GATES ICT Reseller Summit concludes at the Heritage Village Resort and Spa in Manesar, Gurgaon with over 250 top executives from the ICT industry. Now in its third year, GATES Summit brought together leading channel partners from 43 cities in India for over 650 pre-scheduled 1-on-1 meetings with senior executives from international technology brands.
GATES Summit was supported by DBS SME BANKING as Platinum Sponsor; DAHUA TECHNOLOGY and TOSHIBA as Gold Sponsors; HGST and TECHLY as Silver Sponsors. Also supporting the event was TAITRA, Taiwan’s foremost non-profit trade promotion organization, leading a delegation of 10 vendors with the prestigious “Taiwan Excellence” designation.
Organizers of the 3-day event expressly focused on India’s burgeoning SME segment, inviting those value-added distributors, system integrators and resellers who specialize in serving the middle market. In addition to a showcase of innovative products and solutions targeting the SME segment, the GATES conference program aimed to address their critical information needs. A workshop from London-based REGENT PARTNERS, for example, was a deep dive on merger & acquisition activity in the space, discussing the key value points that shape these transactions.
Ashish Kapahi, CEO of GATES, said: “Despite a challenging year in India, with demonetization and GST implementation, the channel remains quite optimistic about the SME segment. We’re using the GATES platform to empower the channel to seize these opportunities with the right products, partners and knowledge.”
Kapahi continued: “Attendees really value our investment in executive education. This year we dedicated much of the conference program to issues like smart financing, leveraging vendor MDF and cloud evolution. These are hot topics for VADs, SIs and resellers operating in the SME market.”
The GATES conference organized a Panel Discussion with senior executives representing a wide range of business backgrounds — international vendors, local channel partners and industry associations.Panelists debated the “future readiness” of the channel, with nearly universal agreement that distributors must do more to keep pace with the rapidly-evolving marketplace.
Atul Mehta, CEO of Compuage, said the channel must “stay focused on value-added and on the SME space” to maintain future growth. Paramjit Singh Juneja, CEO of Seacant Technologies, added the critical importance of “a focus on customers and understanding their changing needs.”
Undeniably a highlight of the event, GATES SMART PITCH provided vendors an opportunity to deliver a 90-second elevator pitch for their latest product or solution on stage. This informative and entertaining session featured three awards, with winners chosen in realtime through electronic voting by the audience of channel partners.
