IT Implementation : Trends 2009

While IT is required by all organizations, there's a very distinct pattern

that's visible on the requirements across different industries. Banks and

financial institutions are now looking at their existing customer base and

implementing solutions to provide them better service. Manufacturing

organizations continue to automate their internal workflow with ERP. The govt.

has moved beyond deploying information systems to automating and managing

different types of business processes. The IT/ITES segment continues its pace of

deploying the latest technologies. Plus, the education segment has also become

very active this year. Here's the lowdown on each of these industries.

Projects in Banking and Finance-Focus on existing customers



If exploring new markets and avenues for growth was the mantra last year for

the banking and financial services sector, this year it's more about improving

customer service. The top three types of projects that we received this time

were business process management and automation, CRM, and BI and decision

support systems.

Banks have been the heaviest adopters of technology. This has made their IT

infrastructures extremely complex and difficult to manage. They have multiple

applications for different services each with its own set of business processes

that need to be followed. Managing so many processes has a direct impact on the

bank's functioning. They can cause delays in service delivery, errors that could

be very costly, longer times to implement anything, etc. Overall, it reduces

employee productivity and the bank's effectiveness in handling its customers.

Deploying BPM and A solutions for different processes improves the turnaround

time, better processing speeds, and a more scientific approach reduces the

chances of errors.

Banks are also seen as deploying CRM applications, which again comes as no

surprise. In today's tough times, most organizations are giving higher priority

to retaining existing customers over acquiring new ones. Considering that banks

have large customer bases to manage, a need for CRM solutions becomes

imperative. Here again, they don't require just any kind of CRM solution. When

the market was booming, most banks added multiple communication channels to

reach out to more customers. These included web, email, mobile, IVR, to name a

few. Now, banks are deploying CRM solutions that can integrate multiple

communication channels so that their customers' support requests reach a common,

central touch point.

The next highest deployment in banks was for business intelligence and

decision support systems, and not without good reason. The role of the customer

service representative who handles the bank's CRM solution has seen a face lift.

Not only is the executive expected to answer mundane queries of the bank's

customers, but also try to cross-sell different services. For this, the

executive needs to know which services to cross-sell and to the right customer.

For this, the executive needs to know enough information about the customer to

make a pitch. This is where business intelligence and decision support systems

become important. There are other uses for such solutions as well, such as

generating the right types of reports quickly for faster decision making. This

is easier said than done, because it requires accessing databases from multiple

applications, and then presenting reports in an easy to understand format.

Projects in Manufacturing-mostly ERP



The picture in this segment is the same as last year. We received the

highest number of projects for this segment. Moreover, a majority of the

projects being deployed by manufacturing organizations continues to remain ERP.

IT infrastructure projects are the next highest type.

Manufacturing is the most diverse and spread out segment in the country, and

is facing considerable amount of competition from China. One thing that a lot of

manufacturing companies in India are realizing is that it's no longer sufficient

to have standalone or customized software packages that are running in their own

silos. So, they can't rely on basic accounting packages in the accounts

department, inventory management packages in the store, and separate software

for production planning, etc. These need to be integrated and proper workflow

needs to take place between them, if they want to be able to compete globally.

That's why most of them are resorting to ERP solutions, so that they could have

a single window view of all information resources.

We also noticed another interesting trend in the manufacturing segment, which

is causing a shift to ERP-mergers and acquisitions. Indian manufacturers are

acquiring companies to grow their business. As a result, they're getting

companies that were comfortable with their own business processes. In order to

streamline the operations, they're moving all units onto a common ERP platform.

While some manufacturing companies are busy moving to ERP, others are still

in the process of setting their basic IT infrastructure in order. Here again,

we've seen everything from a simple email system implementation to security and

bandwidth management, and all the way up to a complex virtualization deployment

that reduces server clutter. There are even companies that are arming their

field force with PDAs that can take customer orders, and upload them to the

server via GPRS.

IT/ITES Projects-A step ahead of the rest



As usual, if you expect exciting, and large, technically complex

implementations, then you have to look at the IT/ITES segment. Just like last

year, the IT/ITES industry continues to deploy state-of-the-art technologies

that stand a class apart from what other segments deploy. So while the rest of

the world is stuck on Web 2.0 based solutions, IT/ITES has already moved to web

3.0, also known as the symantic web. While the rest of the world is doing

business analytics, IT/ITES deploys complex data warehousing tools that can

track an employee's performance right from pre-hiring to hiring, recruitment,

and going live. So, imagine being able to measure the performance of the trainee

and even the trainer at every step.

While others are busy putting their support systems in place, IT/ITES is

making theirs compliant to standards like the ITIL. You think you've heard

enough? There's more. Imagine an online training program that's role based,

which takes into account both the business and employee's requirements. You can

also expect high-end contact center solutions that can take millions of inbound

calls per month from this segment. You can also expect this segment to deploy

complex business management solutions for niche industries like project based

engineering companies.

There are many other interesting projects that use the latest technologies in

this segment, which you can read about in the IT/ITES projects section. The top

three types of deployments in this segment this year were web based solutions,

online portals, and BPM & A projects.

What's the Govt. deploying?---Benefits to the masses



The Indian govt. continues to remain a heavy spender on IT. This time, we

saw more than 10 different types of projects deployed by various govt.

departments. Like last year, this year as well, the stress was mostly on

business process management and automation type of projects. 30% of the projects

were of this type.

There is always a 'wow' factor in govt. projects, largely because of their

scale. Considering that India has a large population, any project that's

deployed for Indian citizens has to be grand. That's why, most of these projects

have a huge social impact. For instance, one project that collects bills online

managed to do 97,728 transactions in March 09 alone, the total value of which

was Rs. 34,506,609. Likewise, there was a system for automatically allotting

seats in engineering colleges for 45,000 students per year.

The interesting thing we observed this time was that many state governments

are using IT to help citizens living below the poverty line, as well as

handicapped people, old aged people, or even widows. The objective of these

projects is to bring transparency into the system, so that the benefits of

various govt. schemes reach the intended recipients, and don't land up into the

pockets of intermediaries. Several techniques are being employed for the job,

including the use of smart cards. Several state govts have started these

initiatives, and we sure hope that others would also follow suit.

While we're seeing a lot of computerization and usage of IT in the Indian

govt, a lot more still remains to be done. Most projects are still meant to

automate processes, upgrade the IT infrastructure, or provide information. We

would love to see govt. projects that are much more complex and innovative like

in the other industry segments.

Projects in education



IT usage in the education sector is picking up. This time, we received 15

projects from the education sector. In this segment, there are either the

private institutes that are surging ahead with the use of technology. Or, there

are the govt. owned ones that are still grappling with the basics--such as

putting up Internet access, Wi-Fi enabling the campus, setting up security,

automating administrative procedures, etc.

There is of course tremendous scope for IT in the education sector, and we

should see a lot more action in this space moving ahead.

Projects in other industries



As we mentioned earlier, we received project nominations from 28 different

types of organizations. In the other industries also, business process

management and automation continued to remain the focus last year, followed by

ERP deployments and IT infrastructure projects. This doesn't of course mean that

there's no innovations happening in the other industries. There are lots of

interesting things happening outside the five industries we just covered.

For instance, there are projects that allow recruiters to screen candidates

by giving them globally standardized exams based on the role they applied for.

This way, they can quickly screen the candidates and move the best ones forward

for further screening. There are projects that allow you to control appliances

with a Bluetooth enabled phone. While the project is currently meant for homes,

it could very well be deployed by offices as well. There are also some new

sectors coming up in India, such as the power sector. So there is a power

exchange that's been setup, similar to a stock or commodity exchange, and allows

buyers/sellers of power to do trading. This would obviously have tremendous

impact on the masses who are suffering from frequent power cuts.