TAIT, CMDA (Pune) and COMPASS on top

One of the pioneers in global providers of market intelligence and advisory services for the IT industry, International Data Corporation (IDC) India has revealed the much awaited statistics of the IT channel association study 2010. With a total of 48 channel associations surveyed, the firm has come up with some surprises and revelations. The coveted industry finding reveals that 56 percent of the of associations surveyed, do not organize exhibitions and trade fairs in their respective regions. Pune's Computers and Media Dealers Association (CMDA) has the largest turnover of Rs 2.5 crore from the business-driven activities and expo, followed by Baroda IT Association and Raipur-based Chattisgarh Computer Media and Dealers Association.

The IDC study inducted 18 new channel associations, this year. The Trade Association of Information Technology (TAIT) got the top position again, for the third time in a row. CMDA (Pune) and Kolkata-based Computer Association of Eastern India (COMPASS) got the 2nd and 3rd rank respectively. IDC followed a pre-tested model for the evaluation of these association, based on inputs from the discussions with the executives of the respective associations. The parameters on which the associations were adjudged include membership growth, electoral process, awareness programs, communication, frequency of internal meeting, and organizing exhibition and trade fair in the region. Commenting on coming at the top slot of the coveted IDC IT channel association study 2010, Girish Rathod, President, TAIT said, that regular business events facilitated their association to top the chart. “Activities like seminars, new product launches, exhibitions and new initiatives with the recent Microsoft genuine software, contributed to maintain the top position for the third time,” Rathod said.

Muntazir Abbas
(muntazira@cybermedia.co.in)

Objective

The role of the IT channel associations has gone from a passive observer to an active champion of member causes in recent time. This is why DQ Week has over the past several years been playing an active role in tracking the channel bodies which have taken up the issues affecting the channel community and tried to strive for a successful resolution of the same. This has resulted in the fifth annual Association Survey, conducted by IDC India, where associations are ranked based on quantifiable parameters and member feedback of the body's efforts.

Methodology

Once commissioned, IDC India got in touch with 48 active associations in the country. In each association the President or the Secretary were contacted to get information about the body to understand its constitution and also find out the activities conducted-both business as well as social in nature.

This aside, IDC got in touch with close to five members, depending on the city, who are not part of the executive committee of the association and ensuring that the respondent is a proprietor of a channel company and not merely an employee. The questions addressed to these respondents were framed to gauge their perception about the association, their satisfaction with the activities undertaken by the body and support extended to members. This is a very crucial step in the process of profiling the association so that unbiased opinion could be gathered, as the respondents were chosen randomly from the database of the association. The member selection was done to ensure reasonable geographical coverage.

The gathered data was then analyzed by IDC experts, keeping in mind that ranking given to associations based on member feedback would not reflect the true picture about the achievements of an association. Hence, IDC considered various other parameters in addition to members' feedback.

To do this, IDC followed a pre-tested model for evaluation of these association based on inputs from the discussion.

Some of the parameters are as follows:

• Business benefit accrued to members in terms of new business/increased turnover etc. due to channel events conducted by the association.
• Effective communications and representation to local governing bodies to benefit member's business.
• Percentage representation of members compared to the total resellers in the city.
• Membership policies and its impact on the member's business.
• Number of events held and percentage attendance of members in these events.
• Policies framed by the association that impacts the members.
• Member welfare activities conducted.

What is the reason behind TAIT' success?

Awareness programs are the most crucial. With internal meetings, the plans are discussed, but unless we make the members aware, it will not materialize. Activities like seminars, new product launches, exhibitions and new initiatives, keeps on happening periodically. We make it a point to communicate with our members on a regular basis, discussing about their problems and solving it. We also organize stress management programs and financial programs in order to improve logistics efficiently.

What's your thought on website updation?

Now the information sharing is moving towards Web. It is convenient to access information by checking the website. Even government is encouraging more and more usage of websites for government information.

What are the challenges that you face as an association, and how are you responding to them?

Members welfare and growth is the most important challenge in today's competitive scenario. Members adapting to changing technologies and scenarios is crucial for the association and various seminars, awareness programs, exhibitions of new technologies and regular interaction with vendors is what we intend to focus in times to come. We have also become a member of MAIT, which will help in growth of our member and will also help us get regular updates on the latest government policies.

COMPASS has jumped to position three from the last year ranking of 8th. Please comment

With the growth of the organization and its membership, new issues are coming up daily and I am thankful to the various committees because of whom most of the issues have been addressed.

What are the challenges that your association face, and how are you responding to them?

In terms of business there are a few concerns which we are addressing effectively. First of all is the issue of software piracy. We are collaborating with Microsoft in propagating the cause to use genuine software which benefits both the parent company, the channel partner as well as the end user. In the second place, there is the issue of low profitability from trade. We are addressing these issues to the vendors as well as the distributors. We are also addressing credit policy issues and have been successfully solving some of the problems by our committees.

What will be your action plan for channel activities and initiatives? Please elaborate.

This year, in the foremost, we have planned to have a dedicated COMPASS office in New Town or Salt Lake area and have already written to the IT Minister, Debesh Das and the District Magistrate for the land. Besides, propagating and checking ethical business practices is our concern. We need to have a proper and well defined channel end-user policy in place and take into account the defaulters which are brought to our notice. Besides, we are also planning to introduce online trading though our portal where selected members who have good reputation in the market will have access to trade their goods online. We will introduce two commodities in the initial phase to test the impact; at a later stage, however, we will be putting all goods online.

Communication and frequency of internal meetings helped CMDA to score one of the top ranks in the IDC ranking survey. How do you see these activities as a key in a day-to-day parlance of an association?

We do a lot of coordination activities to ensure proper functioning of the association. This includes at least 20 events every year for our members, several back office activities and weekly meetings.

As an ISO certified association, do you feel that streamlining internal meeting and activities are the key facilitators?

ISO not only helped us in planning meetings but it has helped us to streamline back-office, documentation, membership process, arbitration process, event management and overall improvement in administration. Our working has been more professional and transfer of power from last committee to new committee is very smooth. We have very strict financial guidelines and we strictly follow budgets sanctioned in our GB.

What are the key achievements for your association the year 2010?

In 2010 we have taken up the 'Octroi' issue. This has been a pain area for all dealers in Maharashtra. All associations in Maharashtra also helped the cause. In 2010 CMDA published its first compressive members directory and a professional CD. During the year we successfully resolved eight arbitration.

With a significant jump from the last year ranking of 13 to be at number 4, how do you see this achievement?

The whole hearted support and co-operation from all the members and the district units is over whelming.When compared to this, what we had achieved is nothing but and that is what we value more than anything else. This also urges us to do more in the coming year.

Highlight the challenges faced by the association?

More than the challenges outside, it is the challenge within. In any ordinary circumstances, dealers follow what was happening in the past and take the system for granted on a notion that 'This was how it was happening and this is how it will continue.' When the dealers show no unity, then we cannot expect it from anyone else. Vendors and distributors implement and impose many rules and regulations which are non justifiable and biased but then it becomes practices. Our effort is to offer them a great environment and decent margin for all in the system especially our members.

What is your roadmap for the business acceleration activities and events in your region?

We are planning to encourage consortiums of dealers so that small dealers also become more independent and visible in the ecosystem. We are also planning to hold IT Expo 2011 in the Q4 2010-11 across the state in five major cities. We expect that this will give a chance to our member dealers to get more enquiries and generate more business opportunities. A pension plan for the welfare of dealer families is also in the pipe line.

VCMDWA has been ranked fifth in the survey. What are your observations around these?

We are very prompt over the elections and our internal meetings. Every month we hold at least one general body meeting to discuss about the trade, the channel scenario and address partner's concerns. Also, the executive committee sits together at least twice each month. Last year, VCMDWA was on the second position. I need to know the complete details and the parameters based on which the ranking was done. However, I think that there is always a scope to improve things and make them better.

What were the challenges, and how do you plan to go forward?

As I mentioned previously also, I wonder how we ranked so low as far as the seminars are concerned. This year, we undertook a very big IT seminar over career development for thee students in association with the government of Maharashtra. Also, we conduct two expos every year, in January and in July, we had a footfall of two lakh in the first expo and about 50,000 in the second one. Logitech has inaugurated one of their products in our expo which can be considered as a good response as far as vendor participation is concerned. As such, in my opinion, we did not face any challenges regarding any of the events that were undertaken.

Do you get cooperation from your members in getting timely feedback and participation in regular activities?

There is always an active level of participation among the members of VCMDWA regarding any activities. 80 percent of our total members have been proactive in the association and besides, we have our own office to conduct our deliberation activities.

What will be your roadmap?

We have two office employees, one each for the executive secretary and for office help. Also, CSR activities have been very good for us. We have donated a fully operational computer training center to the kids of the Railway Police Force which has generated much appreciation from them.

BITA has moved to sixth position from rank nine in the previous year. Please share your thoughts?

Positive approach, vision to support members, adding more and more activities for the benefit of members as well as society, strong team spirit, strong family values-that's what BITA stands for.

What are the other parameters that you will like to improve?

Still, miles to go. Involvement from the members to put in their thoughts is very important. We at BITA, maintain transparency in the activities, which is very essential for the success. With the continuation of all current events, we are working upon to add more such events/programs like e-waste management, series of IT training programs for school and colleges.

What are the challenges that your association faces and how are you responding to them?

As far as IT business and IT entrepreneurs are concerned, still as an industry, IT industry is in a childhood stage. More awareness programs are required to make IT industry to turn it mature enough. The rural market has great potential and it is a big challenge for the association to make IT industry more stable and mature plus work as team rather than working as an individual.

What are the key factors that helped you to achieve the eighth position in the IDC survey?

We focus on the overall development of members, not only in technology up gradation, but also the development of business and motivation, by various seminars like time management, and seminars on how to maintain healthy margins in business.

What are the challenges that your association face, and how are you responding to them?

Challenges come to us in the form of monetary frauds, illegal software issues, payment issues, vendor and channel issues, service issues, DoA and replacement issues, LFR issues, IT financing issues, etc. Whenever we receive any complaint regarding frauds or payment issues we call both the parties and try to settle them happily. We also use to call vendor representatives for any issues related to trade and service.

What will be your initiatives to accelerate business activities in the region? Any such activity that you have recently undertaken?

As part of our regular activity, I will definitely work to keep the members up-to-date with the latest technology and trends. We had recently organized an exclusive exhibition for the software and telecom industry called 'TechnoSoft 2010' from Oct 8 to 10 to promote the software industry in South Gujarat region.

What is your roadmap for business acceleration activities and events in your region?

Our flagship event IT EXPO 2011, which is in its 15th year, is planned from Feb 4 to 7, 2011. It is the biggest ever exhibition in entire Gujarat. We have planned for an exclusive dome named 'enterprise solutions dome', to showcase the latest technology and products related to enterprise solution.

What is the mantra behind TITA's success?

We never compromise on our regular association work. We are in constant touch with our fellow association members and we always believe in maintaining a healthy relationship among our community. In the long run, this will help us move ahead and achieve our goals.

Being at rank 7, do you feel that there is a room for improvement? Please elaborate.

There is a lot to improve on the work front definitely. We have covered more than 90 percent of the dealer community in our region. But at the same time we feel that this ranking is a great achievement and a great honor for us, as it is only the third year of our formation.

What will be your initiatives to accelerate business activities in the region? Any such activity that you have recently undertaken?

We had conducted an IT exhibition in our region exclusively for our members and it turned out to be a grand success. Such events will be conducted in future as well. We also conduct regular monthly meetings and discuss the issues, that we are facing in our region. Interaction with more vendors through our meetings will be undertaken and we will ensure that our products are available with the sub-distributors within the city. We also want our members to share their feedback and opinion with us, so that we know how we are faring. It will help us analyze our work better.

JCDA has moved down to ninth position from sixth last year?

There were many challenges faced by the association. One of them was that, earlier we were not united, as the number of members associated with JCDA was quite less. But now, this is no more our area of concern. Besides, we are also fighting with the government authorities for the IT complex, that we have been demanding for quite some time now.

Please share any of the recent activities that have drawn attention in the region?

We conducted an IT expo last year, which was a great success and gave us a path to scale to new heights. Jammu has never witnessed such an extensive IT expo that was held over a period of three days. The companies that participated in it have given us a very positive feedback and now asking us to organize it in the same way in the coming years as well.

Could you highlight some of the key achievements in the year 2010?

One big achievement for us is that earlier these members used to fight for the competition, but now they are under the same roof, those activities have highly reduced. Now, they do not interfere in each others territories. Besides, in a small city like Jammu, members are more than willing to contribute from their side towards the betterment of JCDA and take our initiatives to the next level. Also, today more and more people from the industry are willing to fight election. We are also involved in many social and welfare activities and we have allotted some fund for conducting those as well. We even have reserve fund for helping any of our members in their hard times.

AIT has been at the same position as in previous year. Do you see that there is a room for improvement, despite of maintaining the same position?

Firstly, I do not know on what basis the evaluation is done. The current executive committee took up the office exactly a year before. We are having our monthly executive committee meetings as per schedule. Every two months we have sponsored fellowship meet with eminent speakers/panel in which we discuss topics in interest of the dealers. Our PC EXPO, which was in association with YATRA, was fairly successful.

What were the major initiatives that you have undertaken?

By conducting programs of interest to the members we have kept their interest alive in AIT activities. All the executive committee members are very approachable in solving the grievance of the member. Through the AITgoogle group the members are able to air their opinions and are able to communicate with others without any bottleneck.

AIT went slow on awareness programs and internal meeting frequency. What were the key challenges around these? Please elaborate.

No, this is not true. As a matter of fact the frequency of meetings is the highest in the last one year. The Major challenge we are facing is to get all the dealers to attend the association events in good numbers. Though there is a marked improvement in the last year or so, it can be still better.

What were the initiatives to keep members engaged and please share cases where partners issues were resolved?

Members keep their issues posted on the google group, this in itself has prompted the AIT executive committee to act quickly and decisively. For example Shri Computers, Mandya had a problem with TVS-E on a faulty supply. AIT got it resolved within a fortnight. SAVEX had a payment issue with one of the dealers for over five months. AIT intervened and sorted it out immediately.

Team DQ Channels