back is also felt less now. “The online business is now a loss making model. With customers starting to buy from multi-brand retail outlets, LFRs and traditional retailers again, these online sites has lost its old charm. And as such they were selling their stuff at a loss with the hope of earning a strong customer base. So now there is not much competition between the online and offline channel as both their prices are at par,” observes Lalani.
However, retailers await the Durga Puja season, which falls in the first week of October this year and when customers usually go on a shopping spree. This is the time when various schemes and festive bonanzas are brought out on consumer and electronic products and customers love to buy them when they get lot of special offers and discounts.
When it comes to the networking segment, the market is ever growing, as is evident in the number of infrastructure projects that are on a rise. “Customers were waiting for the pandemic to end. Once infrastructure projects that got stalled because of the pandemic or shortage of funds started coming up, purchases also started happening,” says Pranay Agarwal, Proprietor – Alfa Tech.
The shortage of copper, which is a key element in networking products is however posing a challenge. Coupled with it is the logistics issue as these products are mostly sourced from outside India. “Campus, routing, switching, and data center products are all affected. I have seen this shortage for the first time in last twenty years. This has resulted in increase of project cost. So companies are forced to take up only those projects which are prioritized as more important or urgent,” cites Pranay.
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