FY 08 was Redingtons first year as a listed company. Which means its primary focus was to meet the expectations of the market. With the report card now out, Redington has passed the test with flying colors: a 58% jump in net profits, thanks to its business model of having focused on SBUs, which helped Redington manage its diverse portfolio better.

There were a few key growth drivers: large government projects fueling its enterprise business, growing consumer notebook demand, SMEs investing more in IT, and a growing market for peripherals. Redington also decided to foray into the NBFC space, and started a new entity called Easyaccess Financial Services. This new company aims to provide finance to IT channels in India, and intends to be a significant player in boosting the countrys IT distribution business.

Redington also expanded its distribution portfolio. The significant principals added wereAdobe, Sun Microsystems, Sonicwall, Cyberoam, Fujitsu, and Power Design. Redington started managing the distribution of Sun x86 servers; this at a time when Sun has shed its AMD-only policy on x86 and added Intel-based offerings. Adobe would also gain considerably from Redingtons reach, and deepen its penetration among SMBs and in upcountry markets.

Rank-9
l Start-up Year: 1993 l Product & Services: Distributor of PCs, servers, peripherals, consumables, and networking equipment and components l Sales Offices: 45 l Warehouses: 50 l Dealers: 8,500 l Address: SPL Guindy House, 95, Mount Road, Chennai-600032 l Tel: +91-44-42243535 l Fax: +91-44-22352790 l Website:www.redingtonindia.com
Highlights n Impressive bottom line growth n Consumer notebooks and SMBs saw good traction n Established Viewsonic monitors in the Indian market n Started channel financing through an NBFC initiative Strengths p Keeps vendors happy through reach and supply chain capabilities p Heavy investments in IT over the years makes for easier management of diverse portfolios p Despite wafer-thin margins, the company maintains a healthy bottom line Weaknesses q Non-IT business still contributes less than 10% of its revenue q Ability to sustain the non-IT business, as Ingram is also quite aggressive in this space		EH Kasturi Rangan, president, Digital Products Division PS Neogi, president, IT Division SV Krishnan, CFO Ramesh Natarajan, head, Sales Clynton Almeida, CIO

In upcountry markets, Redingtons focus has increased significantly from thirty-three locations last year to forty-nine individual billing locations. But these markets also saw a few blips. The fiasco in Kochi, for example, where two employees of a large dealer picked up a significant order and subsequently joined Redington. The hullabaloo raised led to the channel associations of Kerala banning Redington from the state. The ban was lifted only when the duo were laid off.

The fact that Redington is doing most things right is illustrated by one simple statistic: three years back when Tech Pacific merged with Ingram Micro, their combined revenue was more than double that of Redingtons. In FY 08, the gap has become much smaller: to around 30%.

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