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Arun Kumar Dey
President,
Cuttack IT Association (CITA)
How big is the Cuttack IT market?
There are around 40 resellers based in the city selling around 1,000 PCs monthly.
Cuttack and Bhuvaneshwar, the capital of Orrisa are almost twin cities, so there is some amount of cross selling among partners of both cities. We are also seeing a retail revolution with around 10 retail outlets coming up in the city.
What are the drivers for IT growth in the city?
Home segment is the main driver of IT market contributing around 70 percent of the revenues. The education and corporate make up for the remaining sales. Inspite of the mushrooming of steel companies in and around Cuttack, the demand from the corporate segment is not significant yet.
What are the buying trends?
There is an equal demand for notebooks and desktops. Assembled computers are preferred over branded ones, hence most partners sell assembled computers for desktop requirements while for notebooks, branded ones are positioned to the customers.
What are the key challenges faced by resellers?
Support still remains the major concern. Although, most of the vendors have their service centers here, they do not provide quality support. There have been several complaints from resellers and customers about the timelines and quality of support, this in turn affects the reputation of the vendors. We do not have any payment-related issues here.
What are the activities organized by your association?
We are an eight-year old association with 22 members. We regularly hold seminars, dealer meets and IT exhibitions, and provide a platform for our members to resolve issues amongst themselves and with the vendors or distributors. Some of our members are also part of the IT Association of Orissa (ITAO), which addresses state-specific issues among resellers, distributors and vendors.
We have been doing number of awareness programs on the benefits of using legal software. In April 2009, we will be organizing an expo which will promote ‘Green IT”, where we are expecting over 5000 footfalls. |