Momentum was high all through the year for Redington. While its two big competitors merged into a giant, Redington gained from the uncertainty. In fact all key businesses-systems, peripherals and networking-did brisk business. Growth was impressive in high margins businesses such as software, servers and storage.

During FY 2005-06, the company forayed into the non-IT space, with consumer electronics and white goods. It took up LG for distribution of its TV, DVD players and other home appliances. It's just a start and represents a very small portion of the company's revenue, but it's a new trend that Redington may have started.

However, in its core business, Redington considerably expanded its product portfolio more on the value side by adding Symantec, MacAfee, Novell, Sybase, BEA, Fujitsu, Tyco, Linksys and Legato. Inducting Fujitsu, which had been keeping a low profile in India, was an interesting development. Clearly the key differentiator at Redington is its performance and focus on high margin businesses.

On the mobile business, the company exited from Motorola handsets. The overall mood at Redington during the year under review revolved around transforming itself into a customized supply chain management services provider. One big step for Redington was to build its own e-commerce ERP back-bone to support and enable its growing partners and business. FY also saw the company successfully connecting its corporate office with its over 40 branch offices, 45 warehouses and 68 service centers across India, and all its dealers. Meanwhile, at the close of the fiscal, Chryscapital took 11% stake in Redington for $15 mn.

Page(s)   1