Raising the bar of ISODA Tech Summits standards, ISODA served TSX – Baku as an ultimate hotspot for information exchange, networking and entertainment to 100 software channel partners, select media persons and OEMs from India.
ISODA’s annual flagship event – TechSummit 10th edition (TSX) took place in the beautiful capital city of Republic of Azerbaijan, Baku from 5th Feb to 8th Feb 2020. The four-day event was an intoxicating experience for all 130 people including 100 software dealers from India, media representatives and OEMs. This event turned out to be deadly combination of knowledge sharing, partnership building, and entertainment. There were nearly 24 presentations and tech talks by different leading vendors of security and backup solutions. The event also saw felicitation of partners who were performing in various categories of security solutions for 2019.
Apart from the OEMs from global market, the event was addressed by Shri B. Vanlalvawna (IFS:1998), Ambassador of India to the Republic of Azerbaijan and Deputy Minister of Transport, Communications and High Technologies, Elmir Valizadeh.
Both the leaders showed their optimism around enhanced business opportunity between India and Azerbaijan. Both the partners particularly agreed upon and praised ISODA initiative in bringing Indian software capability closer to Azerbaijan.
The event also saw presentations from Aserbaijan ICT innovation centre and ministry of tourism.
Addressing the gathering, TSX, Chairman, Jiten Mehta, said, “This is our tenth successful event and we are seeing great response from the OEMs. Day by day there is an increase in the cost in organizing this kind of events and without their help, this kind of event would not have been possible. I would like to thank all the OEMs who have supported us in this event, and I would look forward to being part of the event next year also. We will make sure that you get best return of investment from this event.”
Roshan D Souza, Regional Sales Director, India – SAARC, Carbonite said, “We want to make a brand presence in the country, and we want to use a couple of different platforms. ISODA events are one of the opportunities. My personal experience has been very positive with TSX, Baku.”
Anand Prahlad, President & CEO, Parablu added, “We participated ISODA event through our distributor SATCOM. I am happy about it as last couple of days have been amazing for us. I did not hear much from ISODA team rather they were listening to us. I was just blown away by the reach of the partners. It is a great platform for expanding our business. We do not do business directly with the customers. It is an opportunity to enhance our addressable market. I cannot see better way to increase our channel reach through the platform like ISODA.”
Juned Kasmani, Shivaami Cloud Services, said, “I personally feel that this event is well organized. The takeaway for me is the discipline that was maintained in the platform where we could express what we wanted to say to the partners. Everything was going as per the agenda.”
Mohit Puri, Director Sales Engineering, Sophos, added: “We have been participating in ISODA for last many years; but this is my first time. It is a fantastic platform with over 100 channel partners under one roof. It gives us opportunity to interact with a wider breadth of partners in India.”
Venkata SR Datla, Head – Channels, Alliances, Distribution & SMB – India & SAARC, Extreme Networks, echoed: “Extreme Networks has started its business through channel since last one year. We have built a team now for channel side which was not there previously. What we understood that most of the ISODA partners do business in Security and storage domain. We were interacting with only 10 partners. By joining this event, we could meet another 90 partners. We saw people in the event throughout the day. That is a great thing. Kudos to the team.”
Dinesh Kumar, Sales Director, India, Soti said, ““We were there last year though it is my first time in this event. What I liked about it is that ISODA is a community of partners who are focused on enterprise solutions and security, which is our forte. That is where we wanted to engage with a greater number of partners. By attending this event gives us larger footprint in India. We have increased our footprint in India from 2-member team to 16 members team including sales and pre-sales. Soti is present in India for last 8 years for product development and support. India is almost like a headquarters for Asia Pacific for us. Isoda Tech Summit – 10 has given us opportunity to interact with the partners who are relevant to us.”
Akshay Thakkar – Director – Shivaami Cloud Services Pvt. Ltd. Said: “This event is a great opportunity for us to make the partners understand what Shivaami does. We have gained a lot from the partnerships. I expect the same this year too.”
Sanjay Gangadharn, Regional Director – SAARC, A10 Networks said, “A10 has been present in India for last seven years+. We have been present in the application delivery and security market. When we started in India, we were focused on the telco sector but now with building more focus on security, we feel that we need bigger reach in the market. We have a very good customer base now as credible references and partners can take benefits of that. That is something we wanted to convey to the market. We are already working with some of the partners, but we wanted to reach out to a larger community and see how we can make 1+1= 11.”
Ajay Joshi, Country Manager, ESET, added, “As ESET is a hundred per cent channel driven company, partners are the key cornerstone for our market/ business growth. I have been associated with ISODA earlier also – so also our distributors. Globally ESET is much more focused on the enterprise products now. It is part of our major GTM strategy in India to get associated with partners. So, we started with ISODA summit and would keep partnering with other partners’ centric endeavors too.”
Sahil Jamnawale, Key Alliance Manager – SAARC, Tripwire, said, “ISODA is a great platform to meet top partners in the country. With ISODA, this is our second year of engagement. Last year also we have seen a good success but this year I see an incremental interest from the partners. I would like to continue with ISODA summit next year too.”
Kuldip Jani, Manager, Channel & Alliance, TeamViewer India Pvt. Ltd., added, “For TeamViewer, channel business is only three-year-old. We just started our operation one year back in India. This is our third year with ISODA though. We were with some regional meets of ISODA and this is our first Tech Summit. The idea was to take mindshare of the top leading partners of India outside their office atmosphere and we have been successful in doing so.”
Finally …
Thanking to the sponsors, Amarnath Shetty, Chairman, ISODA said, “The event hall was full with 100% presence of the partner. Keeping the crowd in the hall was a challenge but we did it. We always try to make it better and bigger. We request all the sponsors to follow up with us throughout the year. We want the discussion to happen till the next summit so that you get the ROI. We have regional committees and chapters. In our website you can find all the contacts of the management committee of the ISODA. You can ask your team to contact them all. From our side, our relationship manager will be in touch with your team.”
Manasi Chakraborty Saha, President, ISODA, echoed, “I am in the management committee for last six years. I see a tremendous growth in the media engagement, growth in the relationship with the sponsors and increase in the number of the partners. One of the OEMs – SOPHOs, which is there with us in the tech summit for last many years. This shows that their ROI is better. We are here to do networking and business. We do parties but we also ensure larger scope of business outcome.”
Vimesh Avlani, Secretary, ISODA added, “Benefit of the partners is that by attending the Tech Summit, partners come to know about various offerings from the OEMs. We are also eager to give back your ROI with us. Any time you have any challenge, pls. reach out to us. Those members who have not attended the tech summit can also be reached for any business support.”
| Senior Azerbaijan Government Officials Grace the 10th edition of ISODA TechSummit – TSX
Hon. Deputy Minister Mr. Almir Velizadeh (Transport, Communications and High Technologies, Republic of Azerbaijan) and Hon. Ambassador to Azerbaijan Mr. B Vanlalvawna (Government of India) presided over the inauguration of the TechSummit. They were accompanied by Board Members of Innovation Agency, Azerbaijan and representatives of the Azerbaijan Ministry of Tourism. |
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Mr. Velizadeh presented the key note address. He spoke on how their Government is looking forward to the support of the technology companies and
partners from India, to bring the country at par in the sector of Digital Transformation, Cyber Security and building state of the art Datacenters and IT Infrastructure in the country. The dignitaries later spent time with the IT Media that was present at the TechSummit to share their vision and to call out to the Indian community for partnering in progress. |
| The Government officials followed up on the inauguration by inviting the ISODA TechSummit team to meet Hon. Minister Ramin n Guluzade (Transport, Communications and High Technologies, Republic of Azerbaijan) the next day. A contingent comprising Jiten Mehta – TSX Chairman, Manasi Saha – President ISODA and Rajeev Mamidanna – Vice Chairman ISODA met up with him at his office. Some very strategic discussions took place where the Hon. Minister shared his vision and invited ISODA to visit Azerbaijan soon with a contingent of partners. He asked of the profiling of ISODA community and was very keen to share opportunities with the ISODA team for business in Azerbaijan. |  |
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After spending time with the Hon. Minister, the ISODA team was invited to visit the Innovations Center which was the place of some very strategic research and development. The team met Mr. Fariz Guliyev, Board Member of the Innovations Center. He and his team of personnel spent a good amount of time understanding the value that ISODA could bring to the Government of Azerbaijan. He was very keen to visit India as well and see the technology innovations that we ourselves had adopted. He wanted ISODA to partner with the Innovations Center and promised to work on a framework where ISODA partners could set up their businesses at Azerbaijan and help in local employment as well as technology adoption. |
| The overall support that the Government officials provided to ISODA and its team was priceless. The intent of the Government of Azerbaijan was indeed in sync with that of the ISODA TechSummit – Reform. Perform. Transform.
Tripwire was the Gold Sponsor for the TechSummit. There were a total of 25 sponsors who graced the Summit and spent close to 2 days in technology exchange with 115 ISODA Entrepreneurs. This was by far the largest gathering of ISODA partners and sponsors across the 10 editions of TechSummit. |
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