Pune: International Association of Microsoft Channel Partners (IAMCP), India West board on Tuesday inaugurated the new chapter in Pune. The aim of the Pune chapter is to enable better engagement among Microsoft partners and facilitate business collaboration among them. The board announced the appointment of Sarika Malhotra, CEO of C3IT Software Solutions Pvt. Ltd. as a head of the newly formed chapter.
Pune has a large Microsoft partner ecosystem, there are 250 plus Microsoft partners based in the city. The chapter aims to create a networking forum for local partners and help them collaborate on business opportunities and network with Microsoft to evaluate new opportunities in order to grow their business. Talking to Channel Times, Sarika Malhotra, head of the Pune chapter said, the forum would create a local community by driving membership.
The forum will also conduct monthly events that would provide value to the community. These events would include sessions by Microsoft experts to educate partners about new opportunities to partner with Microsoft, sponsorship opportunities for partners to present their products and services to the community and technology enablement sessions.
“While IAMCP has a very successful chapter in Mumbai, the chapter in Pune will provide a forum to local IAMCP community to connect with the large Microsoft partner ecosystem. The Pune Chapter will facilitate close interaction with the local Microsoft team and partners will have an opportunity to discuss challenges and receive guidance on how to resolve these. Furthermore, the community will provide learning and guidance from experienced partners on how they can engage better with Microsoft and leverage the partnership”, Malhotra said.
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Microsoft partners as well as city based OVMs are very exited about the new chapter and believe that the forum will enable better channel engagement in the partner community. Santosh Kotnis, Executive VP and CEO of Futurism Technologies Pvt. Ltd. said that IAMCP Pune Chapter would help all MS channel partners to share best practices among the partners and benefit the local SME industry.
“This truly creates a platform where organizations can share their experience and learn. The speed in which customers are adopting new technologies nowadays; it is perhaps impossible to deliver all by oneself. This IAMCP gives an excellent peer network to collaborate in executing the business, thereby driving the customer satisfaction”, Kotnis said, adding, “Such kind of collaborative platforms significantly adds value to customers, partners and vendors. This is truly a welcome step and I am sure local SME industry as a whole will be benefited by this.”
Vijender Yadav, CEO of Propalms Technologies Pvt. Ltd. said that the forum would help the city based ISV to tap right set of partners who would position their products and solutions in the market. “I see a lot of value in getting associated with IAMCP India Pune chapter. Since we are a product based company, we work very close with Microsoft partners. This forum will help us to tap partners who are specialized in the technologies such as virtualization. Currently, we are working with 75 plus Microsoft partners and out of them 10 are very strategic for us. We will look for such partners who are selling Microsoft’s solutions and offer them our solutions as a value add”, Yadav said.
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Malhotra said that many channel partners have shown their interest to join the chapter. “We expect to complete registrations in the next few weeks and hope to have 15-20 percent of the active partner community signed up in the next 6 months. Once we have this base created, we should be able to scale up the community fairly rapidly”, Malhotra said.
IAMCP is an independent association of Microsoft partners with presence in 40+ countries. IAMCP, India, West chapter, comprises major Microsoft channel partners in Mumbai and Maharashtra. Apart from West chapter, IAMCP has South and Hyderabad chapter as well.