Unfazed by post merger challenges, Ingram Micro emerged stronger. In fact, it was the best year in terms of growth and diversification post its merger with Tech Pacific, with all the legal and operational issues finally laid to rest. The year even saw Ingram finally biting the bullet in terms of launching its own branded productsa trend distributors in all segments are increasingly following.

The systems business once again contributed the lions share of revenue (45%); consumer electronics, 12%; and the consumer PC business saw maximum growth at about 30%, despite Ingram dropping the LG product line. Ingram added ASUS to its portfolio and stopped reselling Toshiba notebooks from HCL, becoming a direct distributor for Toshiba. Getting over the sluggish performance of FY 07, the components segment performed better as the go-to-market strategies by Intel and other vendors became more streamlined.

Ingrams strong focus on high-end enterprise business paid off, contributing almost 20% to the revenue. It also structured the vertical in a more logical manner into sub-segments such as storage, networking, enterprise software, security, and enterprise hardware to make it more profitable. It added smaller but niche vendors under each category such as Business Objects (now SAP), VMWare, D-Link, Hitachi, NetApp, Tandberg, and Netgear among others. Its enterprise software portfolio grew by almost 50% after adding the Autodesk and Adobe businesses.

Rank-6
l Start-up Year: 1996 l Products & Services: Distribution of IT products and consumer electronics l Employees: 1,200 l Address: Gate 1A, Godrej Industries Complex, Pirojshahnagar, Eastern Express Highway, Vikhroli (E), Mumbai-400 079 l Tel: +91-22-67960110 l Fax: +91-22-67960103 l Website: www.ingrammicro.com
Highlights n Strong growth in consumer PC and enterprise business n Stopped distribution of Toshiba notebooks from HCL n Added Autodesk and Adobe to its software portfolio n Launched its own brand called V7, focusing mainly on the accessories segment Strengths p  Getting into new business areas, exploring non-IT business opportunities and constantly looking at diversification in IT solutions p Ability to identify early opportunities in terms of up country initiatives Weaknesses q  Still perceived to be slow in its response time and decision making despite conscious efforts to change that image q Has not attracted any new talent despite increasing its reach and penetration		K Jaishankar, MD M Mohapatra, director, PSG and CAG Bimal Das, director, CSG Navneet Bindra, head, National Sales

The foray into POS solutions grew more focused last year, with Ingram roping in more vendors such as Printronix and Zebra apart from Symbol and Wyse. These additions enabled Ingram to have an end-to-end offering, which witnessed demand from the retail and SCM industries.

Ingram also started an in-house training cell and began vendor specific training sessions for Red Hat and Fortinet to both resellers as well as customers. In terms of reach into tier-2 cities, it did not open many new branchesjust two in the East. Rather, it focused more on its telesales engine, which spread to fifteen smaller towns.

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