A question about Downturn

It was 15^th April, one week since I joined as a summer trainee from IIM kozhikode in a startup named Ozonetel based in Hyderabad with a hope that the learning here would be much more than any of the established organisation. That was the day I started talking to prospective customers with a view that the product comes in their need they will buy, everything seemed to be ok. The targeted 1% conversion rate in the marketing cycle was what kept me going on for more and more lead generation across different sectors. It was a very happy journey. The product is actually a Unified Data manger, which would take continuos or scheduled automatic backup of several Networked Computers. The targeted sectors would be Media, Educational Institutions and Pharma etc. A Portion of the questionnaire prepared by me kept on incrementing itself with data as I reached more and more customers. I went on to understand the market, its buying behaviour and the need of customer as well as some learning on pricing till the day I met the distributors. The distributors are the people who make 20% conversion in the IT business and are most relied upon channel. I asked you buy one piece at a price of one nano and we will be always refilling it at your end and the benefits you will get would be somewhere around 30%. And that was the end of my whole hopeful and Enthusiastic part of my summer Internship. You may tell okay one would say that two would say that. But The story became more grim as I talked to more distributors. A distributor who has channels across India started telling me even slow money flow would have been okay but sir, here money is blocked daily many companies are going bust. I cannot promise you at this time. The other fellow who showed lot of interest and promise in our product finally disowned when we discussed about him keeping a unit in his store. The picture became more clear when I saw the distributors market’s seval offices shuuter closed and phones not working at all.

                        I never thought the market would have been so bad. And there was a reason to believe it. One of my friends S. Seetha, MD of Ceragem Branch at far flung location of kanchipuram is happily selling 10 units a month at a price of around 50000/- Rs per unit. Also she has a customer base of 300 per day interested in getting service, who down the line would become her customers. I myself reached a different place called retail shop and purchased a small pack of Colgate toothpaste at a whopping price of Rs32. As I was buying items I saw consumers purchasing items without any difficulty. What went wrong then?

                        Am I mistaking myself in merging B2B and B2C market place. I never feel there is a difference in these two markets . I strongly believe there is a cyclical interconnection in them. Understanding the B2C market in a locality would make you understand the dependent B2B market. Can we still question and try to understand what went wrong?