Trade Association of Information Technology (TAIT) hosts members of Federation of All India Information Technology Associations (FAIITA) as part of a nationwide collaboration initiative

The Trade Association for Information Technology (TAIT) organized their recent Knowledge Series event in Mumbai on a grand scale, hosting over 25 delegates from FAIITA affiliated IT associations from across the country. The event was organized to coincide with the FAIITA AGM and the InfoComm India IT Exhibition, both hosted in Mumbai.

The TAIT has been a proactively engaging association for the IT trade, S.I and retailers in Mumbai for over 13 years. Ensuring the TAIT members are able to make the best of networking opportunity and to drive collaboration among IT community in the country, TAIT partnered with FAIITA, inviting them to host their AGM in Mumbai. Post the AGM, the delegates from member associations, namely CDAN (Andhra Pradesh), CMDA (Delhi), PCAT (Delhi),UPCDA, FITAG, (Gandhi Nagar), AKITDA (Kerala), CDA (Jammu), CMDA (Pune), ITAO (Odisha), FIATAG (Gujarat), ADCTA (Delhi), CITA (Tamilnadu), VCMDA (Nagpur) and ASIRT (Mumbai) participated in the TAIT Knowledge Series session, followed by networking and dinner.

The event started on an excited note as several IT retailers and traders from across the country came together on a common platform to meet, interact and connect. Mr. Krupashankar Chube, President, TAIT opened the session with a welcome note and a round of introduction of the esteemed delegates from various member associations, the keynote speaker for the evening, Dr. Radhakrishnan Pillai, as well as the sponsor for the evening, Mr. Sukhpreet Singh Sahni, Regional Sales Manager – Retail, Dell International Services India Pvt. Ltd. Post the introductions, Mr Krupashankar Chaube also briefly introduced the theme of the evening, ‘Business Beyond Boundaries’, emphasizing the significance of collaboration and growth among Indian IT community. Addressing the audience, Mr Chaube said, “We are honoured to host our guest delegates as part of FAIITA for our TAIT Knowledge Series session. It offers us a great opportunity to not just network but to also share our experiences and business challenges and work towards a common solution. Today, collaboration has become extremely important for the success of businesses, especially small and medium enterprises. We at TAIT always strive to offer our members the best of knowledge and business networking opportunities and today, with the theme of ‘Business Beyond Boundaries’, we aim at extending our hand of collaborative growth and mutual support to our Members and friends from across the country. We look forward to many such events in the future.”   

Thanking the FAIITA board for enabling the national convergence of IT associations and members on the TAIT platform, Mr Krupashankar Chaube then invited Mr Champakraj Gurjar – President FAIITA, to address the audience. Sharing his views on a collaborated IT community in India and the role of FAIITA to work closely with all member associations to achieve this goal, Mr. Champakraj Gurjar said, “Being at the TAIT Knowledge Series event is like being at the home ground for me as I had been a director for many years of the association before a few years. Now, as FAIITA president, our efforts are directed at creating a unified voice for the IT SI, Traders and Retailers across the country. As part of our strategy,we promote networking opportunities by hosting our AGMs in partnership with a host federation/ association like we have done today with TAIT this year.

 In line with the key agenda discussed at the AGM, our long-term goals are focussed on increasing participation of member associations across the country, including remote areas like Vidharbh and MP. Currently, FAIITA comprises 7 federations, each representing a group of individual associations. We wish to dramatically increase this number and connect every part of the country so we can have a strong voice that can represent the community at a National Level and impact trade policy and vendor relations.”

Adding to this conversation, lead event sponsor for the evening, Mr. Sukhpreet Singh Sahni, Regional Sales Manager – Retail, Dell International Services India Pvt. Ltd. said, “We, as a brand, have been working closely with the IT traders and SI community and we look upon them as partners who are key to our business. I am honoured to be present here as it allows us an opportunity to understand the wider picture, get insights into the larger industry developments, to interact with the community at one on one level and to understand their challenges, and get our strategies aligned to what is expected. We look upon our channel partners as long-term contributors to our growth plans and thus our approach is to create a profitable business model for them to survive and grow. In terms of the online vs offline strategy, currently 70% of our retail business comes from the offline distributors and retailers and the remaining 30% is contributed by online. Even then, to ensure our channel partners can enjoy fair business opportunities, our omnichannel strategies ensure the SKU’s and the product specification for offline and online are well segregated, thus ensuring our retail outlets have an exclusive space to do business.”

The evening then progressed to the highlight of the event, a session by keynote speaker, Dr Radhakrishnan Pillai. A celebrity corporate leadership mentor and author, Dr Pillai is the Founder-Director of Chanakya Institute of Public Leadership (CIPL) and is the Deputy Director for the Masters in Leadership Science Program conducted by the University of Mumbai. Throughout his 20 years of consulting and mentorship experience, Dr Pillai has trained numerous Business and Political leaders and has over 200 articles and papers published in distinguished platforms.

Through his keynote address, Dr Pillai stressed the significance of collaboration in the backdrop of a challenging business environment. Highlighting Chanakya’s perspective on growth and mutual benefit, Dr Pillai further shared a 3 point mantra for personal success that is valid for every modern entrepreneur – be it a first generation start-up or the head of a family drove business enterprise. He further emphasized the significance of the changein the dynamic business environment and the properties of the successful business leaders. Further moving to the topic of ‘Business Beyond Boundaries’, he highlighted the large potential of unexplored markets and how, if businesses chart strategic business roadmaps, they can move to prosperous markets without having to incur much investment required for the desired growth. Speaking about the significance of such networking sessions and the need to push for collaboration, Dr Pillai said, “The entrepreneurs gathered here today are all leaders in their own right, heading regional associations and running their own businesses. As a corporate leadership mentor, I have tried to offer these business leaders a different perspective, sharing anecdotes from Chanakya life and connecting them to contemporary business challenges. This has been a great gathering and I am honoured to have had the pleasure to connect with so many entrepreneurs from across the country, on one platform. I wish TAIT and FAIITA all the very best in their endeavours.”   

The session was met with great enthusiasm and filled the members with renewed motivation and zeal! The evening then progressed to the Launchpad Pro session, with partner members presenting their businesses offerings to the TAIT and FAIITA members.

Mr Rushabh Shah of Graham Information Systems, the distributor for Orico USB accessories in India, highlighted the internationally renowned product range that is already popular across 50 countries. Among key products, Graham Information Systems presented the USB 3.0 casings in 2.5 ” and 3.5″ sizes and the entire range of Hard disk cloning solutions which allow cloning SSD/HDD hard disks of any operating system. The full range of Hard disk protection boxes, USB hubs and other unique products were on display amongst

the 400 odd SKUs that this leading USB accessory company markets. Speaking about the USP of these products, Mr Rushabh Shah highlighted its superior build, performance and user-friendliness.

Mr Samir Jhaveri of XcelHost Cloud Services, offered a profitable XcellHost Cloud Channel Partner Program (XCCPP) during his Launchpad Pro presentation, where Channel Partners can earn up to 20% recurring margin selling Cloud Services, especially to SMB Customers, since they move to cloud rapidly.  XcellHost is helping typical SI’s to transform into Cloud Partners with assured recurring revenue streams by helping them sell Cloud Backup,  Cloud Drive, Tally Cloud,  Cloud Endpoint Security and Performance Cloud (which is 50% cheaper than public cloud).  XcellHost enables Cloud Partners with Sales, Pre-Sales, and Marketing support so the partners can Go-To-Market in 1 week.

Both the presentations, as part of Launchpad pro session, were eagerly received, with partner members from across the country enthusiastically participating and interacting with the speakers.

This was followed by an engaging and light-hearted open session where FAIITA delegates shared their experience of the evening and interacted with fellow members from the community, over a networking dinner.