ASIRT hosts Lenovo Server Products and iBall Baton to lead conversations around advanced servers and networking solutions

The last Techday for the financial year 2017-18 organized by ASIRT was marked by flavours of inspiration, growth and celebration. Apart from engaging business opportunities and insightful knowledge session, the event also marked the celebration of the sixth anniversary of ASIRT as an Association. Held at the Interlink Banquets, VidyaVihar, Mumbai, the event saw an enthusiastic participation from members who interacted with an equally enthusiastic presentingvendors.

The evening began with an insightful presentation by Lenovo Data Computer Group, India.Lenovo Global Technology India Pvt. Ltd. With its end-to-end data center portfolio enables customers to harness the power of the “intelligence revolution” and create a strong technology foundation that supports transformative capabilities such as data analytics, high-performance computing, hybrid cloud, artificial intelligence and machine learning.Ranked No. 1 in global reliability survey as per a research by ITIC 2017 and No. 24 in Supply chain by Gartner, Lenovo offers an intuitive range of unified product and service portfolio spread across 5 key categories, namely the Hyper-scale, SDDC, High Performance Computing, Data Center Infrastructure and Services.

Speaking in detail about Lenovo DGC offerings at the ASIRT Tech Day, Mr.Shivasankar K, Head Sales, Lenovo DCG, said, “Over the past few years, the market and consumer needs have transitioned from shopping for products to seeking solutions. Lenovo was quick to observe this change and effectively we changed our GTM (go to market strategy) from being a product focused to a solutions oriented. We position ourselves as disruptor in the market – as a brand with no legacy, we are focused on providing solutions to enterprises basis their ‘real need’. Further, Lenovo strongly believes in being a highly complementary service provider, such that our solutions can be easily installed to function in conjugation with several leading OEM’s (viz NUTANIX, VMware, Microsoft, Red Hat, Suseetc) in the market.Engaging with SI and IT entrepreneurs through platforms like ASIRT forms a key sales line for us, contributing up-to 90% of our sales. Through this platform, we aim at empowering the SI’s with knowledge and support of our expert solutions while also offering them mutually beneficial growth opportunities.”

This was followed by a presentation by iBall Baton, the routers and networking solutions SBU(one among the 6 Strategic Business Units)  of the Indian home-grown iBallTechnology products manufacturer, Best IT World (I) Pvt Ltd. Having started out just 15 years ago with a single, modest product – the mouse, iBall todayis an INR 900cr enterprise (FY 2016-17), with 26 product categories and a strong all India presence with 22 branches and about 120+ own Service Centres across the country. The team shared a detailed presentation about their products and services, highlighting an exhaustive portfolio of Active, Passive and Networking solutions for SOHO and SMB segments. The presentation also spoke about iBall Baton’s recent expansion of product range to over 225 SKU’s which include wired and wireless routers and surveillance products includingPoE switches. They aim to further create a portfolio to match the growing demand of digitally empowered smart cities through a range of IoTsolutions as well. Speaking about their offerings and engagement with SI through ASIRT, Mr. NisarShah, General Manager, iBall Baton, said, “We are among the top brands in India when it comes to routers for SOHO and SME segments. Our aim is to manufacture products keeping the needs of Indian consumers in mind, and provide them solutions which are practical and cost effective. In the coming months, iBall Baton plans to introduce a series of products, categorically targeted towards the SMB and Enterprise segment.”

Mr. RasheshShah, Sr. General Manager (IT Channel), Mumbai, added, “ASIRT represents a largely organized set of System Integrators& Retailer IT Partners. From the audience present today, roughly 50%-60% are our direct target customersfocused Partners. Since these SI’s are the customer face and thus lead client choices on technology products and services, Associations like ASIRT are a key consumer touch-point for us.  Apart from participation in Tech events by these Associations, we at iBall also invest heavily in hosting product meets for SI’s, conducting training programs and educating them about the product benefits and applications.”

After the insightful knowledge sessions, the next on agenda was an enlightening and power packed lecture on effective business growth strategies by award winning Business Growth Expert and author, Mr. JayantHudar, who unraveled some simple yet miraculously effective marketing techniques which were sure to help every member in the audience market himself better. The lecture ended with a quiz that further helped members understand what mistakes or shortcomings which can hinder their growth.

The lecture on business growth strategy was a part of ASIRT’s consistent focus on knowledge sharing and growth oriented trainings. One such event, the flagship Techedge session was organized on the 10^th March 2018. The Techedge aims to provide meaningful training to employees of member partners and to guide them to grow through updating their knowledge. The theme for the March 2018 event was “IT Security Training” and saw participation from over 100 Support executives of Member companies. The Training session was hosted by experts from SOPHOS who touched upon various topics such as End Point Security, DLP, Zero Day attacks, Sandboxing, latest trends in IT Security etc. The insightful session was received with great enthusiasm by all attendees who listened with rapt attention during the session and actively participated in the interactive session after the training. Speaking about these initiatives, Mr. Pankaj Shah, President, ASIRT said, “We are quite focused on conducting more of such Technical Training and Knowledge building sessions and plan on introducing many such events in the future to enable members and their employees to get an in-depth understanding and knowledge of the latest in new technologies.”

While the lecture had everyone glued to their seats, listening in rapt attention, the quiz and the 6^th anniversary celebration that followed, put everyone in a pleasant mood. The cake cutting ceremony brought back nostalgic memories of the formation of ASIRT, with founding members sharing stories and anecdotes about the path breaking initiatives of ASIRT overcoming various hurdles. The evening ended with a scrumptious dinner, accompanied by light summer drizzle, even as collaborative conversations added the enthusiasm quotient to the atmosphere!