Ah, the breakfast buffet! Oops, sorry, didn’t hear you calling everyone in to begin!
Mr. Sanjay Kachroo, bless you for keeping us all entertained.
The enthused audience comprised a composite of SMB owners, directors and it managers.
Jamie Dewar’s presentation skills, held the audience in the palm of his upraised hand.
IDC’s SMB Roadshow kicked off the company’s first Doha visit pampering participants with a tasty Marriot breakfast buffet, to soften them up and give them a bit of energy for a day of computer enlightenment that the local Small to Medium Business market had never seen.
With more than a third of IT spending in the region coming from the SMB coffers, it’s a great wonder that most of the strategy behind the spending is sadly lacking, and could be much improved, according to Jyoti Lalchandani, IDC-MEA’s Vice President and Regional Managing Director.
IDC has conducted research in the region on the impact of IT in the SMB category throughout the Middle East and Africa. They found that while these businesses have a good foundation in hardware, software and infrastructure, there is often no one employed fulltime specifically to implement changes or updates to systems and security. Jyoti also pointed out that polls taken suggested that because the requirements of SMBs closely matched that of their larger counterparts, it was often desirable to have the same kind of support network onboard to handle issues that arose.
These issues provided the impetus to gather IDC experts, and leading industry spokespeople to highlight how IT could help any SMB grow, and what solutions they had to offer.
If that sounds a little dry, I won’t blame you for thinking so. However, if a few of the keynote speakers lacked a bit of animation, or variation in tone, their products and solutions spoke eloquently for them.
There were also two notable exceptions to the general tone of the speakers.
Mr. Sanjay Kachroo, Acer’s Business Development Manager-Desktops began his amusing speech by proclaiming, “This presentation will not be boring, so wake up!” He didn’t disappoint. He even took the Blue Screen of Death on the sponsor’s projector screen in his stride. “That was not my presentation. Don’t worry,” he quipped.
It was Jamie Dewar, SMB Manager of Cisco Systems who really stood out, however. No, really! He came right out from behind the podium, with a lapel mic, and was the only person to really actively engage (or attempt to anyway) the audience with humour as well as interesting details about Cisco’s products and solutions. His presentation was by far the slickest, including a short video in reality style about a telecommunications makeover. It was most amusing and certainly informative.
The event was topped off at the buffet of Asia Live! to refresh everyone after so long seated. IDC’s next event in Doha is the May 9th Roadshow (tentative date), paying special attention to IT Security. Check out www.idc-cema.com for more information.
