CRN’s India kick-started its flagship multi-city Explore Bharat campaign in Chandigarh, targeted at the SMB and IT channel community of the city
The first edition of the campaign saw an overwhelming start, whereby close to 60 SMB companies as well as channel partners attended the event. CRN India, in association with Samsung, ESDS and NetMagic and with the support of Chandigarh Computer Association (CCA), had organised its flagship event on July 26 in Chandigarh.
SMB Track
The first leg of the event was focused on the SMB segment. Ramandeep Dhiman, Managing Director, Satellite Mapping Consultant, a Chandigarh based SMB company, was among the first speaker who showcased use cases of various latest technologies in gaining a competitive edge. He shared how latest technologies such as satellite data and its applications, remote sensing, and GIS have helped in overcoming the depleting water resources problem. Dhiman has been working in this field for the last 16 years, having being trained and certified by organisations such as ISRO, NASA USA and German government.
Atif Shakir, General Manager, Head of North and East region, Samsung Enterprise Mobility, in a descriptive way, informed about the spread and reach of Samsung’s mobility solutions and offerings for SMBs and how these products are improving the overall productivity and driving excellent results in the SMB space. He spoke about the power of Samsung Knox mobile security platform, making Samsung smartphones, tablets and wearables among the most reliable mobile devices.
ESDS, a leading provider of managed data centre service and auto-scalable cloud solutions, in a joint presentation by Mahavir Goel, Regional Manager – Sales (North) and Achyut Sharma, Sales Manager, ESDS Software Solution, explained how the company’s cloud solutions are transforming and modernising network operations and accelerating data centre innovation with simplified, high-capacity network fabrics.
A panel discussion was also conducted, wherein leading Chandigarh based SMB companies shared their experiences of how technology is becoming a centre stage for business growth. Ramandeep Dhiman; GagganPal Singh Sidhu, Director, Milagro Interactive Technologies and Atif Shakir were among the panelists. The panelists were of the collective view that digital transformation is a reality and SMBs are looking for ways to transform their offline business into online. Sidhu emphasised on the need to realign business and process through technologies for faster decision making and customer services. The session was moderated by Nivedan Prakash, Senior Assistant Editor, CRN India.
Channel Track
In the evening, the channel track began with a joint presentation made by the President of CCA, Sulalait Gupta, Director, Global Systems and Arun Sharma, CEO, Webnet Asia and Technical Advisor of CCA. Gupta and Sharma educated the audience about the prevailing business conditions in Chandigarh and challenges such us predatory online pricing, service and support issues and vendor policies. Through a presentation, Sharma talked about the changing customer needs and how emerging technologies like cloud and analytics are transforming the channel business.
Following CCA’s session, D Vishranth, General Manager & Head – Channel Sales, Samsung Enterprise Mobility shared more about the mobility solutions for the channel community and how it can leverage the enterprise mobility solutions as a new business avenue.
Shantaram Shinde, VP and National Head – Channel Business, Netmagic, explained the emerging opportunities for the channel in the cloud computing space. He also addressed the channels issues narrated by CCA. Shinde highlighted the skilling and re-skilling of channel to get prepared for next-generation technologies and solutions. He said, “It is said that one can defer, delay, but cannot deny the progress of technology. It is time to give them a solution, especially for those who are risk-averse to newer and smarter technologies.”
Another panel discussion included Sanjiv Walia, Director, Jetage & Chairman and Past President CCA; Manu Mehta, MD, Fore Solutions; Surinder Chugh, SIMITComputers; JB Singh, MD, Access Solutions. These stalwarts of the local IT market discussed subjects like threats from online trade portals, margins and profitability, business sustainability and emerging opportunities. The interactive discussion was moderated by Sandhya Michu, Principal Correspondent, CRN India.
