FAST FORWARD RURAL CONNECT IN GOOD COMPANY · and Mindtree. The possibilities for the future are...

1www.ibef.org | June 2012

June 2012 B u s i n e s s a n d e c o n o m y

FAST FORWARD india’s inherent talent gets the Backing of resources to spark innovation in it

RURAL CONNECTsophisticated handheld devices are redefining reach and connectivity in india

IN GOOD COMPANYthe tcs experience represents the growing ties Between india and australia

As innovation powers Indian IT’s fourth wave, the country looks set to launch the next generation of technocrats

INDIA 4.0

CONTENTSJune 2012

INNOVATE INVIGORATE

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06

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As a new landscape of original ideas takes shape in Indian IT, it’s an exciting and productive time to engage with the industry and with the country

RIdING ThE NExT wAVE

PARTNERS IN PROGRESS

India is poised on the cusp of a new IT era, says IT guru Kiran Karnik

India and Australia begin to build a strong and useful partnership in the Pacific

A column by Deborah Hadwen, CEO, TCS Aus-NZ

Your biz school prof is now on your PC screen

Consult doctors online in this remote village

A small switch but a big deal for the farmer A smart monitor that cuts energy bills to size

A sophisticated handheld redefines financial access

NEw GEN TEAChING

TEChNO PulSE

lOCAl lENdER

PumPING lIfE ENERGy CONSCIOuS

BuSINESS dOwN uNdER

india iT BPO GlOBal POwerA US$ 100 billion industry with more than 400 Fortune 500 clients.

For updated news-analysis on Indian business and economyLog on to www.ibef.org

June 2012 | www.ibef.org www.ibef.org | June 20124 5

IndIan IT: an OvervIew

In fInancIal year 2012-13, aggregate revenues of the Indian IT-BPO industry are poised to cross USD 100 billion. This is not just a triumphant number but strong proof of the speed with which

the IT industry in India has sprung up, matured, and consolidated itself. If we look at numbers alone, the story is certainly impressive. The sector’s contribution to GDP has grown from 1.2 per cent in fY1998 to an estimated 7.5 per cent in fY2012. Its share in the Indian export pie is expected to increase from less than 4 per cent in fY1998 to about 25 per cent in fY2012.

now, it is no longer just the rapid growth that is the talking point. Discussion instead is veering towards the all-important question ‘What next?’ an industry that started off to take advantage of low offshore costs is no longer content to stay there. Nor will the stiff competition allow it to. More than anything else, there is

strong impatience to grow beyond volume-driven, back-end work to cutting-edge, technology-driven projects. To reach this next level of evolution, technological breakthroughs and a high degree of innovation are the calling cards.

That this is already happening becomes clear when we look at some interesting figures. The IT Engineering and R&D segment generated export revenues of USD 10 billion in 2011-12, a year-on-year growth of 14 per cent. companies are developing capacities to deliver high-end services across all stages of R&D, with several small-scale industries focusing exclusively on innovation.

Another significant phenomenon is the growth of global in-house centres. The segment has grown at a caGR of 22 per cent in the last seven years and already contributes 1 per cent to GDP. Today, it’s one of IT’s largest segments and almost every industry

is represented – from aerospace, Defence, and Bio-Technology to Computer Hardware, Education, and Healthcare. This has had tremendous impact on developing a R&D and product culture in India. Amazon, Cisco, eBay, GE, Google, IBM, Intel, Microsoft and Yahoo are among the global Top 20 Innovators, who have set up offshore development centres in India. Microsoft, for instance, has its largest development centre outside the US in Hyderabad, while almost 20 per cent of SaP’s development work is done out of India.

another young and upcoming sector that shows tremendous promise is animation, VfX, Gaming and Post-production, which grew by almost 18 per cent in 2010. focus here is already shifting to quality control and creation of original IP. To nurture this segment, naSScOM has now formed naGfO, the naSScOM animation & Gaming forum.

The upward trend in the learning curve is also demonstrated by the fact that knowledge process outsourcing is today among the fastest growing BPO segments at 15 per cent per annum, with pioneering work in emerging areas such as data analytics, data management and legal services. Data analytics alone is growing at over 19 per cent to outpace the BPO industry average, driven by new analytic tools and rising global data volumes. India’s strength continues to be its ability to add over 4 million graduates and post-graduates annually to its work pool.

One important factor driving the shift is the increased emphasis on quality. Indian IT-BPO companies are adopting global standards such as ISO 9001 or ISO 27000 on a priority basis. Indian IT centres account for the maximum quality certifications received by one country, with numbers increasing by 18 per cent in the last three years alone. In global trade, this focus on quality can win it more brownie points single-handedly than anything else can.

If you look at the number of projects nurtured by, say, India’s national Innovation foundation (www.nif.org.in), you will see that innovation alone is something that Indians clearly thrive on. But it’s the next step, to commercialise the innovation, which has proven hardest.

In the coming decades, Indian IT’s biggest task will be to balance innovation with sustenance. This is something that Indian companies are learning to master quickly. among the big boys, TcS has 19 innovation labs and, till March 2011, has filed 448 patent applications, with 68 granted. Infosys has been granted 22 US patents with 357 applications pending in the US and India.

Two recent innovations demonstrate the versatility of ideas that is now being tackled by IT teams across India. The first is mKrishi from TCS, a Wall Street Journal award winning technology platform that gives a farmer access to customised advice on fertilisers, markets and prices on his low-end mobile phone, and also lets him transmit crop or soil pictures via the phone camera. an invention that tackles some issues unique to Indian conditions but that can be used across developing countries.

The second is the finacle suite from Infosys developed for IcIcI Bank, which the bank has used to develop a highly cost-effective and scalable operational platform that increased its transactional volume five-fold in five years. Again, a creation developed locally but that can be replicated globally. John Hagel mentions this case when he speaks of ‘innovation blowback’ , where the Indian market can be used as a catalyst for breakthrough innovations to develop global attacker strategies in developed economies.

It is such opportunities and ideas from India that will prove interesting to countries like australia. low-cost and interesting technologies that address common interests – green mining solutions, education and healthcare access for remote areas, new animation and gaming concepts. already, australian investment in India has grown rapidly, as has Indian investment down under. Indian companies in australia span industries ranging from energy, mining, IcT and bio-technology to education, tourism, textiles and agriculture. India’s big names in IT are already present in australia – from Infosys, nIIT, Wipro and TcS to Hcl, Polaris, Mphasis and Mindtree. The possibilities for the future are immense. Potential for Indo-australian cooperation in IT exists across diverse areas like infrastructure, robotics, e-learning, healthcare, testing, film, animation and more.

In this special edition created for ceBIT 2012, we hope to give you a bird’s eye view of the slow but sure metamorphosis happening in Indian IT through a series of remarkable case studies and some interesting columns. It’s an edition that is apt representation of what is certainly one of the most stimulating eras in the industry. n

Animation, Gaming and Post-production grew by almost 18% in 2010, and focus is already shifting to creation of original IP.

As strategy, resources and vision are added to an inherent talent for creative improvisation, a new wave of innovation is rising in India, nowhere more

obvious than in the already flourishing IT sector

GO fORTh ANd INNOVATE

June 2012 | www.ibef.org www.ibef.org | June 2012 76

Indian IT is now working towards the rapid development of an ecosystem that nurtures innovation.

IndIan IT InnOvaTIOn

by Kiran Karnik Former President of NASSCOM (The National Association of Software and Services Companies) of India INCUBATORS:

Technoparks, like this one in Trivandrum, nurture innovation and entrepreneurship

INNOVATORS wIll RIdE ThE NExT wAVE

THE STory of the development of the Indian IT industry is one of the great

sagas of global economics. Endlessly told and tirelessly analysed, it has within it important lessons and illuminating examples of how economies are sometimes transformed by a single industry and a single moment in history.

India’s IT story has an earlier genesis, but its present chapter began in the early 1990s. at that time, it was not innovation but labour cost arbitrage that drove the business. The discovery that India had a huge pool of low-cost talent with just the right skills drove the industry quickly into the big league. This was the first stage for Indian IT, when cutting costs was the priority.

In the second stage, the focus shifted to quality. Realising that further growth required a new paradigm, Indian companies strove to meet global quality standards. The stakes were raised, certifications were chased, and rigorous assessments were put into place. Soon, India could boast of having the maximum number of highest certified IT services vendors in the world. It was around this time as well that global IT companies started to set up large operations within the country. India thus emerged as a destination for both cheap and high quality services.

In the third stage of what I call Generation One of the Indian IT industry, the country’s large and growing pool of highly qualified talent enabled faster start-

ups for new business ideas and quicker execution of projects. This attracted a new set of customers, and India’s reputation for convenient, economical and scalable IT services was established. The new business mantra thus became: cheaper, better, quicker.

Today, however, many services are getting commoditised. outsourcing destinations like china and the Philippines have emerged and competition is far stiffer. Even though India continues to score on cost, quality and speed, this alone is not enough anymore, especially with many countries seeking to emulate the ‘India formula’. It is this that has pushed the increased emphasis on innovation today. The ability to differentiate service offerings with original solutions and out-of-the-box thinking is now clearly the game changer. Cheaper, better, and quicker has to now be supplemented by ‘different’. A new generation of entrepreneurs, as also existing companies, recognise that innovation is no longer a luxury but a necessity.

The PushThe critical element for innovation is a robust ecosystem, which can take the ideas generated to the market. Innovation is measured not just in terms of the number of IPRs but in the number of saleable and scalable ideas. While India has seen a lot of innovation in business models, innovation in products and processes requires a completely

different ecosystem. Happily, today such a system is coming up. In the telecom space, for instance, a number of novel mobile applications and value-added services have been developed in India.

The next big move forward in the IT space will be the rapid development of an ecosystem that nurtures innovation. If you look at the experiences of Silicon Valley or Israel, you’ll see how the environment nurtures innovation; how one company builds on the innovation of another; how innovation is rewarded; and so on. It is important that this environment is replicated in India. We have seen a spurt in innovation in segments like medical healthcare and telecom, and this must be encouraged across sectors.

A new IT village in Kerala highlights this spirit. Supported by the state government and IT companies, the village will be home to budding innovators, who get the basic infrastructure to focus on translating their ideas into reality. The target is the creation of 1,000 start-ups and an innovation eco-system that will encourage and nurture entrepreneurship. What’s interesting is that the initiative is led by an entrepreneur, who realised his own dream through access to facilities provided by the Technopark in Trivandrum. He sees the village as a platform to provide similar opportunities to others like him.

The same spirit is in evidence in educational institutions as well. a small team of B-Tech students in a Delhi institution recently developed a simple application that integrates bus and metro schedules, Google maps and GIS to give you the best and cheapest routes to get from one place to another. all you need do is send an SMS request and a return SMS provides the route and cost.

The Indo-AusTrAlIA ConneCTIonInnovation across a wide spectrum of sectors will spawn new opportunities for Indian IT to grow globally. Immediately, I clearly see four areas in IT where India and

australia can collaborate for significant mutual benefit. The first is e-governance. India has taken some important strides in this area and australia has also done good work. an exchange of knowledge and experience can benefit both nations.

The second segment is mining and environment. While australia is home to some of the world’s biggest mining companies with significant investments in technology, India too has strong capabilities in using IT to evaluate the environmental implications of mining. I see a clear convergence of interests and possibilities.

Education is the third area where immense scope for collaboration exists. Australia has taken big strides in the field of distance learning. India, meanwhile, has developed strong content for training, as demonstrated by companies such as nIIT and aptech. The two countries can gain significantly by combining their strengths to address the education needs of the world.

last, but not least, is healthcare. India has done some interesting new work in the field of remote healthcare. While some innovations are in the pilot stage, others have been rolled out. Sensors are used to obtain information and collateral data from patients in remote regions, which is then sent to specialists for diagnosis via telecom networks. apollo Hospitals and others are, for instance, providing specialist medical attention to patients in remote areas like the North-East states and the Andaman and nicobar Islands. Remote healthcare solutions can find wide application in Australia, where small populations are spread across far-flung regions with limited access to specialist care.

It is clear that innovation has to be encouraged for India to ride the next IT wave. fortunately, the process is well underway and the results will soon be evident. n (As told to Brandpost)

8 June 2012 | www.ibef.org 9www.ibef.org | June 2012

edUCaTIOn: HUGHeS GLOBaL

INDIA’S SIzE and diversity is a great strength but not without its challenges. Indians, with their passion

for education, are willing to go that extra mile to arm themselves with graduate and post-graduate degrees. However, reaching remote areas of the country with high quality solutions for infrastructure problems has always been something of a trial. Recognising the thirst for higher education in the country, Hughes Global came up with a satellite-based distance learning programme in 2001.

With an average demographic age profile of 21 years and a booming middle class that needed to quickly get qualified for jobs, the country was obviously at a prime stage for education interventions. Hughes Global decided to narrow its focus to where it perceived the interest would be sharpest. In India, the post-graduate population is a small percentage of the graduate population. also, many graduates join the corporate sector but soon realise that their progress is hindered by a lack of formal qualifications. This creates a demand for masters and certificate programmes in specialised courses from premier institutes.

Hughes Global thus decided to cater to the hunger for specialised, short-duration programmes from premier institutes for working professionals. It was obvious that not everyone could give up a job to pursue higher studies, nor uproot their lives and move to where the institutes were located or attend full-time classes. The

courses, therefore, had to be designed so that they could be pursued while working; prospective students sought convenience of time (evening or weekend classes) and place (location within city and across India) and they wanted this within a traditional classroom experience.

Hughes decided to combine all these elements using its existing strength in communication technology. In 2001, it created the real-time Interactive Onsite learning (IoL) platform, the first of its kind in the country, which offers all the conveniences of home study without sacrificing the interactions or debates of a live classroom. Hughes tied up with premier institutes such as IIM Calcutta, XLrI Jamshedpur, MICA and others, and followed this up with classrooms spread across cities and towns equipped with communications satellite receivers and transmitters, high-end multimedia PCs and other infrastructure. Teaching studios (11 such at present) were then installed, where instructors could conduct sessions, fully equipped with audio, video and computer systems.

Courses offered by the empanelled institutions through the Hughes platform are the same as those offered offline for the same degree/certification. Most courses are of one-year duration with two-three hours of classes every week. The cost of the satellite module may be slightly higher, given the infrastructure and administering costs, but the benefits of accessibility and convenience offset this.

The ProCess Signing up is easy. You submit an application online and get a call from counsellors, who help you identify the course best suited to your needs. You then follow up by uploading supportive documents and making payment online or via a bank draft to earn a place in a classroom at a location of your choice in your city. The classes are live, interactive, and real-time, with two-way video, voice and data transmission. In the classroom, you have a Pc to yourself. You have the instructor on your Pc screen to speak to or text-chat with. for instance, while in the middle of a presentation, you can send a text alert when you don’t understand a particular point. The instructor could then go over the point again using a more illustrative approach to explain the concept.

The platform offers interactivity similar to a live classroom session. Students from any part of the country can raise questions or discuss points. In turn, instructors use lectures, real-life case studies, quizzes, assignments, and Q&a sessions to deliver lessons.

There is an option to attend classes from outside the classroom in exceptional circumstances. The ‘Direct-to-Desktop’ facility allows students to attend class online from home, but attendance registering and evaluation is not accessible on the web module to ensure that strict course discipline is maintained. The classrooms provide a controlled environment and they help upkeep the course administering institutions’ teaching and assessment standards.

The sCoPeThe popularity of the initiative is reflected in the over 25,000 students educated through the system over the past 11 years, and the nearly 5,000 students enrolled each year. Hughes has more than 155 class-rooms spread across 75 cities, and more than 100 different programmes have been conducted thus far. Often, corporate clients use the well-equipped teaching studios for corporate training programmes. Several companies also use Hughes to train dealers, employees, customers and associates across the country, since the heart of the service is a system that allows a large number of

geographically dispersed participants to engage in an interactive exchange with a faculty.

The sCIenCe Very small aperture terminal (VSaT) is a communications technology that enables reliable two-way transmission of data via satellite using comparatively small antennas. The Hughes platform has HNS certification in recognition of its stringent performance standards. With this, the platform is now an authorised HnS Technology Product in the ‘e-learning for enterprise’ category. The platform is scalable and combines quality video with two-way audio and data transfer to enable live delivery. It offers live collaboration tools such as application sharing, whiteboard annotations, discussion groups, chats and guided browsing.

at its heart is a Rich Media conferencing Platform that provides scaleable, secure, and work-friendly software to deliver synchronised, real-time voice, video and data transmission over converged IP (Inter Protocol) works. The teaching studio has aV systems like cameras, audio/video mixers, monitors, etc., and is acoustically insulated. It has a Presentation Server that allows transmission of presentation slides, interactive questions, quizzes, as well as voice and email interactions. The control Room has satellite uplink equipment, which uses Hughes satellite modems to transmit information to the students at the other end who are connected to the VSaT system.

With the degree of monetary and productivity benefits that students get, the long-distance programme is a huge success. Over the last few years, clients for the service include not just companies and individuals but also defence and police departments, the Bombay Stock Exchange, and more. Now, Hughes is going to the next level with an ambitious project. It has partnered with ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) to build India's first interactive elementary e-learning platform across five states under the Eusat project, where primary and secondary education will be made e-accessible to over 10,000 students across the country. n

Here’s a real-time online platform that seamlessly integrates the strengths of traditional classroom teaching with the latest in technology

BACK TO SChOOl

The real-time Interactive onsite learning (Iol) platform from hughes was the first of its kind in the country, and nearly 5,000 students are enrolled each year.

The hughes platform has hns certification in recognition of its stringent performance standards, which makes it an authorised hns Technology Product in the ‘e-learning for enterprise’ category.


HeaLTHCare: HMrI

In RURal India, the largest number of losses occur not because of serious diseases but due to the lack

of timely attention. on average, a rural Indian has to travel over 6 km to get to the nearest medical facility. The shortage of medical professionals and trained paramedics in remote areas results in inadequate diagnosis and remedial care.

It was in this scenario that the government of andhra Pradesh, one of the country’s four southern states and among the early movers in the IT industry, entered into a public-private partnership with the Health Management Research Institute (HMRI). HMRI’s mandate was to leverage state-of-the-art technology to bring healthcare to the doorsteps of the vulnerable population, bridging the gap in healthcare between rural and urban India.

HMRI leveraged its IcT skills to devise a robust, low-cost solution that integrated mobile health services, a medical information helpline, and telemedicine services. Proprietary technology for this integrated solution includes telemedicine software, algorithm and disease summary software, electronic health records, and biometric fingerprinting.

The HMRI solution was built around two tenets. The first was to nip the ailment in the bud, i.e., to address the ailment in the first wave. The second was to make it patient-centric. HMRI’s integrated solution could be contextualised to take healthcare to different populations and to the last mile. along with an information helpline and mobile health units, HMRI’s greatest innovation lay in two of its proprietary telemedicine solutions, the Dox-in-Box® and araku© Telehealth centre.

The soluTIonsDox-in-Box® captures information across eight vital parameters – blood sugar, temperature, heart and lung sounds, Spo2, images of skin and ear-nose-throat, ECG, and pulse rate. This information is transmitted and stored in a central database, thereby enabling virtual consultation, diagnosis and treatment. It is a rugged, light-weight, low-cost and compact system. It is simple to use and automates the capture of vital signs in an easy, fault-tolerant way that reduces the need for highly skilled health workers. The stored information creates unique electronic health records that are authenticated by fingerprints, digital photograph and patient ID number.

The araku Tribal Telemedicine centre serves 140 tribal hamlets and focuses on maternal health. It is a refined telemedicine model where HMrI brings together paramedic-based outreach services for antenatal and postnatal care with comprehensive risk profiling, electronic health record creation, and consultation with obstetricians and gynaecologists in Hyderabad via video conferencing. When a patient is brought to the community health centre, she can get immediate care as a result of the impeccable electronic health records maintained at the centre. In the araku valley, the maternal mortality rate was quite high. HMRI’s intervention has brought this down significantly.

By leveraging digital medical technology, unique telemedicine software, and video conferencing services, HMRI has managed to reach some of the country’s most remote villages.

The ModelHMRI has focused on identifying relevant technologies that can be made available at affordable prices and packaging them to develop a patient-centric solution. Its efforts have been built around addressing ‘what can go wrong’ in the rural scenario. The lack of power in villages, especially in hamlets that are home to tribal populations, was one factor that had to be addressed. HMRI had to devise instruments that would run on low-power cells or solar batteries. For instance, skin problems in children are captured by a camera that runs on an LED-powered instrument with a six-hour power back-up. Scheduling visits by medical professionals was another issue. HMrI worked around this by setting up a roster of local doctors who could take turns to visit at least once every three-four days.

The integrated nature of HMRI’s activities is largely responsible for the difference it is making to lives in the hinterland. Its fleet of mobile clinics does stints in villages across various states. Patient data is captured on laptop computers in the vans, which transmit it to central servers. nearly 90 per cent of the data is uploaded within 24 hours, and the remaining 10 per cent within 48 hours. HMRI also keeps track of its field staff and monitors patient visits and updates through fingerprint confirmation and photographs. The initiatives are scalable and driven by information

technology. “You can’t scale without technology,” says Dr Balaji Utla, Director, HMRI.

Utla adds that HMRI’s actions are powered by the 5S philosophy: Saturation, Speed, Systems, Synergy and Scale. Saturation refers to the complete health coverage of a particular village or area. “Unless you have 90 per cent inoculation in a population, immunisation doesn’t work. So you’d rather not undertake such an exercise at all,” says Utla. Speed of execution is part of HMRI’s Dna. It has executed several complex projects within 50-150 days. Systems are its core enablers, both in terms of IT and processes. Synergy is its collaboration with government agencies. HMrI doesn’t believe in fighting the system, but using synergies to support government health programmes. Scale is important for a country with India’s population, and HMRI consciously avoids working on solutions that can make a difference only to a small section of the population. for HMRI to consider a solution, it has to be scalable.

HMRI has received some of the most prestigious awards at the national and regional levels. among them are the eWorld Forum Jury Choice Award 2011, the NASSCoM and KPMG Healthcare IT Awards 2011, and the naSScOM Social Innovation Honours 2010. n

This initiative in rural India uses IT to reach medical care to the remotest villages

dOCTOR ON CAll

hMrI’s innovations have to tackle the problem of irregular power supply in villages. Their skin camera, for example, runs on an led-powered instrument with a six-hour power back-up.

india The research huBHome to 750 MNC owned R&D centres.


india invenTinG The fuTureA $20 cell phoneA portable refrigeratorA car that sells for $2,200An artificial heart for $2,000A $1,500 portable ECG machineINDIA - renowned for frugal engineering



InFraSTrUCTUre: MaHIndra FInanCe

THE CHALLENGES of running a finance company in India’s far-flung rural areas are many. Much

of India’s vast rural population lives in small villages and hamlets, many of which are virtually inaccessible, rendering setting up regular banking facilities impracticable.

Non-banking finance companies have over the last decade made considerable inroads into rural areas. This started primarily to tap the huge market for loans for products with a heavy consumption in the rural markets – a need that was earlier largely met by village moneylenders. Mahindra and Mahindra financial Services (MMfSl) is one such company that was started to help villagers finance the purchase of Mahindra tractors and utility vehicles. Meant initially to service Mahindra’s captive customer base, it has since grown exponentially as a standalone finance company with branches in practically every corner of the country.

The huge growth would not have been possible but for the creation of a unique proprietary software and the accompanying development of a handheld that changed the way Mahindra did business in the villages. In rural areas, the way you handle the last mile makes all the difference, and it’s governed by some unique factors. for instance, the rural economy is primarily a cash economy; the salesman must therefore personally

visit each customer to collect monthly instalments in cash. at one point, Mahindra finance was handling close to 200,000 receipts a month for which data had to be manually entered and printed, and files maintained and updated. Data entry errors, account reconciling, courier costs and receipt losses – it was an operation riddled with problems.

“We studied the courier system, the bus conductors in Tamil nadu, and various other models,” says V. Ravi, cfO, Mahindra finance, “but realised that we needed something far superior.” Existing handhelds were too expensive, bulky and heavy and did not come with printer or GPRS, and existing software was too basic. Mahindra finance had clear parameters – it needed to

be light and small, yet hardy and easy to use, talk to the central server in Mumbai in real time, and have a printer attachment. Additionally, the handheld had to be sophisticated enough to store and retrieve information about balance repayments, interest rate calculations, or loan histories.

The sCIenCeThe company decided to fund and develop its own model, with the MMfSl BITS team working on the software in collaboration with VisionTek, a Hyderabad-based developer, for the hardware. In 2007, they came up with Version 1, the Mfconnect-3000. It was a masterpiece – Wi-fi and GPRS enabled, linux open source operating system, 750 gm in weight and pre-loaded with customised, multilingual software to capture and relay on-site data to the central server. In other words, the handheld converted the field agent overnight into a self-contained and mobile mini branch of Mahindra finance. The collection agent now issues receipts, uploads payment and balance details, responds to customer queries, shares updated information and maintains the customer file – all while still in the most remote of villages.

after collections, the executive returns to the branch to deposit the cash and an accountant again updates the system. The real time data flow enables the head office to track cash in hand accurately and instantly. With EMIs ranging anywhere from `15,000 to `200,000, such immediacy in data flow enables the company to make accurate business plans and maximise its ROI.

Not only this, the handhelds allow the central office to track the field employee, the calls he has made and the villages he has travelled to. Through the handheld, Mumbai even pays expense reimbursements directly into the employee’s account.

What is remarkable is the insight that has gone into the design. It works on long-run, rechargeable batteries that can be charged on solar cells or through a motorbike or bicycle charger attachment. Take another remarkable attribute – since many rural customers are illiterate, a voice message feature has been included to update them.

The sCoPeToday, with 8,000 of its field staff carrying these handhelds, it is as if Mahindra finance has opened

8,000 mini branches to service the farthest corners of rural and semi-urban India. The device has allowed Mahindra to add 4,000 new members to its staff, helping it to scale up operations and increase penetration to a level that would have been impossible without such an innovation.

“The idea is to keep improving,” says ravi. Ergo, the team started work on Version 2 with a host of

challenging questions: can we make it lighter? can we eliminate the printer? can we make it do more? The new version, released about six months ago, has a camera, biometric fingerprinting, voice recording, 13 local language texts, scanning, touch screen, and printing applications. It’s a complete solution for a financial company. “In IT,” as Ravi says, “the sky and our imagination are the only

limits.” although close to 1,000 pieces are already out, it is continuously evolving.

In the process, Mahindra finance has created a device that can serve a much wider eco system outside its own domain. That was part of the brief to the tech team for Version 2 – that it should have common application. In other words, the handheld can be bought by government or private agencies for uses as varied as conducting a census, registering voters, conducting health surveys or for banking needs.

Version 1 won over 35 IT awards worldwide and Version 2 has already snapped up the nasscom IT Users award for 2012. Yet, the company believes it has tapped only about 10 per cent of the existing potential. There are clearly no limits to how advanced this can become. n

This sophisticated handheld device enables Mahindra’s workforce to reach the furthest villages of India, redefining reach and connectivity

REAChING ThE lAST mIlE

The new version has a camera, biometric fingerprinting, voice recording, scanning,

touch screen and printer. It’s a complete solution for financial inclusion.

Mahindra moved from 200,000 paper receipts a month to instant and paperless connectivity between its head office and the most remote village.


rUraL deveLOPMenT: nanO GaneSH

IT cOSTS USD 20-30 and saves almost USD 1,500 a year in energy. let’s extrapolate these savings to the

nearly 20 million water pumps running in rural India. That’s the power of the innovation we are talking about.

as a teenager, Santosh Ostwal remembers visiting his farmer grandfather and seeing the old man walk laboriously each night to operate the water pump to irrigate his sugarcane fields. It was a long walk and the old man had lost one leg to gangrene. Power supply was often erratic and available only at odd hours of the night, which meant the old farmer lost hours of sleep. Ostwal realised that all the neighbouring farmers were doing pretty much the same thing.

The experience stayed with him through his years in Pune Engineering College, where he graduated in 1989 as one of the university toppers and landed a government job. Revisiting his grandfather’s village, he realised that little had changed in eight years and the farmers harboured no hopes of a solution. He also found that apart from the wasted hours of labour and sleep, water and electricity were also lost when farmers became too tired to walk back to switch off motors. A 5HP pump would run idle for 4-5 hours, consuming electricity and drawing up precious groundwater.

It was during this trip in 1991 that he decided to give up his government job and make a career in irrigation automation. He started experimenting, focussing on producing a low-cost product that would be simple to operate. As difficult as getting the technology right was the attempt to win the farmers’ trust; they were suspicious that it would be expensive, disruptive, and might ruin their water pumps. In fact, they even argued that as farmers they were prepared to walk. ‘Why do we

need a labour saving device?’ they asked, a rhetorical question that Ostwal rightly ignored.

He started with a `100 alarm clock, where the sound of the alarm fed into an interface and signalled the pump’s starter. But it still required the farmer to walk over and switch the pump off. So, ostwal started the next phase of experimenting. farmers would threaten to make him pay if they lost their crop or pump because of his madcap schemes. Ostwal’s wife, an electronics engineer, became his research assistant, working at night to tweak the prototype in time for Ostwal’s early morning field trips. ostwal set up ossian Agro Automation in 1996, selling these early prototypes.

In 1998, Ostwal decided to move to a remote control that would use a radio frequency. He battled high technology costs and more for five years, his family in severe financial distress at times, until finally mobile technology arrived in the early 2000s. On the day of the Ganesh Puja in 2003, it

struck Ostwal that he could use the wireless connectivity of the mobile phone to activate his water pumps. Within hours, his bulky Motorola T180 yielded him his Eureka moment. That’s when he christened the device after the much-loved elephant-headed god; and later, as mobile phones started getting ever smaller, as the Nano Ganesh. After much fine-tuning, the product as it exists today emerged in 2008.

The sCIenCe a mobile phone is connected to the nano Ganesh modem, which in turn is connected to the electric starter of the water pump. The farmer calls the mobile phone at the water pump from his own phone. The phone indicates by a special ringtone whether electric supply

is available. If it is, the farmer starts the pump by tapping out a pre-specified number on his phone. This starts the pump within two seconds. a vibrating whistle is heard on the phone as soon as the pump starts. The farmer can then disconnect and get on with other work. To stop the pump, the farmer must call again and tap out the pre-specified number, which will then switch the pump off.

sCAlInG uP Ossian agro automation began to participate in fares and exhibitions to create awareness. The product was conceptually well received, but farmers wanted after-sales service and warranties, which was difficult to provide at the low price of `1,000.

Today, ossian offers a range of models priced from `560 to `12,500, but only about 15,000 units have been sold so far. The company’s revenue was about `2.5 million last year. What now holds Ostwal back from expansion is financial backing. He hopes to raise funds from the government and private investors and then launch a nationwide marketing plan. He is confident that with funding, he can sell 200,000 units in the first year after roll-out, and 5 million units over five years.

Ossian agro has already trained 1,500 village technicians in the service and repair of the nano Ganesh. apart from anything else, this has opened up an additional income source for these villagers, whom

he calls Agro-Electronic Commandos (AECs). His aim is to train about 5,000 people across villages in every state and to have tie-ups between the AECs and Nano Ganesh dealers. not only will this give his product market penetration, it will give farmers the after-sales support they expect.

The nano Ganesh has won several accolades over the years, starting with an innovation award from nokia in 2009, being among the top seven in the Mobile World congress awards in 2010, the Tech Museum award in 2011 and, most recently, recognition from the World Bank for its developmental potential. The device is now being used in Egypt and Australia as well.

Ostwal is aware that he cannot patent the product, but he is happy to invite other players, as long as their only interest in it is not money and they keep the farmers’ concerns in mind. after all, it was this very concern that led Ostwal to this innovative product in the first place. n

An invention that allows India’s farmers to use mobile phones to remotely operate water pumps in far-flung fields, thus saving water, energy and long, arduous walks

wATER Of lIfE

When mobile technology arrived in the early 2000s, it struck ostwal that he could use wireless connectivity to activate his water pumps. Within hours, his bulky Motorola T180 yielded him his eureka moment.

ossian Agro has already trained 1,500 villager technicians in the service and repair of the nano Ganesh. It aims to train about 5,000 people across villages in every state to offer after-sales support.


high-consumption appliances are turned off at peak load time, which will bring demand below available supply and yet avoid a complete blackout. Infosys researchers say the SPS technology can be incorporated inside legacy switchboards as well, since it can be used as a normal power strip to which various appliances are connected.

eXPerIMenTInGInfosys has seven pilots running at present in client establishments across sectors like retail, manufacturing and telecom, and across geographies like the US, the UK and Australia, besides India. Each pilot will run for two-three months and the benefits demonstrated before Infosys takes the product to market. Says Ugarkar, “as part of our go-to-market strategy, we are going to host the platform on the cloud and allow customers to opt for a transaction-led or ‘share of cost reduction’ payment model.”

The SPS was first piloted in the Infosys campus. When a cubicle is not occupied for more than ten minutes at a stretch, the light, phone and monitor connected to the SPS are switched off. Just this alone helped Infosys make almost 10 per cent savings on the energy bill. now, Infosys researchers have developed a Web-based application and an iPhone application to access the SPS. like an email or facebook account, the user will have an online energy account to monitor and control the power being consumed at home or work.

What’s unique about the SPS is that although there are other energy-saving solutions for specific applications, there was nothing before it to holistically address the entire energy management needs of an enterprise. Infosys labs has developed a whole stack of software to give a complete solution. any innovation that enables rapid growth without affecting the environment and yet protects corporate bottom lines is highly welcome today. n

SUSTaInaBILITY: InFOSYS LaB

WE LIVE in an age when alternative energy sources head the lists of researchers and scientists

across the world. We also live in an age when every little task has been taken over by intelligent appliances, each of which devours energy. a major challenge for the scientific community has been to not just find non-traditional energy resources but to also find a way to cut back on energy usage from present levels.

Infosys labs decided to take on this task. The 600-member dedicated research and innovation team, established in Bangalore under the company's new strategic direction of 'Building Tomorrow's Enterprise', focuses on technology and innovation. The team realised that in order to save energy they needed to first figure out how much energy was being consumed usefully and how much merely wasted. For most offices, 10-15 per cent of energy costs are from plug-in appliances. charity, they say, begins at home. for Infosys, clearly, energy conservation also begins at home. The team turned its attention to finding out how much energy gadgets like coffee machines, geysers, or printers at their and their clients’ offices consume.

Three years ago they designed a box to capture data

on power use and aggregate power consumption. They were able to capture figures across hours, days, and months. What they found was interesting: appliances like geysers were starting up at midnight. In other words, as much as 40-60 per cent of power was being consumed during non-working hours. At a client’s office, the team found that the 6,000 printers in use were never switched off.

By capturing such data through smart plugs and meters, the team was able to understand and analyse consumption patterns. Using this, the smart power strip (SPS) solution was developed. The strip is capable of accurately identifying when and where electricity is being wasted, and of eliminating such wastage. The SPS monitors a variety of ambience parameters such as movement, light, sound, and temperature to decide if energy consumption can be avoided and then turns off the particular device.

For instance, as Jayraj Ugarkar, Lead Product Manager & Head-Internet of Things CoE, at Infosys Lab, explains, a company can now define a policy that will start all coffee machines automatically at 7 a.m. and switch them off at 8 p.m. This is far easier and more reliable than to switch off 2,500 coffee machines manually. Similarly, based on temperature and natural light in an enclosed area, the SPS can decide whether the air conditioning needs to be switched on or off.

“We can also help companies with peak load management, a major problem,” says Ugarkar. Establishments might hit peak load capacity for just 5-7 minutes but the charges are exorbitant, and at times there is transformer burnout. The SPS monitors

the load and switches off non-critical devices to avoid touching the peak load. Take another example: Data centres usually maintain temperatures much below the mostly prescribed 26�C. This means a huge increase in energy consumption, as every one degree reduction in temperature increases consumption by 3-4 per cent. The SPS can help such units (or units like cooling plants) to maintain an average optimal temperature.

The sCIenCeThe SPS consists of an electronic circuit that calculates the voltage and current consumed at each plug point. algorithms are executed in a microcontroller to calculate the power factor of devices plugged in and thus, the consumption at each point. Relays are used to switch devices on or off. The system uses USB, Ethernet and Zigbee interfaces to communicate with the outside world. The SPS, thus, transforms any device into a software controlled smart device.

Moreover, a large area can be covered with multiple SPS units that communicate among themselves using wireless sensor networks. Today, when a city’s electricity provider finds demand higher than supply, it is forced to completely

shut down the power supply of an entire

neighbourhood. The SPS can help in selective load shedding, where only some

Think of the huge savings on electricity if all the energy-guzzling appliances at the workplace could be set to switch off automatically based on ambient conditions

lET’S SwITCh Off

At the Infosys campus, when a cubicle stays empty for more than ten minutes, the sPs switches off the light, phone and monitor. Just this step alone helped Infosys make almost 10 per cent energy savings.

The sPs can help companies with peak load management by monitoring the load factor and switching off non-critical devices to avoid touching the peak load point.

June 2012 | www.ibef.org

THE LINGErING economic crisis has brought the global economy to a crossroads, and a process of

rebalancing has begun. In the evocative words of some writers , the era of Pax americana could soon be giving way to Pax Mosaica. This new world will not just need new markets to replace the free-spending american and Western consumer, but also new ideas and new hands to shape a different way of earning, consuming and distributing income.

Today, developing countries account for roughly 25 per cent of global GDP, up from 11 per cent in 1975. They account for more than 20 per cent of world exports, up from 10 per cent, and they have nearly 50 per cent of the world’s foreign exchange compared to less than 13 per cent in 1975. The World Bank’s Robert Zoellick has referred to this as the

emergence of “multipolar sources of growth”, and it is as part of this process that we are now witnessing not just increased south-south trade between developing countries, but also flow of manpower, ideas and products from the south to developed nations.

It is not surprising therefore, that the momentum of trade between India and australia has also increased pace, especially since the australian economy has proven far more resilient than other developed markets. As Kris Gopalakrishnan, CEo and MD, Infosys Technologies, said recently, australia has “largely withstood the impact of the downturn”. In turn, India’s economic growth has made the bilateral relationship more productive. Investments have grown rapidly from both sides, in particular in sectors such as IT and ITES, hospitality, energy, mining, education and bio-technology.

In IT especially, the relationship between the two nations has proven particularly beneficial. ICT is the fastest growing segment of Indian industry both in

The potential for partnership is huge. The process needs to pick up momentum using planning, persistence and focus

INdIA-AuSTRAlIA PARTNERS IN ThE PACIfIC

21www.ibef.org | June 201220

Indo-AustrAlIA tIes

terms of production and exports. In fY 2010-11, Indian ICT exports reached USD 64.67 billion, accounting for about 15 per cent of the country’s overall exports. Of this, software exports from India to australia stood at USD 924.09 million, while hardware exports were USD 60.04 million.

Meanwhile, australia is recognised as one of the world’s most IcT-savvy nations, with a market estimated at over a$120 billion. not only is it a global leader in e-learning, e-government, intelligent transport, and wireless communications, it is also the source of several privacy and net security initiatives. all of this makes it an ideal partner for India’s innovative IT companies, and an ideal base for India to tap neighbouring regions.

In a recent exercise, naSScOM enumerated some of the areas where India and australia could productively co-operate for mutual benefit. These include joint ventures and partnerships, where the two can jointly develop products and services for new markets; investment, where Indian IT companies can invest in australian healthcare, education, transportation and finance, all of which require extensive IT deployment; and resource sharing, where India can export low-cost, high-quality solutions and skilled manpower to australia.

according to a recent report from the Economist Intelligence Unit , Australia ranks third in providing the most positive competitive conditions for IT firms in the

Asia-Pacific region. Australia’s strength derives from extensive Pc ownership, high broadband penetration (33 per cent, second only to the netherlands and South Korea) and excellent Internet security. The country’s mobile phone penetration is also high at 94.5 per cent. Moreover, australia is experiencing a high demand for skilled IT professionals, with large public sector upgrades and system enhancements across the corporate sector.

It is clear that there is a lot that both countries can offer each other. The need now is to see how best to tap this potential and to increase the initial momentum in mutual trade across sectors in the coming years. alongside existing spheres, new areas of cooperation are being identified such as Embedded

Technology, Robotics and autonomous Systems, Security applications, Business Process consultancy, Testing, Defence Software & Systems Integration, film & Digital content, and fibre-optic communications. These demand a greater degree of innovation and R&D, and are exciting sectors to explore. australia has sophisticated IcT users eager to embrace new technology, and it offers a huge playing field for Indian software technology to make a mark. In turn, India can offer Australia a huge untapped market. Together, there is immense potential to forge a strong partnership in

the Asia-Pacific region. Aggressive engagement on both sides can turn that potential into reality. n

The momentum of trade between India and Australia has also increased pace in recent years, especially since the Australian economy has proven far more resilient than other developed markets.

June 2012 | www.ibef.org 22

TCs services over 30 clients in Australia, including leading brands such as Westpac, Qantas, Woolworths, and Telstra.

by Deborah Hadwen Chief Executive Officer, Australia and New Zealand, TCS

IN GOOd COmPANy

In a fast-paced global economy, all australia based organisations need to

harness the power of Information Technology to deliver innovation and operational efficiency. over the past three decades, Tata consultancy Services (TcS), one of India’s leading software companies, has been at the forefront of this move towards innovation-led growth, working with australian organisations to provide IT solutions that help them achieve and exceed their business goals.

TCS has helped AGL Energy, Australia’s largest integrated energy company that has power generation, gas production and energy retailing as its focus, to develop standardised testing processes across projects, providing enhanced customer satisfaction, due to the predictable quality of services, and allowing aGl resources to focus on core, strategic company initiatives. aGl has managed to reduce costs through TCS’s onsite-offshore model and increased automation.

Genworth financial Inc., the market leader for mortgage insurance in australia, writes policies for over 3,000 residential mortgages each week through 200 lenders. It engaged TcS to automate processes of its Property Services Unit and Review & Investigations teams and to integrate these with the underwriting and loss-mitigation processes. The project necessitated a complete overhaul of the existing systems. The solution developed by TcS helped Genworth reduce manual errors, cut turnaround time, and improve team productivity and efficiency.

TcS’s operations in australia have grown

at a rapid pace, as companies tap into its IT skills and the benefits of its global delivery network model, with its onsite-offshore mix. Today, we have over 6,000 employees servicing over 30 clients in australia. These blue-chip customers include leading brands such as aGl, Westpac, Qantas, Woolworths, commonwealth Bank and Telstra.

We focus on a range of key verticals, including Banking and finance, Insurance and Superannuation, Energy and Utilities, Telecommunications and Retail. We are also ramping up activity in key growth areas such as Business Process Outsourcing, assurance Services, Enterprise Solutions, Mobility, analytics and connected Marketing.

Our ability to provide clients with outstanding levels of delivery certainty has assisted in the tremendous growth of TcS in australia. The company continues to provide outstanding customer support as well as innovative business models that can assist to drive revenue growth as well as optimise costs.

at TcS, business revolves entirely around customers, making long-term relationships the key area of focus for our local and global teams. We invest in our clients and in the communities in which we operate. We have strong relationships with various australian academic institutions, the australian computer Society and local charity organisations through a variety of philanthropic pursuits.

We see tremendous scope for expanding ties in IT services between India and australia, given the unique skill sets and complementarities. n

an aUSTraLIan exPerIenCe

india a huGe TalenT BaseYoungest and fastest growing pool of engineers, scientists & professionals.


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