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The Indian domestic opportunity for knowledge services has been for many
years in a state very similar to the Indian economy itself, through the
90sthreatening to take off, but never quite gathering the momentum to make the
leap of faith. But the defining moment may now have arrived and there is no
better example of that than the presentation made by the newly appointed
secretary of e-governance to the apex body of the Indian IT and BPO industry,
the Nasscom Executive Council. Sensing the mood of his audience, which moved
from serious engagement in a discussion on global economic prospects, to a
casual approach, Mr Rao, the charismatic secretary started by saying, Please
listen to me as you would to any other $10 bn dollar customer. That guaranteed
full attention for a presentation on e-government initiatives and budgets which
demonstrated the new governments clear intent to accelerate the process of
domestic consumption of IT.
The domestic landscape for IT and BPO can be broadly classified in three
buckets. The first is in supporting the corporate sector in India, by enabling
large players to attain global productivity standards needed to make them
globally competitive, and promoting cluster solutions with centralized data
centers and hosted business applications for small and medium enterprises. The
second area is e-government itself. And the third comprises transformation
opportunities in education, healthcare, and agriculture that can be both
remunerative for the provider and game changing for the sector in which these
transformational applications are deployed.
The interesting part is that each area calls for building a different set of
competencies. The Indian IT and BPO vendors have been very comfortable serving
the needs of large global customers. But in the domestic context, it will be
important to adopt a much more consulting led approach. For the SME segment, new
skills will be needed on building hosted services out of centralized data
centers and supporting the pay-per-use model through customized services and
payment models.
The e-government opportunity in the domestic sector has already thrown up
many mega projects likenational passport issuance plan, and unique identity
schemewhich will both provide significant downstream opportunities for large as
well as small companies to get a share of the pie. With the National Institute
of Smart Governancea joint venture of Nasscom and the Ministry of Information
Technologydeveloping the framework for engagement of the government with
private sector consultants and systems integrators, the stage is set for
multiple new projects in various neglected areas including land records,
government procurement etc.
The significant areas of domestic transformation in the country, which will
call for significant innovation in thinking, planning and implementation, will
be education and healthcare. While the role of IT in healthcare will have to
transcend hospital computerization and patient records to enabling telemedicine
and other distributed healthcare services, the real value of IT will be seen in
enabling scale in the higher education delivery processes across the country.
The creation of new blended learning models incorporating transformational
solutions, like CISCOs Webex and Telepresence, and demonstrating that
technology delivered content can truly develop a learner centric model of skills
building in the country is the challenge as well as the new multi-billion dollar
opportunity that awaits the industry.
Ganesh Natarajan
The author is Vice Chairman & MD of Zensar Technologies. He can be reached
at maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in Page(s) 1
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