Friday, December 28, 2007

Tally Seeks to Protect Partner Margins

Publication : Channel World
Date : 28 December, 2007

Tally Solutions, in a bid to increase and protect its product resellers’ margins and also increase overall toplines to USD 1 billion by 2010, has rolled out a system of backend protection on its latest Tally 9 Version 2.0.
This package, which is currently priced at Rs 10,800 (MRP), is aimed to help both the distributor as well as the Tally reseller to make the same margin through the back end support from Tally. The new initiative, which Tally has introduced, is currently applicable to about 16 cities across India, and may be extended to other places at a later date.

Speaking to Channelworld, D Kalyanaraman, President and Head of Global Services Business, Tally India, said, “The company has a two tier channel model; we have commercial engagements with distributors, who sell to resellers. Very often the reseller found himself in competition with the disty. Now, to eliminate the problems faced by the reseller, we make sure through our pricing structure that whether a disty sells directly or through a reseller, he makes the same amount of money, and that a part of the reseller margin is directly protected through Tally.”

Kalyanaraman explained further that since Tally was a channel oriented company, it was important to ensure that all the sections made enough money to grow, for the overall growth of the company. With a current base of about 3000 resellers, Tally plans to increase the base to about 15,000 partners in the next three months. The company also estimates its potential customer base at about 8 million customers. Kalyanaraman observed, “Through Tally 9 Version 2, the technology has started showing itself, so suddenly our old customers are finding that this is 10 times faster and at a migration rate as low as Rs 15 per day to upgrade.”

Amongst other plans that the company has, it is in the process of engaging its Master Tally Third Partners (MTPs) or regional partners to work in-depth in a particular geography to invest and develop business in particular areas. Kalyanaraman explained, “An MTP invests in an area because he has an assured income. We are ensuring a level playing area, with no risks of the business attached.”

Saturday, December 22, 2007

Tally Concretizes Channel Structure, Sets Higher Growth Targets

Publication : Channelstech2
Date : 21 December, 2007

Eying three times YoY growth in the next three years staring 2008, Tally India has given concrete shape to its existing channel modalities and has chalked out roles of value addition for its Master Tally Partners (MTPs). The formal tier-ing up of its channel structure is to ensure price-parity for channel partners, geographical focus for MTPs and new customer accounts for the vendor.
Speaking to ChannelsTech2, Kalyanaraman, President & Head of Global Services Business at Tally Solutions said, “Our primary objective was aggressive growth plans for next three years and to achieve this, our partner ecosystem has to be vibrant and on the same pedestal. With realignment, we have given our existing II tier channel structure a formal characteristic and clearly defined roles.” Tally’s Ist tier consists of regional distributors called MTPs and the IInd tier comprised of all the resellers.

With the restructuring, the vendor wants the MTPs to go beyond the role of a conventional distributor and develop areas of focus and development in their respective geographies. “We want our regional distributors to play VADs and acquire deeper penetration in their focused geography.” This is to ensure that the vendor taps the unattended accounts including the SMEs concentrated in these areas and bring new accounts to table.

While the second tier of channel partners get a pricing-structure to match and thorough backend commissions. “We have optimized backend commissions and set a pricing mechanism protecting channel margins. This makes the system far more transparent, accountable and profit generating plus they get to crack new accounts, untapped hitherto,” Kalyanaraman added.

While the objective of growth is the primary motive to facelift its channel strategies, similar restructuring would follow in its Service Providers set and Education partners set apart from the Product Business partners. “While the objective is the same, we will tweak the plan suiting the respective needs of that field of business,” he further added.

While Tally has conveyed the restructuring plan and defined the roles of channel in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore,Chennai and Kolkatta, it aims to cover about 11 A class cities by the end of this year. Kalyanaraman concluded, “We would cover about 40 cities by the end of next quarter for a clear growth roadmap and introducing even new levels of technology.”

Tally Solutions believes that maximizing focus and targeting deeper growth would be achieved only by rejuvenating the channel structure and ensuring healthy channel margins and opening newer avenues for the partners.