Computer Association of Eastern India (COMPASS)

COMPASS has jumped to position three

from the last year ranking of 8th. What are the factors that you

attribute to this?


I was not informed about the last

year's rankings. For me, it is surprising as well as disappointing

indeed that COMPASS ranked 8th last time. COMPASS as an organization

strives to achieve efficiency in business as well focus on ethical

trade practices. Also, these issues are supported by quality

commitments and resolutions. With the growth of the organization and

its membership, new issues are coming up daily and I am thankful to

the various committees because of whom most of the issues have been

addressed. I think these factors have contributed to our association

ranking 3rd this year.

Awareness programs and timely

election as well as website updating were the parameters on which

your association scored high. Do you feel that, COMPASS can fare

better in business-driven activities? What is your roadmap for this?


I believe that there is always a scope

for improvisation and we are striving hard to make the business

scenario even better than before. Fair practice in business is an

area we are focussing on and many issues are being addressed when

brought to our notice even by the non-members. I think that the

Kolkata market is heading towards maturity in terms of business

activities and thus, our concern and work is definitely going to

increase.

Your association has a relatively

lower score in terms of full-time employees. Do you see it as a

neccesity?


The employee base of four that we have,

is presently catering to our needs. Our members are also quite active

and the various committees have taken a proactive stand in all

matters. Apart from the business issues, we also organize sports

events for the members, in-house picnics and family get-together. All

these events are well coordinated and are sufficing to our needs.

However, with the increase of membership, I think that we need a

full-time dedicated Executive Sirector for the association to drive

the activities. I also need to mention that apart from seeking for

more full-timers for COMPASS, we need effective and quality personnel

to drive the events and coordinate the activities.

What are the challenges that your

association face, and how are you responding to them?


In terms of membership and related

issues, we are a strong association of unified members seeking a

common goal that is betterment of business activities in the area.

Over the members front, I am proud to say that we face almost

negligible issue. However, in terms of business there are a few

concerns which we are addressing effectively. First of all is the

issue of software piracy. We are collaborating with Microsoft in

propagating the cause to use genuine software which benefits both the

parent company, the channel partner as well as the end user. With our

campaigns on a full fledged mode, I must say that the issue of piracy

among the channel partners has gone down drastically over the past

one year. In the second place, there is the issue

of low profitability from trade. IT business, is no longer that

lucrative and the profit margins are going down dramatically.

Regarding profit, we have a lesser role to play as the end-user price

factor is not being decided by the channel partners. However, we are

addressing these issues to the vendors as well as the distributors.

The IT channel space is totally credit driven and the credit

policies, sometime, poses a threat to ethical trading. Often we are

hearing of allegations that the credit policy is not in tune and that

undeserving channel players are getting a favourable credit policy.

We are addressing these situations and have been successfully solving

some of the problems by our committees. Also, we have been asking our

partners and members to conduct trade with trusted partners. In terms

of warranty and DoA issues, we sometimes face problems. Some of the

vendors are not having favourable channel policy and we have been

communicating the same to them.

What will be your action plan for

channel activities and initiatives? Please elaborate.


This year, in the foremost, we have

planned to have a dedicated COMPASS office in New Town or Salt Lake

area and have already written to the IT Minister, Debesh Das and the

District Magistrate for the land. It is needed primarily on account

of holding our AGM and elections on our own premises as well as

conduct all seminars and other activities. Besides, propagating and

checking ethical business practices is our concern. We need to have a

proper and well defined channel end-user policy in place and take

into account the defaulters which are brought to our notice. Also, in

case a solution or agreement cannot be reached upon with the

defaulters, penal action will be taken. Besides, we are also planning

to

introduce online trading though our portal where selected members who

have good reputation in the market will have access to trade their

goods online. We will introduce two commodities in the initial phase

to test the impact; at a later stage, however, we will be putting all

goods online. As per our motto, COMPASS will be

working proactively in the channel eco-system and evolve into a full

fledged responsible IT association, not only working to secure a good

business environment in Kolkata but to cooperate with all

associations across East and have ethical trading in place.