Recession takes a toll on Com-IT expo

Mumbai : The global recession in the economy, which is giving sleepless nights to the people in the banking, finance and IT industry, hit the Mumbai-based Trade Association of Information Technology's (TAIT) Com IT Expo 2008 hard. The number of exhibitors went down by almost 20 percent. At the same time, corporate houses also distanced themselves from the show.

The event was inaugurated on Sep 21 at the MMRDA Exhibition Grounds, Bandra-Kurla Complex, Mumbai. TAIT, founded in March 1996, represent the interests of the IT industry in the city of financial capital of the country. The association represents more than 350 IT companies comprising resellers, systems and network integrators, distributors, sub-distributors and solution providers.

The recession

The impact of recession was seen throughout the event. While the number of exhibitors was slightly down, as compared to the previous year's footfall, attendees complained that the customer participation was cold. Further allegations were also leveled against the organizers that proper publicity was not undertaken for the event to attract visitors, especially corporate houses, who are the large buyers. However, TAIT was unable to comment on this.

This year, just 90 exhibitors attended what was touted as the biggest IT fair of the western region - much below than the expected number of 125. Even comparing to the figure of last year's number of exhibitor, which was around 110, number of exhibitors was down by 20 percent.

"The number of participants has gone down this year which is obviously the impact of the global recession. But still we can call it a successful event, as the difference is not much," said CW Kadwadker, Executive Secretary, TAIT. He confirmed that some of the corporate canceled participation at the eleventh hour. Almost negligible participation was seen by vendors from Taiwan and China.

"We could have seen better participation from end customers and corporate companies if TAIT had taken its job more seriously. I came to know that no proper invitation was sent to corporate and big channel partners. At the same time, no measures were taken to increase the awareness level among end customers," said Sushil Gupta of Aztech Tele System.

We still rule

Some of the exhibitors dealing into gaming, security and low-cost products did not feel the pinch of recession at all. They were happy with the number of people, comprising channels and end customers, who visited their stalls in the exhibition. Some of them also received handsome amount of business queries, which they are looking forward to convert into successful sales.

"This year, our objective was to give consumer some sort relaxation and entertainment. In our stalls, people could come and experience the latest games launched by us," said Rajshekhar Bhatt, National Sales Manager-ATI Product Line, Chipsets Business, AMD. Lot of people, especially the youth, were trying their hands on the latest games like Need for Speed, Undercover and FIFA-2009, which were unveiled on the day-one of expo.

Similarly, people selling low-cost products remained untouched. Aztech Tele System, one of the participants in the expo had generated a decent amount of business in the four-day event. The company was displaying two low-cost printers-Samsung 1640 and 2245. Both the products were priced below Rs 10,000. End-customer and channels took fair amount of interest in the printers.

"Ours was a low-cost product, probably this was why we did not felt the pinch. Otherwise we would have had negative impact on the products, as selling high-cost products at this point of time could be difficult," said Sushil Gupta of Aztech Tele System.

Companies into anti-virus and content security managed to remain untouched from the recession. "Security products did not have any ramification of the existing global economic crises that is hitting the IT Industry hardly," said Rajat, Marketing Manager-Global, MircoWorld.Building Brand

On the other hand, there were some exhibitors who were not interested in selling their products. For some of them, it was just a brand-building exercise, while others were using the platform just to up-hold their existing channel partners and get some new alliance.

"I was there to showcase our product Divoom range of speakers, which is expected to be launched in the month of December. Along with that, we showcased our five dozen other existing products," said Zianul Tinwala, CEO, HT Impex.

He accepted that the presence of end customers, corporate and channels were not good enough. The footfall has gone down drastically. "Some 100 odd people visited my stall in the four-day event. But this year, there was no direct business as such. From our end, it was more of brand-building exercise," Tinwala added.

Similarly, Mircoworld also did not launch any new products in the exhibition. "Our target was to make a preview of a new product that they would be launching in January, next year. Besides, the other aim was to uphold our existing channel partner and add on some new partners," said Rajat. He complained that big corporate remained away from the show.