Interview with Mr Tushar Parekh, ISODA

1. ISODA as an association is extremely active and involved in projecting the voice of the partners in India. What according to you are two to three things that have been added over the last one year into the ISODA Vision?

ISODA memberships drive is on an upswing. ISODA v2.0 which was announced last year aims to capture and segment members in greater detail so that there can be a better sense of collaboration between members.
We are today more focused on providing members opportunity to learn about new alliances in various verticals and solution sets.
We have increased the number of nominations for the ISODA excellence awards over last year and this time it is even more exciting and members have given some very serious and tough competition to each other. Results will be announced during the Gala Dinner.

2. Why the theme of Partner2Progress?

ISODA believes in Collaboration. Collaboration leads to partnership and partnership to progress. So it is a logical extension of Collaboration which is a top priority. We strongly encourage members to not just participate in ISODA TechSummit but also make it an ideal opportunity to network and ally with other members from around the country.

3. As chairman of ISODA, what is your strategy for increasing the synergies between the association and the ever growing crop of technology vendor brands?

ISODA TechSummit has always been attracting new OEMs. And new alliances have been forged as a result between OEMs and members. This year, we have many OEMs who are participating for the first time and many who are coming back for networking and on-boarding more members. So TechSummit itself is a superb platform for new alliances.

Apart from the TechSummit, we also conduct our Regional Meets every 3 months. We make it a point to invite OEMs that see value in ISODA and its members. We have been having superb participation in the regional meets both from members and OEMs. Some OEMs are now looking at sponsoring our regional meets across all regions.

4. According to you, what are the top 2 or 3 issues being faced by the members of ISODA on a regular basis?

While this may not be the forum to discuss on the issues of ISODA members, it is important to understand that the top issues are OEMs who have single distributor policy and also OEMs who have a cloud subscription only model since the overall sentiment seems to be that margins are actually shrinking if both the above happen.

5. How does ISODA support smaller software dealers to grow?

ISODA gives all members enough opportunities to join the association at cost effective memberships. Also, once on board, the members are continuously in touch with each other though ISODA forums like TechSummit, Regional Meets and social forums.

6. What traction are you planning for tech OEMs and members in the summit?

OEMs and members have a superb opportunity to network over two days with OEMs on their offerings. We are also ensuring that the sessions will be very interactive and two way. We are also getting OEMs the opportunity to address smaller groups of members over the period of the event.

7. In the next summit, what opportunities do you plan to discuss, to ensure partners’ growth?

ISODAs agenda has been to grow the memberships to the next level. In the same way, we also strive to ensure we have many new OEMs on board as members or to address ISODA events where members typically network.

At the same time, we strive to ensure that each TechSummit is better and bigger than its predecessor. We have used the learnings that we have gathered over the last 5 TechSummits and know the pulse of the members and OEMs. With Cloud services market growing so much and also new ISVs and application vendors joining as members, we are sure there is so much to discuss and take away from one member to another.