Nilgiri association gets new team

NILGIRI, INDIA: Nilgiri Information Technology Association (NITA) saw its new executive committee taking charge on May 8. The installation function of the association took place in Ooty, where PN Prasad, President, Confed-ITA was invited as the chief guest. Balakrishan, VP and Muthuswamy, Secretary—Confed graced the occasion. Terrance S Rajesh, CEO, Key Info Development Systems has been elected as the new President of the association.

The other office bearers include—Max E Dextor, VP; Lawrence, Secretary; Gunesekaran, Treasurer; Rajesh, Joint Secretary; Wilfred, Public Relations; Ravi Kumar, Samanth and Naguvendran, Executive Committee.

Sharing his sentiments on being elected as the new President, Rajesh said, “Our motive is to develop IT in the remotest areas of Tamil Nadu. We want to minimize the distance between vendors and distributors, dealers and channel partners and our association would be working in this direction. The main issue for channel partners in Nilgiri district is that the end-users tend to go down to Coimbatore or nearby places, all the way from the hillstation, for all their IT needs due to the lack of awareness about the channel partners functional in the region. During my inaugural address, I put forward this point strongly that we dealers need to have our share of sales, and it is possible only if there is proper awareness in the region about channel partners.

With margins coming down constantly, the association would be focusing on onsite servicing. It has planned for more activities to increase the mindshare of the dealers among the customers. The activities include free service camps in Ooty and Connoor every month, and half-an-hour consultation program on the local cable TV every week.

“We have planned to use the local cable television in an effective manner by increasing the visibility of our dealers through continuous scrolls of all their names, address and conducting half an hour consultation program every week.”

Pointing out that channel partners in Nilgiri need to come out of their current model of selling for increasing their opportunities, Prasad said, “Partners must try to forge closer ties with the vendors and sell directly. Also they should see other opportunities like residential training programs and corporate training programs in their area, as they would be incurring only minimal expenses in running them.”