BEST WISHES TO THE NEW TEAM FROM
-Balasubramanian Swaminathan
The new team the Infotech Software Dealers Association (ISODA) has assured that it had taken the feedbacks of the sponsors during their events. The association is all set to sail under the captainship of Vinod Kumar of Satcom Infotech. The team had conducted its AGM recently in Bengaluru where close to 100 members participated. After passing the minutes of the previous meeting, other items in the Agenda were discussed and closed. Elections were then conducted for the positions for the new year. A new chapter in Karnataka has been added in this year.
The new Management was elected as follows:
Chairman : Prashant Jain- JNR Management Resources India
President : Vinod Kumar- Satcom Infotech
Vice Chairman : Zakir Hussain Rangwala- BD Software Distribution
Vice President : Ajay Bhayani- Ambisure Technologies
Secretary : Vimesh Avlani- Graftronics
Treasurer :Ravi Jalan: Shakti Enterprises
Regional Secretary ( East) : Satya Priya Das- Logarhythm consultancy
Regional Secretary (North East) : Tapan Ghosal – Data Crown computers
Regional Secretary ( Gujarat) : Gaurang Patel – Natraj Infotech
Regional Secretary ( North) : Kamal Gulati-ITS Technology Solutions
Regional Secretary ( Rajasthan) : Manoj Tiwari- Rise Tech Software
Regional Secretary ( South) : Ravi Kumar Rajeseharan- V4 Technologies
Regional Secretary ( West) : Amit Shah- TAS Technologies
Regional Secretary ( Karnataka) : Sanjay Srivastava- Login Infotech
Value addition :
The new Management is excited to continue growing the association in ‘stature and strength’ and providing ‘value addition to the members and to the Software Dealers community’ at large . The key priorities of the committee this year will be :
1. Be the voice for the entire IT fraternity for the Govt, trade and other forums
2. To encourage start- ups in the IT industry
3. Focus on new chapter in Karnataka that has been just added.
4. To increase the reach of ISODA in non-metro cities
5. Help develop skills of members by facilitating training and development activities
6. Represent ISODA in relevant forums to increase exposure globally and nationally
7. Encourage OEM’s to enter and grow in the Indian Market
Considering the feedbacks of the sponsors:
Speaking on the association’s plans and way ahead, in a quick chat, the new president touches upon the important aspects and feedbacks.
Swaminathan (Swami) : What would be your plans for increasing member-member collaboration within ISODA?
Vinod Kumar (Vinod) : There is already lot of collaboration happening between the members with close to 50% of the business happening within the members wherever a relevant product or service is available. We have a strong member portal on the website where each member profile along with their line of activity is described in detail . Within ISODA we also have a Business Group for members to share their requirements which could be for themselves or for their customers. Going forward , we plan to strengthen the website portal and make it more exhaustive. We are also going to run a “ Know your member” program where each of the regional secretaries will spend time to understand and circulate expertise of each member in that region. Collaboration will also be increased by way of regional meetings.
Swami: What are your plans for the members who predominantly do not sell cyber security (Like partners from ERP, digital transformation) ? Any plans for a sub-committee or grievance forum?
Vinod: To clarify ISODA is focussed on members providing Software and Software services. The entire gamut of Software is covered including ERP, Application Software , digital transformation whether on premises or cloud. So the focus is on “ Software” irrespective of the end use . We already have lot of sub committees such as member approval committee and a grievance committee. We have stringent measures to approve a member applying to ISODA which is handled by the membership committee. The grievance committee handles concerns of members with the eco system at large
Swami: There is a huge demand for cyber security skills. Is the forum having any plans to partner with Skill India?
Vinod: Yes . You are right one of the plans is to collaborate with skill India not limited for cyber security but also for various other skills
Swami: What are the plans for ensuring business at state-level? While having members from most of the states, how would you encourage promoting ISODA at state level?
Vinod: Our goal is to improve participation from non metro cities. In this endeavour we have chapters in Gujarat, Rajasthan, and North East with regional secretaries in each of these regions. We are also pleased to open a new chapter this year in the state of Karnataka for which a regional secretary is already appointed. At the moment we have a total of 8 regional secretaries who works diligently to promote ISODA at state levels.
Swami: One feedback from the vendor community from ISODA is to increase the level of collaboration during events. In most cases, the sponsors feel, beyond the presentation slot, their opportunity to reach out to the members are limited.
Vinod: We have worked on this feedback and this year we have introduced the concept of having a ‘Booth’ for technology sponsors. This was intentionally kept inside the event venue to give all inclusive feeling to the sponsors and full participation in the business summit. We also provide networking opportunities during the whole day and also in regional meetings.
Swami: Another feedback from many members from non-Hindi speaking regions is to ensure the mode of communication is Hindi during all the discussions. (especially conference calls). How does your leadership ensure inclusivity by sticking only to English to make everyone comfortable?
Vinod: The members being from diverse culture, we are comfortable with English, Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati and lot of the South Indian Languages.
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