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In the rapidly evolving world of information technology, the Confederation of Information Technology Associations (CONFED-ITA) stands as a pillar of support and advocacy for IT traders across Tamil Nadu and beyond. Representing a consortium of 24 associations with around 1600 members, including Sub/Regional Distributors, Dealers/SIs, and T3 resellers from over 40 cities, CONFED-ITA is dedicated to the betterment of its members' businesses.
As part of their services of continuously striving to address the challenges faced by its diverse membership and enhance their operational efficiency, CONFED-ITA conducted their TECH Summit 2024 recently at Coimbatore. With active participation by its members the Summit had brainstorming sessions by big players from the IT Industry throwing their light on Cybersecurity, advanced computing, enterprise storage and much more.
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The event started with the opening remark by the President of Coimbatore Information Technology Association Sai Krishna and CONFED-ITA President Vasudevan R, followed by A Karthikeyan of Bloom Electronics sharing a few words about the Summit. Stalin S, Regional Account Manager, HPE gave his presentation on advanced computing talking about high performance computing Initiatives, examples of advanced computing applications and future trends in advanced computing.
Chirag Narula, Distribution Manager, India and SAARC, Veenam Software spoke about assessment of current backup methodologies and updates on backup solutions and technologies.
Sriram S, Regional Account Manager, Fortinet showed his presentation on Cybersecurity, in which he plunged deep into Cybersecurity threats and trends, strategies for enhancing cybersecurity posture in detail.
Mahalingam Ramasamy, MD, Netcon Technologies India gave his speech about AI in day-to-day business. He said, “The digital revolution is no longer for the large organisations. it is no longer for the conglomerates. It should be there for the MSMEs. And I am sure your presence in the industry is going to accelerate the digital revolution. The digital transformation and use of digital technologies among the large corporations are increasing. At the same time, MSMEs are not keeping pace with the technology. Perhaps because they don’t have awareness about these technologies or they cannot afford those technologies because of the price. Large companies are trying to push technologies which are applicable for large companies to smaller companies as well. However, with the emergence of internet and the startup ecosystem and the digital revolution, there are technologies available which are not only meant for the bigger companies, but are affordable by the MSMEs as well.”
He went on, “Technologies such as AI, IOT have a tremendous potential. It is important that you should know about the technology and you should take these technologies to the customers. In this process, you will be able to provide better value to your customers. You will also be able to make higher profits and more sales.”
He added, “You should also look at how you can provide solutions or you can partner with companies and provide solutions that can transform the businesses of your customers. For example, you can partner with companies which provide solutions to MSMEs and transform their businesses. So, the point I want to drive home is that you have tremendous opportunities and you are the ones who provide solutions, who are reaching to the customers who are not served by the bigger companies.”
He further said, “Once you have the trust of the customer, you can give your value added services and the customer would be ready to pay for your value. The value addition may be in the form of a service or in the form of some additional support that you provide to them which improves their business or which improves the equipment availability. So, profitability and cash flow is very important in our business.”
He concluded, “Cybersecurity is very important. Whatever we do, whatever we sell, cybersecurity is required for every organisation. So, that’s something you should learn. What is cyber security? Why is cyber security important to the customer? And at what points, every point, it could be your end point, it could be your mobile phone or a computer or a machine which is connected to internet. Everywhere, cybersecurity is important. So, there are opportunities. For that, you have to keep skilling up yourself. You, yourself as well as your team should be continuously skilled up.”