SITA elects new office-bearers for 2003-04

Unveils
code of conduct; plans insurance scheme

South
Gujarat Information and Technology Association (SITA) announced its new
committee and unveiled its new code of conduct for its members in its AGM held
on July 5. Paresh Bookseller is the new president of SITA. The rest of the
committee includes Hiten Shah as Vice President, Bharat Gandil as Honorary
Secretary, Kaushal Chokshi as Joint Secretary, Chetan Desai as Joint Secretary,
Jwalant Shroff as Treasurer, and Bhavesh Tailor as Joint Treasurer.

The
outgoing President Deepak Shethwala also unveiled the achievements of SITA for
the year 2002. "In terms of achievements, SITA was able to convince vendors
like Microsoft and HP to stop pressurizing the channel to sell high volumes and
to conduct more amount of promotional schemes. We were also able to assist the
newly formed association ABITA (Ankleshwar and Bharuch Information Technology
Association) to set up its initial activities."

He
added, "And in terms of profits SITA has been able to make Rs 7 lakh and
above from its annual PC Expo. The net income the association has been able to
make is approximately Rs 3 lakh."

At
the AGM, the new President also announced his new plans, "This year at SITA
there will be programs conducted for the upliftment of the members. Instead of
being just a PC Expo association, SITA wants to provide its members knowledge so
that they can enhance their business. The channel must look at getting into
value-added services, facilities management and BPO. There are a lot of leading
organizations looking at India to set up call centers, back office set-ups and
CRM solutions.

Improving
of payment cycle from the end-user which will even help out the channel
partner."

He
added, "Money saving schemes must be taught to the channel so that they can
control their overheads and also increase efficiency. Improve relationship with
vendors, increase knowledge on VAT and other tax reforms, encourage local
educational institutes to introduce skilled manpower for the industry, work
towards forming a national association and conducting PC Expo 2004."

At
the AGM the association also unveiled its code of conduct. This was already
planned by SITA to introduce the code of conduct in the third week of June. This
code of conduct was formed by a special committee consisting of four
members--Deepak Shethwala (Past President), Brijesh Khanna (Past President),
Chetan Shah, and Kamlesh Yagnik.

The
code of conduct will be distributed amongst all the members of the association.
It would mainly contain general moral imperatives, specific professional
responsibilities, organizational leadership imperatives and finally compliance
with the code.

Said
Khanna, "We can make our members follow these but not force them because
these are guidelines and not law. Members would soon realize that by following
these guidelines they would become ready to face other competitive
markets."

"MS Mincho";mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:EN-US;mso-bidi-language:
AR-SA">The new committee also announced its plans of supporting the members by
introducing insurance schemes. "This will be essentially for people who
have to travel a lot while providing services to the clients. In these cases 50
percent will be borne by the company and 50 percent borne by SITA. We are in
talks with insurance companies presently," revealed Bookseller.

Nancy
Sudheer