Transformation drives innovation and face-To-face interactions are always better to understand and engage. Companies must be attentive to the changing landscape of their industry and be sure to count with the right talent in order to carry out new business models, as well as train and retain existing talent.
The 20th VARINDIA Star Nite Awards 2021 this year was a Hybrid Event and was organized on 26th Nov, 2021, Friday from 9.00 am to 9.00 pm. The event attracted over 1542 attendees (including VARs/Partners) from 30 different cities in the country. This event was a true testimonial to how companies are well prepared to go physical and digital (phygital). It was presented by Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Ingram Micro.
The full-day event started with the morning session – PARTNER TRANSFORMATION SUMMIT with Ingram Micro and Microsoft. The objective was to enlighten the audience about Ingram Micro’s roadmap on the distribution, Services, cloud business and its strong alliance with the vendor ecosystem to manage the key aspects of this journey-operations, automation, business resiliency and digital transformation while also highlighting Microsoft’s digital learning offerings for a hybrid environment.
The Partner Transformation Summit was attended by 900 delegates. The session started with the presentation of Mr. Amarish Karnik, Channel sales Director (India & SAARC) – Veeam Software and Mr. Rameesh Kailasam, CEO – India Tech to address the audience on the ‘Future of Cryptocurrency Regulations in India’. To understand more on cryptocurrency, there was a FireSide chat organized with Mr. Rameesh Kailasam and Ms. S Mohini Ratna, Editor – VARINDIA, which highlighted the Crypto regulations, a burning topic in the country today.
This was followed by the Super Session and the VAR Symposium which started in the morning and lasted till the evening, where attendees learnt how to get ahead, stay ahead, and lead business through the digital revolution. The event was the perfect platform to strengthen partner engagement and business networking.
The Channel Transformation Session started with the introductory note from Ms. Komal Baruah, General Manager – Corporate Strategy- Ingram Micro India. Distinguished speakers including Mr. Jayant Gundewar, Executive Director and Head – Advance Solutions-Ingram Micro India, Mr. Santanu Bhaumik, Group General Manager – Professional Services-Ingram Micro India, Mr. Anurag Singh, Director and Head of Networking Business-Ingram Micro India, Ms. Sheela Acharekar, General Manager- Ingram Micro India, Mr. Dilip Jana, Deputy General Manager- Ingram Micro India, Mr. Deepanshu Sharma, Deputy General Manager- Ingram Micro India, Mr. Jitendra Khadke, General Manager-Ingram Micro India and Mr. Jyotil Mankad, Director and Head of Cloud Business, Ingram Micro India addressed the session on the vision of Ingram Micro in India.
The second session was presented by Microsoft Corporation India. The focus of the discussion was Hybrid learning for India Specific. It started with a Panel discussion session moderated by Dr. Deepak Kumar Sahu, Editor-in-Chief-VARINDIA and the panellists were Mr. Sanjay Achwal, Executive Director & Head of sales-Ingram Micro, Ms. Farhana Haque, Group Director, DPSS, Microsoft India, Mr. Sanjay Radhakrishnan, Chief Strategy & Business Excellence- Tata Classedge and Mr. Lokesh Bajaj, Vice President, Education Services- Schoolnet India. This was followed by a presentation on Hybrid learning scenario in India, and the session was presented by Mr. Amit Pawar, DIR Specialist- Microsoft Singapore who also showed the Demo of Window 11 SE. The session finally ended with a Live Q & A session.
The VAR Symposium Session started with the first Panel discussion, where there were seven Chief marketing Officers and marketing leaders from the Industry participating as the panellists. They were Mr. Ramesh Natarajan, CEO- Redington India, Mr. Naved Chaudhary, Head of marketing- Ingram Micro India, Mr. Rahul Singh, VP & Head of marketing- SAP India, Mr. Kaustubh Patki, Marketing Head – Micro Focus India, Mr. Jagannathn Chelliah, Director Marketing- Western Digital, Ms. Arpita Sengupta, Director & Head of Mktg. Red Hat India and Ms. Vaishali B Shivshankar, Head of Mktg. – Rackspace Technology. The session was moderated by Dr. Deepak Kumar Sahu, Chief Editor-VARINDIA.
The VAR Symposium continued with the presentation from seven OEMs, where they shared their channel and GTM strategy targeting partners in the country. The presenters were Mr. Bishwajit Sutradhar, National Sales Head, Passive Networking Business, Polycab, Mr Amit Kapoor, Business Manager- Channels & Distribution, HPE India, Mr. Ganesan Arumugam, Director-Channel Sales-India & SAARC- NetApp India, Mr. Neerav Kumar, Director Sales, Strategic Business- CommScope, Mr. Krunal Patel, Director-TeamViewer, Mr. Sumit Kumar, Regional Head for North & East India, Bangladesh & Nepal – Kaspersky and Mr. Ramanan Chidambaram, Director – Sales, Fortinet India.
The Corporate presentations were followed by the panel discussion session with six VARs from the Indian Tech industry participating in the session. They were Mr. Ranjan Chopra, Chairman & Managing Director- Team Computers, Mr. Ajay Sawant, Managing Director- Orient Technologies, Ms. Prarthana Gupta, CEO- Cache Digitech, Mr. N. K. Mehta, Managing Director & CEO – Secure Network, Mr. Vipul Datta, CEO- Futuresoft Solutions Pvt. Ltd. and Mr. Atul Ahuja, Sr. Vice President (Middle East, Africa & ASIA) – Softline Group. The session was again moderated by Dr. Deepak Kumar Sahu, Chief Editor-VARINDIA.
The Partners got a glimpse about the industry during the two panel discussion sessions by the CMOs and VARs who shared their viewpoints. The Theme of the Panel Discussions was “Partner Transformation Key Enabler For Effective Business Transformation”.
The VAR Symposium witnessed the vision of the leaders who are working strongly to keep their channel programs effective. There was also the recognition of 115 Eminent VARs of India. Finally, there was a FireSide Chat session between Mr. Anil Sethi, Vice President & General Manager- Channels India, Dell Technologies and Dr. Deepak Kumar Sahu, Chief Editor – VARINDIA.
The session was followed by the recognition of Channel Chiefs in the Indian Tech Industry, where five Channel chiefs were recognised in five different categories. The five exclusive winners were –
Mr. Anil Sethi, VP & General Manager (Channels) – Dell Technologies in the category of Digital Transformation
Ms. Lata Singh, Executive Director (IBM Partner Eco-system) – IBM India in the category of Hybrid Cloud
Mr. Amer Warsi, Channel, SMB & Ecosystem Leader, HPE India in the category of Hyperconverged Infrastructure
Mr. Khalid Wani, Senior Director (India & South Asia) – Western Digital in the category of Data Storage Company
Mr. Amresh Karnik, Director, Channel Sales & Alliance (India & SAARC) – VEEAM Software in the category of Back-up & Recovery
At the end of the VAR Symposium, a Supplementary edition – the Channel Policy Hand Book was unveiled, which is an attempt to understand the Channel Policies of Top 50 Technology Companies in the country.
The evening session, which happens to be the most awaited and exciting session every year, commenced with Ms. S Mohini Ratna, Editor, VARINDIA speaking about the importance and the methodologies of the Channel Leadership Survey, followed by the welcome address by Mr. Manoj Chugh- President Group Public Affairs & Member – Group Executive Board- Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd., an address by Mr. Amit Sharma, IT Secy, J&K and Mr. Deepak Chanduka, DDG (Spl. Projects) – USOF, DoT. There were three Corporate presentations by Mr. Shantaram Shinde, National Channel Head- NTT Ltd., Mr. Anshuman Rai, Area Vice President (India & South Asia) – CommVault and Mr. Sanjiv Krishen, Chairman – IRIS Global Services Pvt. Ltd.
The event’s exciting moment was the recognition of 10 Chief Marketing Officers, and the felicitation of 40 corporates recognised for their leadership in their respective product and solution categories and 3 corporates recognised in the Editor’s Choice awards category. This was followed by the recognition of five IT Associations in the country, who have done great work for the members and the growth of the industry. The IT associations which were felicitated were PCAIT- Delhi, TAIT- Mumbai, COMPASS- Kolkata, ISODA and ASIRT, followed by the presentation from Mr. Kaushik P Pandya, President- FAIITA, where he spoke about the “India IT Mall”.
In the power packed Tech talk session, which was an extempore session for 5 min., there were three corporates who presented on the emerging trends and how they are pitching their products in the market. The presenters were Mr. Dinesh Kukreja, CEO- Unicas Services LLP, Mr. Sunil Sharma, Managing Director (Sales)- Sophos and Mr. Manoj Taskar, Country Manager-India- Anomali.
The outcome of the event is that newer technologies bring newer disruptions, challenges and also opportunities for growth but at the same time the issues of Cyber security will remain a challenge. As we prepare to leave 2021 behind, the new year will see us in the next normal. Things have changed irreversibly and many more changes are yet to come. We can only succeed if we really collaborate with each, playing to our strengths and helping the entire ecosystem to grow.
The year 2021 has taught us that collective alignment toward a common objective is a critical component required to achieve worthwhile outcomes and sustainable, long-term success. It is high time for the partners to develop the digital entrepreneurial spirit among themselves by redefining the business process.
