CMDA : Expo Gets Off To A Promising Start

When you walk into the Engineering College Grounds expecting the Pune-based
Computer Media Dealers Association (CMDA)-organized IT Expo 2008, you will be
mistaken if you think that you have walked into the wrong venue. The IT expo
rubbed shoul­ders with a property exhibition organized by the media group Sakaal
but shared a different entrances. Inciden­tally Sakaal was the IT expo's media
partner and was instrumental in the logistics management of CMDA's expo. The DSK
Group of Companies was the main sponsor for the event.

The associa­tion had invested close Rs 8 lakh to make the event popular. It
had signed up with The DQ Week as its IT media partner, Radio City as its radio
partner and had also released advertise­ments on TV channels, local and
mainstream publications. The expo had 97 stalls last year but this year 122
stalls were occupied, informed Shital Nahar, President, CMDA.

What's new?

The four-day event, which flagged off on Dec 4, 2008 was inaugurated by Dr
Nitin Kharir, Divisional Commissioner of the Pune District. The débutante of the
event this year was a CIO Seminar that CMDA organized on the second day of the
expo. Here the association invited around 100 CIOs of various companies in Pune
to the expo and then transported them to Hotel Pride. At this seminar several
experts were invited to talk on issues pertaining to CIOs, most of who were from
the SMB segment.

The event also witnessed the launch of some products for the first time in
the local market.

CMDA members at the lamp lighting ceremony (L-R) Satbhai, Secretary; Shital Nahar, President; Naresh Lalwani, VP; Rajesh Chaudhary, Treasurer and Yogesh Godbole, Convener, IT Expo. Lighting the lamp is chief guest, Dr Nitin Karir, Divisional Commissioner of Police, Pune	Shital Nahar on podium addressing the gathering. On stage: Yogesh Godbole, Convener, IT Expo 2008; Shashikant Satbhai, Secretary, CMDA; Chief Guest Dr Nitin Karir; Rajesh Chaudhary, Treasurer and Naresh Lalwani, VP, CMDA
CMDA members and chief guest with the new brochure	Orientation of IT expo hall by chief guest

AOC also displayed the HDMI port enabled 22-inch monitor, which is a portable
entertainment device that can play movies straight from a portable drive or
memory cards. Another new launch was that of Nettra, a ERP system that was
designed for corporate and SMB customers by eVision.

Technical seminars

The IT expo had two technical seminars daily, of an hour each on various
subjects like ethical hacking, new virus threats, infor­mation security, Linux
for us, cyber crime, career opportunity in embedded systems and new trends:
mobile Internet devices/notebooks.

An agency was appointed to paste posters of the event at the city's
educational institutes to ensure good participation from students. “Though there
was an entry fee, we had decided that students in uniform would not be charged
as we wanted to empower them with as much information about the IT industry,”
said Godbole.

There were two pavilions at the event. Pavilion A comprised vendor managed or
vendor-sponsored stalls where the objective was not to generate sales but to
create better brand awareness. Some of the promi­nent participants here were
Cisco, Data Care Corporation, Intel etc.

Pavilion B was the one with the maximum footfalls and was akin to a computer
bazaar. The stalls in this pavilion were smaller measuring 2x2, 3x2 and 4x2
feet. “It was specially created so that the channel partners can invest in it.
The smaller stalls cost them around Rs 14,000, which they could easily invest
especially keeping the recession in mind,” said Shital Nahar, President, CMDA.

Techno Services, which spent around Rs 60,000 in branding specially for the
expo, has almost recovered that cost by getting orders worth Rs 40,000 in the
first day of the event.

In the 2007 expo, Laptech Solutions was able to close 100 bookings for
laptops at the event. This year is hopes to do much more. Said Hitendra Idnani
of Laptech Solutions,

“There are some exhibitors in this expo who manage to do a quarter's worth of
business in four days,” said Rajesh Chaudhari, Treasurer, CMDA.

For instance, RB Traders, which is into ink refilling business managed to
sell close to 3,000 printers last year. The company buys printers and then
replaces the cartridges with its own brand of continuous ink supply system (CISS)
that can be replenished at Rs 100 for a drum. “This year I expect to sell 6,000
printers with these refitted CISS systems,” said Ashok Bhonsale, Proprietor of
RB Traders.

Last year, the expo had reportedly generated business worth Rs 3 crore. This
year it hopes to touch around Rs 5 crore. With two days under its belt, at the
time this issue was going to press, it remains to be seen if it can deliver on
this promise.

Vinita Bhatia

vinitavs@cybermedia.co.in