Pune, March 2: GATES concluded the ICT RESELLER CHANNEL SUMMIT 2016 with over 250 top notch executives from the ICT industry. The 3 – day event brought together leading resellers from over 50 cities that gave the technology vendors from around the world an opportunity to pre-schedule one-on-one meetings with senior executives and buyers.
The Summit was supported by Platinum Partner, TOSHIBA; Gold Partners AMD & Canon and Silver Partners Philips & QNAP. The event’s Research & Media Partners included GfK-India, NAVO Informatica & SPIRE Research & Consulting, andMedia partners included CELLIT.
Over 170 companies were represented at GATES 2016. The delegate list included 178 reseller executives, 65 vendor executives along with influential speakers, industry experts and media partners. The number of vendors and channel partners participating at GATES was encouraging as this was the first time for such a closed door Summit to be held in India
Ashish Kapahi, CEO GATES, said: “The event concluded with over 800 pre-scheduled 1 to 1 meetings between vendors and resellers channel partners. Many new agreements were facilitated as a result of meetings at GATES 2016.”
“By bringing all of the key channel stakeholders together in one place at one time, GATES provides the most efficient channel development platform for all vendors – whether they are new to the region or a leading player with established channels. As a neutral platform, GATES provides an opportunity to discusskey issues impacting the industry” he added.
The highlight of the Summit was the SMART PITCH, which gave both new to market and existing vendors an opportunity to deliver an elevator pitch for their latest product on a common stage. Photofast won the Best Design & Aesthetic Award, while Consul Neowatt, won the Game Changer Award as well as an award for the best WOW presentation.
The extensive conference programme, including workshop sessions and Panel Discussions were welcomed by the channel partners. The participants hailed the workshops to be extremely useful by far. An elite panel was drawn from among the participants who discussed the challenges of Omni channel and approached of adapting the new normal.
As a part of its support to START UP INDIA initiative, GATES included a new category of vendor in its recently held GATES ICT RESELLER CHANNEL SUMMIT called the “Hardware Startup Vendor of the Year”. On a live voting carried out by the Indian ICT channels from across 50 cities during the ICT Excellence Awards, Fin Roboticsfrom Startup Village Cochin emerged as the GATES – best hardware startup company of the year 2016. GATES announced that in the second edition, Start up India will take a special zone and will aim to bring some of the illustrious hardware startups from different parts of the country.
The event culminated with the prestigious ICT industry excellence awards 2016 held during the Gala Dinner hosted for the ICT channel, which gathered to vote the best vendor in different ICT categories.
The list of awards included:
Category Awards
- HP was voted as the Computing Vendor of the Year
- Apple was voted as the TABLETS & SMARTPHONE Vendor of the Year
- Logitech was voted as the PC & Mobile ACCESSORIES Vendor of the Year
- Canon was voted as the IMAGING Vendor of the Year
- Seagatewas voted as the STORAGE Vendor of the Year
- HP was voted as the PRINTING Vendor of the Year
- Samsung was voted as the DISPLAY Vendor of the Year
- D-Linkwas voted as the HOME NETWORKING Vendor of the Year
- Microsoft was voted as the SOFTWARE Vendor of the Year
- Philipswas voted as the ACOUSTICS Vendor of the Year
Special Awards
- Applewas voted as the Most INNOVATIVE Vendor of the Year
- Fin Roboticswas voted as the Hardware STARTUP Vendor of the Year for its product Wearable Ring.
- Canonwas voted as the MARKETING EXCELLENCE Vendor of the Year
Vasudev K.S, Executive Director at GATES, said: “Due to the overwhelming response we are now looking at another Summit towards the end of the year. The feedback from vendors and reseller partners has been positive and we look forward to welcoming even more partnersin the next event.”