By Team Mangalorean Bangalore

BANGLORE, November 7, 2008: Karnataka Minister for IT, BT, Information and Excise Katta Subramanya Naidu on Friday said the BJP Government has decided to develop tier II cities such as Mysore, Mangalore, Hubli-Dharwad, Gulbarga, Belgaum and Shimoga to become IT destinations.

Speaking at a function to present awards to the IT companies at the annual IT event, he said the State Government and STPI have already put in place the required IT infrastructure in Mysore, Mangalore, Hubli-Dharwad.  "We will shortly be setting-up STPI centres and incubation centers with state-of-the-art connectivity and IT infrastructure in other towns such as Gulbarga, Belgaum and Shimoga."

"I am extremely pleased to preside over the IT Export Awards function."  The State Government, in association with STPI, Bangalore has followed the tradition of awarding the best IT exporting companies in Karnataka, each year, which also signals to the world that Karnataka continues to lead in IT exports. Of the 40 billion US $ of IT exports generated by India during the financial year 2007-08, Karnataka has contributed over $ 14.2 billion.

The top software exporters from Karnataka have brought honour and pride to our State.  The export awards are given to the top IT exporting companies as a token of appreciation for keeping Karnataka in the global limelight.

The new age economy belongs to the knowledge sector driven by Information technology.  India is the most favoured destination for foreign direct investments, especially in the IT sector.  Over 50% of the worldwide outsourcing is done to India and almost all the fortune 500 companies have outsourced one or the other business process operations to India.  USA and UK are the dominant markets for Indian IT software and services.

Karnataka, especially Bangalore city, has become the hot IT destination.  The IT capital of India has ideal ecosystem for a knowledge-based industry to flourish.  The State Government would spare no efforts to maintain the pre-eminent position of the State in the knowledge sector.  The State attracts a number of Multi-national companies, especially in software development and Research  and Development.  Big global names such as Microsoft, Intel, AMD, GE, Nokia, Motorola have set-up their global R & D center in Bangalore.

The State Government knows the importance of infrastructure for the knowledge industry.  We have set apart Rs. 1800 crores for development of Bangalore city.  This fund would be spent over a period of three years.  The business establishments and the general public in Bangalore will find a visible change in the infrastructure in the next couple of years.  The elevated expressway leading to the Electronics City would be ready.  There would be wider roads with better pavements in the city of Bangalore.  The newly merged municipalities in the BBMP would get drinking water.

Bangalore is the knowledge centre of the country.  The State Government would be promoting innovation hub with walk-to- work facility.  The innovation hub would particularly cater to the small and medium enterprises, which are doing wonderful work in innovative technologies.

Karnataka, especially Bangalore, is proud of the R & D institutions both in the public and private sectors and the talented human resources.  Over 80% of the chip designing for the semicon industry is done in Bangalore.  We would like to take advantage of this talent and go all-out to support similar such designing companies in electronics and nanotechnology.  The State Government would put in place a semicon policy, which will incentivise setting-up of solar PV farms.  Green technology and sourcing alternative sources of energy particularly non-fossil – based, would be a priority.  Solar energy is waiting to be tapped and Karnataka would like to take a lead in this.

"I would like to congratulate the IT export award winners and the best exhibitors for their remarkable achievements," he said.

Ministers Ramachandra Gowda, Kum Shobha Karandlaje, officials Ashok Kumar C. Manoli, Rajalakshmi, Industry leaders and distinguished Award winners were present.

Systemic challenges hurting Indian hardware industry 

Bangalore: On the second day of the BangaloreIT.biz, a panel discussion on conducted on "IT Manufacturing - Designed and made in India."

The panel discussion was chaired by Mr. Venkat Kedlaya, Chairman (SR), MAIT, and the panel consisted of Mr. Henry Mohan, Senior Director-Manufacturing Operations, Motorola India, Mr. Sunil Shenoy, Director, Advisory Services, Ernst& Young Pvt Ltd and Mr. Vinay Deshpande, Chairman, Encore Software. The Indian IT hardware manufacturers must shift their 'assembled in India mode' to 'designed and manufactured in India mode" began Mr. Kedlaya and called for changing the current trend of the hardware industry. 

All the panelists mooted several measures to change the face of IT hardware industry to achieve the dream of reaching the US$ two hundred billion turnover by 2015. 

Kedlaya said, " The thinking in Indian manufacturing industry is just assembling and catering to the export market. As the sales of PCs and laptops in India is growing leaps and bounds, all the labels of components and the whole product is only foreign brands. A label of Indian company is hardly seen." 

Kedlaya outlined several reasons for this. "Because of delays in design to market time, and poor infrastructure that affects manufacturing as well as supply chain, IT hardware industry in India is unable to become competitive and importing components is always seen as a cheaper alternative instead of manufacturing here," he added. 

Henry Mohan, Senior Director-Manufacturing Operations, Motorola India, said, " Though India is adding Eight to Ten million mobile phones each month, still people believe imported goods are superior to the ones manufactured in India and there is a need to change this thinking. If this is the problem from consumer's side, there are several problems for manufacturers. Major one is manufacturing of complete product or components is less competitive here. Since Eight to Ninety percent cost of a typical mobile set is materials and components, it would be more competitive to produce them here in India." 

"The export performance of Indian telecom products is dismal and it remained almost flat from 1990 to 2006 at US$ one thousand three hundred seventy three million," Mohan said. "Though Indian engineers are superior to anybody in the world, there is a systemic problem here. Indian Telecom product's quality was in second place in 1980 but now is not even in the top ten in 2008 but in the same period China has improved tremendously," he explained. 

Speed to market and innovation should be the major drivers for the growth of Indian IT hardware industry, according to Sunil Shenoy, Director, Advisory Services, Ernst& Young Pvt Ltd. " During the past Ten years Indian software industry's contribution to GDP has been grown by three hundred fifty percent as it achieved eight hundred sixty percent growth in turnover and seven hundred fifty percent growth in providing direct employment. Hardware industry could not achieve similar growth as it faces so much of Govt and policy interventions which are not much in case of software industry. Import of electronics and hardware account for thirty percent of the India's trade deficit of US$ thirty five billion dollars," Mr. Sunil said. 

"Our industry lost the urge to design own products and innovate," said Vinay Deshpande, Chairman, Encore Software. "There is need to design products for the Indian user. Unfortunately no Indian company is doing this. He cited an example of cell phones with torchlight features introduced by major mobile companies."

"Particularly in Karnataka there should be FOUR exclusive hardware manufacturing hubs with one thousand acres each," Vinay suggested.   

The general conclusion was that several measures have to be taken to change the face of IT hardware industry to achieve the dream of reaching the US$ two hundred billion turnover by 2015. 

E-Governance should shift focus from departments to user: PWC   

Bangalore: At the Highlight Lecture on Day 2 of BangaloreIT.biz, India's premier ICT event organised by organized by the Dept. of IT, BT and Science & Technology, Government of Karnataka, STPI - Bangalore and MM Activ, Mr. G V Subrahmanyam, Executive Director, E-Governance, Price Waterhouse Coopers Pvt Ltd underlined the need for transformation of e-governance processes. "There should be a customer centric approach in e-Governance and shared services to make them more useful to users and make transactions for the common man hassle free."

"It is 5 years since few state governments in India embraced e-Governance and this time is enough to translate the ideation to implementation and now time came to transform the system. Though e-Governance in the pioneer states is a success, it is unfortunate that other states have not replicated it. Even the pioneering states should move quickly to transform the system as the system so far is organised around govt departments. As over 50% of Indian population is in their 30s or below and tech savvy, they have the capability to use e-Governance services more than the previous generation", added Subrahmanyam.

Subrahmanyam further said, "A user wants to relate himself to a service, but not to the many departments. So Govt policy makers should keep this important requirement in mind while transforming e-governance system to achieve twin objectives of increasing the service levels and reducing the costs of the processes. When more and more complex systems are added without making them customer centric, the whole system will become inefficient. E-Governance or shared services should integrate various services of several departments where there is just information service and no transaction and the transaction services."

Subrahmanyam advised the governments to have cultural shift while designing the best practices for managing ICT. He suggested the following for the purpose:

• Design organisation structure to drive the success from the customer point of view instead of making it department centric.
• Identify the opportunities to enhance business value.
• Implement change management initiatives to secure employee support for IT transformation.
• Maximise the return on IT with clearly defined goals.
• Source IT to support business strategies.

"By taking all these points into consideration, there should be a strategic planning for the transformation process so that it can pool in nore core and similar functionalities of different departments together," Subrahmanyam added.

CEO's mulling on remedial measures to counter global slowdown

Bangalore: The second day of BangaloreIT.biz, India's premier ICT event organised by the Dept. of IT, BT and Science & Technology, Government of Karnataka, STPI - Bangalore and MM Activ concluded with the CEO conclave.

CEO's of leading companies participated in the panel discussion on "Is India Inc ready for global melt down? And how?" The guest of honour was Shri G Karunakara Reddy, Hon'ble Minister for Revenue, Government of Karnataka. The moderator of the discussion was Mr. E Raghavan - Editor (South) Economic Times.

The panelists' included big names of the corporate world like Mr. B.V.Naidu - Group CEO, Vanpic Projects, Mr. Anand Sankaran Chief Executive , Wipro Infotech, Mr N R K Raman, Shri N Krishnan- Director General STPI, Mr Ranjan Anandan, Managing Director, Microsoft India Pvt .Ltd, Mr Sanjeev Sinha Managing Director, Siemens Information Systems, Dr Vivek Mansingh Country Manager & Director, Dell Computer India, S Ramesh Inder Singh, IAS, Chief Secretary, Government of Punjab, Mr. Sham Banerji – Director, Corporate Business Development, Texas Instruments.

At the beginning of the discussion Mr. G Reddy said, "For years Bangalore has provided the perfect platform for business and networking. The world is a global village and the economic meltdown has affected almost all the sectors. India has responded correctly and speedily to this. We have projects like NEGP, National E-Governance program, which provides excellent opportunity to the IT sector."

Mr. P. Ravindranath, Director - Strategic Development - Government and Public Affairs - HP, "The risk of global recession looms large and the global community is stunned with the effect. The positive thing is that we have enough insights on the meltdown and we can take some measures."

Mr. E. Raghavan Economic Times Editor South said, "Nobody can predict a meltdown well in advance to shield oneself from its affects. The only way to cope up with it is to live with it as it happens and put long term strategies in place to come out of the situation"

The focus of the discussion is to find solutions or remedial measures from the perspective of Indian businesses. More than the economic impact the panelists were discussing the impact on the personal life of an individual in particular and social life in general

Mr Sanjeev Sinha – MD, Siemens Information Systems said, "Though the ill effects of the global meltdown will continue for some more time, the situation also opens up new opportunities and one should try to catch them"

The discussion brought light to the point that Indian market hasn't changed but it is important to look at opportunities globally and one must stay focus on the bigger picture. India should explore new opportunities in the fields like renewable energy and medicine.

The discussion highlighted the social factor of the meltdown and its adverse effects on the consumerism.
Mr. B.V. Naidu, Group CEO, Vanpic Projects said, "The Indian outsourcing industry is an integral part of the global value chain and we cannot insulate it from the happenings elsewhere. Domestic market achieving a growth rate of 45 percent is a good development. Industry should re engineer their processes to take care of the networth of their shareholders."

Infosys, Wipro bags the top honors

Bangalore: The annual STPI & Karnataka State IT Exports Awards were given away on Friday at the BangaloreIT.biz. For the first time, STPI Export Awards has been integrated with BangaloreIT.biz.

This year too, various categories of awards for outstanding performance and contribution in the ICT industry were given. Awards that will involve tier-2 cities have been included as well.

Infosys Technologies and Wipro bagged the top honours for being the top two major Indian IT companies.

Other award winners are:

Certificate of Excellence for next two leading Major Indian IT Companies

1.Tata Consultancy Services  Ltd
2. Satyam Computers Services Ltd

Top Two Foreign Equity IT Companies

1.IBM India Pvt. Ltd
2.Accenture Services Pvt. Ltd

Certificate of Excellence for next two leading Foreign Equity IT Companies

1. Oracle India Pvt. Ltd
2. Hewlett Packard Globalsoft Ltd

Top Two  ITES/BPO Companies

1.Infosys BPO Ltd
2.FirstSource Solutions Ltd

Certificate of Excellence for next two leading ITES/BPO Companies

1.  HTMT Global Solutions Ltd
2 . Aditya Birla Minacs Worldwide Ltd

Top Two  ITES/BPO Companies

1.Dell International Services India Pvt Ltd
2.Fidelity Business Services India Pvt Ltd

Certificate of Excellence for next two leading ITES/BPO Companies

1. Goldman Sachs Services Pvt. Ltd
2. Global e-Business  Operations Pvt. Ltd

Highest Employing  IT company

Infosys Technologies Ltd.,
Highest Employing ITES/BPO Company
Infosys BPO Ltd

IT Company Employing Highest  Women Professionals
Wipro Limited

ITES/BPO Company Employing Highest  Women Professionals
Infosys BPO Ltd

IT Company Employing Highest  % of Women Professionals
Accenture Services Pvt. Ltd.

ITES/BPO Company Employing Highest % of Women Professionals
DBOI Global Services Private Ltd

Star Performers 

1) DreamAjax Technologies Pvt Ltd.,
2) Zoom MediaPlus Technologies Pvt Ltd.
3)ActiveCubes Solutions India Pvt Ltd

Inovative Company

Indus Edge Innovation Pvt Ltd

Top Two  Semiconductor  / IC Design Companies

1. Texas Instruments (I) Pvt. Ltd
2. Intel Technology (I) Pvt. Ltd.

Certificate of Excellence for next two leading Semiconductor  / IC Design Company

1. NXP Semiconductors India Pvt Ltd
2. Infineon Technologies India Pvt Ltd 

Top Two Fastest Grown SME Companies

1. Arisglobal Software Pvt Ltd
2. McMl Systems Pvt Ltd.,

Certificate of Excellence for next two leading Fastest Grown SME Companies

1.Marlabs Software Pvt Ltd
2.Sidvin Core- Tech India Pvt Ltd

Top Two  Electronic Hardware Exporting Companies

1.American Power Conversion (I) Pvt Ltd.,
2.GE Medical Systems (I) Pvt. Ltd

Certificate of Excellence for next two leading Companies

1.Wipro GE Healthcare Pvt Ltd
2. Elcoteq Electronics ( India ) pvt Ltd

Top Two Exporters

1. Infosys Technologies Ltd
2. Larsen & Tourbo Ltd - EmSys

Certificate of Excellence for next two leading exporters

1. ExcelSoft Technologies Pvt. Ltd
2. Larsen & Tourbo Infotech Ltd

Top Two Exporters

1. Infosys Technologies Ltd
2. Diya Systems (Mangalore) Pvt Ltd

Certificate of Excellence for next two leading exporters

1.Robosoft Technologies Pvt. Ltd
2.First Indian Corporation Pvt Ltd

Top Two Exporters

1. N.S. Infotech Ltd
2. Sankalp Semiconductor Pvt. Ltd

Certificate of Excellence for next two leading exporters

1. Katwa Infotech Ltd
2. Neilsoft Ltd

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