Channelyze09, an industry briefing session, began with the objective of bringing world-class research and analysis for the channel community to grow their business. The first conference focused on the theme of how to cope with the current economic slowdown. Organized by CyberMedia and IDC India, speakers from the industry briefed more than a 100 top channel partners in Mumbai, Bengaluru and Delhi.

Channelyze is an initiative consisting of research letters, events and business workshops that addresses the urgent and unmet needs of the channel community viz accurate market data, timely analysis and a general framework for developing marketing strategies and know-how. The initiative also offers insights into changing business dynamics and emerging techno­logies. The day-long event saw a series of enlightening sessions and meaningful interactions with channel partners on diverse topics such as the impact of the political economy on the IT industry, Growth Phase 2.0, knowing and serving emer­ging enterprises and 'Disruption in IT Engage­ment and Delivery Models: Opportunities for Channel Partners'.

Kapil Dev Singh, Country Manager, IDC India pointed out that India is set to be the fastest growing market in the Apac region. IT optimi­zation techno­logies adop­tion and usage was set to grow and IT spending growth will be fastest in the telecom­muni­­cations sector.

(L-R) Ibrahim Ahmad, Group Editor, DQ Channels; Princy Bhatnagar, Director-Office Business Group, Xerox India; Key note speaker Paranjoy Guha, noted columnist and economist; Deepak Kumar and Kapil Dev Singh from IDC; Rajiv Khera from Alcatel-Lucent and Praveen Sengar from IDC at the event

Journalist and political economist Paranjoy Guha Thakurta said that IT industry margins would get squeezed and protectionism in the West would rise. He stressed the need to bridge the 'digital divide' necessary to sustain the growth momentum and there would be a complete transformation from 'cyber coolies' to knowledge workers.

A member from the audience raises a question	IT channel delegates asking questions on the strategies that channel partners need to adopt in a market meltdown phase

Deepak Kumar, GM-Communications Research, IDC India spoke on emerging enterprises, that comprise the upper segment of medium businesses and the lower segment of large businesses. Praveen Sengar, Senior Manager-Software and Services Research and Industry Verticals Research, IDC talked on disruption in IT engagement and delivery models. He pointed out that channel partners, in the current market environ­ment, need to plan for transfor­mation from a reseller to a business partner. He also discussed the need to move up the value chain to become domain experts and business services providers.

Channelyze is a multi-modal program designed to address the research and advisory needs of ICT channel partners. It seeks to empower channels by providing them the right market infor­mation and insights.

DQC News Bureau

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