Lalwani to head CMDA

With an objective to form a new committee and address issues pertaining to IT
trade in the region, Pune-based Computers & Media Dealers Association (CMDA)
conducted its 18th AGM at Fortune Hotel in Lavasa on July 4. The AGM saw
participation from over 170 members.

In keeping with its tradition of handing over the post of President to the
working VP of the committee, Naresh Lalwani of Cyber Net IT was appointed as the
new President of CMDA. Shishkant Satbhai was elected as VP while Hemant Naik
will be the Secretary. Other office bearers include Yogesh Godbole as Joint
Secretary, Manoj Shah as Treasurer and Sanjay Adhav as Joint Treasurer. Debu
Banerjee, Ashutosh Karkhanis, Sanjeev Pathare, Jayant Shete, Ratnesh Rathi,
Bharat Gopuskar and Deepak Agarwal will be the other active members of the new
committee.

Talking about the AGM, Lalwani mentioned, “We have discussed several issues
pertaining to IT business during the AGM. While we looked at ways to resolve the
service issue irking system integrators. Procedures related to cheque payments
for smooth flow of business were also discussed with the distributors.”

CMDA has initiated the concept of SI forum in 2008 and the 18th AGM saw the
association continuing with its endeavor to address service and replacement
issues piling up with the system integrators.

Added Lalwani, “The SI forum helped us in resolving service issue with HP, LG
and Viewsonic. All the vendors were proactive in addressing the issues and steps
have been taken by them. In addition meeting with distributors helped us
streamline the business process,” he added.

Taking lesson from a recent incident where an employee of a Chennai-based
distributor had fled with blank cheques issued by the dealers as part payment,
CMDA has initiated a process that will extend safety for the dealer community.
“During our meeting with the distributors we have charted common guidelines to
be followed with regard to cheque payments to distributors, in order to ensure
smooth operations between both the parties,” added Lalwani.

In addition to this CMDA is also planning to come out with an IT directory
that will provide relevant information about corporates.