FAIITA, PCAIT organised a day-long business meet to explore business collaborations for its members
Federation of All India Information Technology Associations (FAIITA) has been actively putting efforts to revive the IT channel business of India and exploring collaborations as the way forward, which may create healthy business enhancement climate for the channel partners. In the recent past, the IT channel has been fighting against odds; and surviving at wafer-thin margins is forcing IT partners to start looking at new ways of creating business opportunities.
In line to the same background, FAIITA has organised its first-of-a-kind ‘Channel Vistas’ 2018 event for its members. The event was organised by Progressive Channels Association of Information Technology (PCAIT). The aim of this business meeting was to discuss the business collaborations and partnership opportunities among the partners. Close to 125 IT partners from all the major states were gathered in Delhi and decided to increase 25 per cent of business enhancement in this year.
Speaking to CRN, Alok Gupta of FAIITA says, “The Make in India and Digital India push has paved the way for several small product companies to start producing products and solutions locally, and to make these products viable across India. For this, the industry body is connecting different partners to work jointly across geographies. With GST rolled out, business collaborations have become less cumbersome for different states’ partners. The first event has seen a good start and we will be increasing the scale of collaborations and work towards protecting and promoting the interest of the business community engaged in the manufacture, trade and service of information technology.”
Champakraj Gurjar, President of FAIITA, says on the occasion, “The road ahead is to take the association and its members to work together and interact on making the full use of association members for aligning them in projects such as Make in India, Digital India and more. The association is now working in the areas of how GST can make a positive impact on the channel fraternity across the country.”
PCAIT General Secretary Saket Kapoor states, “The thinning margins in IT and cost of operation is leading the IT channel business to new challenges. Today most of the second generation entrepreneurs are not willing to enter into IT business. If we do not explore new areas of collaborations, it will become difficult to sustain in the business.”
Gupta also highlighted that the event also recognised partners from Chandigarh and Lucknow who have set an example of this business collaborations and are charting out new business growth. During the event, nine local IT brands under the Make in India project demonstrated their products before the partners and map business networking.”
When asked how the association will target 25 per cent increase in business enhancement, Gupta shares, “Large numbers of SIs get orders for pan India installations. If we can pass on such opportunities to our networked partners, it can reduce the operation cost for SIs and add to local partners as a new business. Collaboration and cooperation will open up new avenues for partners.”
FAIITA recently signed a MoU with TAITRA and rolled back GST on multi-function printers and monitors from 28 per cent slab to eight per cent. The event was supported by leading PC brands: HP, Dell, Lenovo, Acer and D-Link.
