The Channel Leadership Summit 2021: Day 2 Report

After a turbulent year 2020, where technology played a game-changing role, the CRN flagship Channel Leadership Summit 2021 brought together leading IT channel partners, industry leaders, and domain experts to discuss the role and opportunities for partners as we progress towards the ‘new normal’ era at the concluding day of CLS.

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The opening session of Day 2 began with a keynote address titled ‘Redefining Business Resiliency for the New Normal’ by Anuj Gupta, CEO, Hitachi Systems Micro Clinic. Gupta emphasised that more than ever before, during the pandemic, technology has taken center stage, and digital transformation has become the need of the hour. Consumption economies are here to stay, technology will be at the apex of all consumption. 

Continuing on the session Gupta said, “With respect to internet availability reaching the last mile; soon, entire India will be connected to one platform. In one and a half years we have connected close to 500 million people on the Aarogya Setu platform. Digitalisation is going to be the way forward and an effective game changer and reskilling has become a major.”

Keynote Address: Anuj Gupta, CEO, Hitachi Systems Micro Clinic

Next, Indrajit Belgundi, Sr Director and GM, Client Solutions Group, Dell Technologies, India took a session titled ‘Drive ahead with technology made in India’. He stated, “Machines are evolving at a fast pace with the use of mixed sensors, software updates and AI and ML. Opportunities for human-machine partnership will drive a progressive shift at the workplace. We are launching products in compliance with government initiatives, such as; Make in India and Dell is involved in making sustainable commercial products for the industry. As a vendor, there is a need to have unmatched supply chain capabilities.”

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Following there was a power-packed panel discussion titled, “Riding the Wave of Transformation – Thriving in an Era of Constant Change’. In the panel discussion, Anirudh Shrotriya, Managing Director, Shro Systems expressed that technology should be inclusive and a progressive force in the global environment.

While commenting on the pandemic, Navneet Singh Bindra, Vice President and Chief Country Executive, Ingram Micro India said, “The pandemic has taught us to build resilience in our business.” 

According to Byju Pillai, Group Managing Director, Inflow Technologies, “India as a nation is definitely back in the process of growth and development.”

Ramesh Natarajan, Chief Executive Officer, Redington India stressed upon customer success stories that are a good way to show organisational progress.

Sundaresan K, VP Next Generation Technologies and Country GM, Tech Data, India stated that vendors are adopting newer technologies like hybrid cloud, analytics, AI/ML and automation, which is a sign of progress.

According to Atul Gaur, Director, Savex Technologies Pvt Ltd, “Vendors should take risks and work on cutting edge technology. As the future demands, daring innovations will be the key to success.”

Naresh Rana, Senior Sales Manager, Western Digital commented that 5G will be the key enabler for many technologies.

The conference moved ahead with the awards ceremony, where winners were felicitated for their excellent contributions in the categories like AI, blockchain, enterprise security, data centres and many more. The list of award winners is as following:

The conference moved ahead with the post lunch session with another panel discussion titled ‘Building Cloud Ready Enterprises’. As a panelist, Narasimha Murthy, CEO, Connectivity Solutions commented that security remains  a major challenge for cloud adoption. 

N K Mehta, CMD, Secure Network Solutions said that proper cost optimisation for cloud will enable organisations to maximise their cost savings.  

According to Dhirendra Kumar Shrivastava, Head-Sales, Inspira Enterprise India, “Digital transformation strategy should center around the cloud.” 

Varoon Rajani, Co-Founder and CEO, Blazeclan Technologies expressed, “Skill gap that exists in the market continues to be a challenge and controls for developers should be monitored.” 

“Security vendors have become mature and they are giving multiple services for organisations,” mentioned Umesh Shah, Director, Orient Technologies.

Prateek Garg, Founder and CEO, Progressive Infotech highlighted that cloud adoptions will only grow if there is proper application development. 

“Without cloud, it is tough to have proper digital transformation within an organisation,” stressed Bipul Patra, President – Technology and Strategy, Embee Software.

Next, there was a special address session titled ‘Preparing for a digital first era: Our learnings and best practices’ by Ramesh Natarajan, Chief Executive Officer, Redington India. He said, “Digital transformation has become an absolute imperative for people to get connected to  the business coordinates. It is more about reinventing the business model. Remote workforce management is the current, relevant, and  key characteristic of digital  transformation and cloud adoption is going to be  a major area of focus where flexibility is the key to have a great customer experience.”

Next, was another special address on ‘Cybersecurity and Cloud Security is No Longer an Option. It is a matter of survival and Sustainability’ by Sharad Sharma, Vice President – GSI, ISV and Global Alliances, Cloud4C Services. Sharma expressed, “Ransomware attacks have grown by 350 per cent since 2018. Total 1.5 million phishing sites are created every month. Government, manufacturing, construction, utilities type of industries are mostly targeted by ransomwares and you cannot maintain a strong team without a secure remote work strategy. Consumers wish to work with companies that can keep their data safe.”

Following this was an exclusive IT association session by the ‘F​ederation of All India IT Associations, FAIITA: Driving the IT channel towards Phygital sellers’. The session saw the formal announcement of ‘India IT Mall’ – a new first of its kind digital e-commerce platform for the IT resellers.

Kaushik Pandya, President, FAIITA; Navin K Gupta, General Secretary, FAIITA; Devesh Kumar Rastogi, Sr Vice President, FAIITA and S Karthikeyan, Vice President, FAIITA participated in the discussion.

Kaushik Pandya, President, FAIITA explained, “We have more than 100 associations who joined FAIITA from every nook and corner of India. Our basic motive is to help in uplifting the channel body and the business of brick and mortar.”

S Karthikeyan, Vice President, FAIITA said, “The pandemic changed everything. It gave us an opportunity to re-think, re-invent, re-imagine. There is a dearth of personalised after-sales support for products purchased online. Digital marketing strategy should be worked properly before launching a product.”

Federation of All India IT Associations, FAIITA : Driving the IT channel towards Phygital sellers

The last day of the conference ended with another awards ceremony where winners were felicitated for their excellent contributions in the categories like AI, blockchain, enterprise security, data centres and many more. The list of award winners is as following:

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