St. Petersburg, Russia -- (SBWire) -- 02/26/2010 -- The leading business channel on the Russian IT market – @ASTERA (http://www.astera.ru) – presents the results of its 6th annual the “Best Distributors” survey.

Being a part of the “Rating of IT Companies” project, the survey was carried out during the period from October 1 to December 31 in 2009. The main idea of the “Best Distributors” survey was to find out the positions of distributor companies on the Russian IT market, according to Russian IT resellers’ opinions.

This time during the survey 168 distributor companies were assessed. Traditionally, twenty top companies were included in the “Best Distributors” rating according to the survey's results. The most frequently mentioned companies were also announced.

Last year was a period of change for all participants of Russian IT market and especially for distributor companies. They have come under pressure both from changes of external conditions, coming from foreign vendors and internal troubles connected with grave consequences of economical recession. Existing situation made distributors to change their tactics and take decisive actions for saving their business. In this connection the results of the “Best Distributors 2009” rating, based on resellers’ opinions, show in many ways the ability of Russian distributors to reconstruct their business in compliance with needs of new economic situation and keep relations with business partners.

During the year 2009, there was serious restructuring of sales channels in the market. For the first, many vendors reviewed their partner policy with distributors, staking on collaboration with competitive partners with strong financial positions. Distributors in their turn secured themselves from unreliable resellers with rigorous financial discipline. Such measures as shutting off or limiting credit lines and more aggressive look at debt repayments, which were intended to control distributor’s risks, also led to changes in sales channels.

Glut of products was a real headache for distributors at the first half of 2009. Watching unsold goods in warehouses they started to reduce the amount and range of new orders which later turned into another problem to resellers. In the second half of the year resellers suffered from shortage of some products. Part of them got the products from other suppliers, but some of them were left without anything.

Mass bargain sales which were typical for the first half of the year showed lack of financial resources and unavailability of borrowed funds in the market. For many distributors the situation was complicated by considerable debts that were left unpaid on time by reseller companies. To make matters worse, when reseller went bankrupt its providers were not able to get in money at all and consequently couldn’t satisfy its own credits. All these aroused a great inner tension in distributor business.

It’s worthy to note that some vendors tried to help their distributors with credit support and taking part in organization of marketing campaigns. Unfortunately, such measures were performed only by major companies with strong financial resources. Overwhelming majority of distributor companies struggled to survive this recession single-handed and many of them coped with the task rather well. As it is known, bankruptcy of distributor companies hasn’t become widespread or mass. Besides business restructuring and rising efficiency of partner policy, key elements of anticrisis strategy realized by distributors included entry to new markets and broadened the portfolio of services.

There are some losses in the top list of the best distributors in comparison with the previous year. During the year it has missed six participants. However, the losses of Russian IT market are heavier. Among the best companies which have kept their status of the best distributor in this time are 3Logic, ELKO, Landata, MERLION, MICS, Mont, OCS, AXOFT, AK-Cent, LANIT Distribution, Lank, Marvel, NetLab, Fun.

Certainly, there are some new names in the rating. For the first time for the history of the project the Top20 includes A1 TIS, Resource-Media, Superwave, AUVIX.

In this year, the title of the Best Distributor, which has been given to twenty companies, obtains the highest value for the six year history of the project. The assessment of companies was conducted during the most difficult economic situation with uncertain future. The market players haven’t ever faced with such extreme challenges previously. To be the best is always much more difficult.

More information about the “Best Distributors 2009” on the Russian IT market: http://www.astera.ru/it-rating/bestdistributors/2009/ (available on Russian).