Govt mkt: Not Snakes and Ladders but Lego

NEW DELHI, INDIA: At the recently concluded SAP Forum, the conversation was interestingly not about ERP suites or in-memory disruptors but about how six million records across the country can be captured, drilled down in categories like age or gender or location etc with HANA and used for criminal tracking and crime control by being equipped with new weapons of real-time technology.

Mathew Thomas, Vice President- Strategic Industries, SAP India was happily flanked with media curiosity as he explained how SAP's new zone of excitement has been working on FIR data and applying it in a way and platform that is easy for administrators and yet works in real-time. "SAP Rakshak 2.0 can offer real time information for crime incidents happening across states to all the law enforcement agencies, both state and central. This solution is equipped to assist the security agencies in better decision making and to, build strategies to improve law and order situations. With built-in analytical capabilities such as simulation of what-if scenarios, the platform can dramatically improve speed of response, resource and budget utilization."

Thomas's ambitious explanation hints at some high-hanging fruits that SAP is chasing with its new basket. The three new applications from SAP's backyard of research have clearly been eyeing soils of a different terrain. Rakshak , TracOHealth and The 'Milk Co-operative' Experience, have been conceived, designed and developed by SAP Labs India, for a new breed of users: Government organizations and departments to apparently enhance service delivery and responsiveness, and improve preparedness, prevention, safety and security outcomes in real-time.

If SAP's new pilot-stage blitzkrieg is busy wooing cops, farmers and rural school nurses apart from usual CIOs and CXOs; it should not come as a surprise to many, specially those who have been tuned in to the immense scope and appetite that lays up-for-grabs in fields like government.

Picture this. India's public sector IT spending can hit anywhere around 14 per cent between 2012 and 2017 to reach $108.5 Billion, as predicted in 2012 by a Forrester report. Of this computer equipment could slice in a share of 38 per cent, software about 18 per cent and IT consulting services to the tune of 13 per cent. With massive infrastructure investments and increasing citizen expectations, Indian public sector spending will remain robust in spite of the upcoming parliamentary elections in 2014 and in fact, India's 12th five-year plan will provide the framework within which spending will be generated. It is reckoned that India's Public Sector will buoy overall IT spending with software and services gaining the most in the Plan. Thinking of areas like urbanization, financial inclusion, reforms, fiscal discipline and infrastructure improvement; it appears that technology captures the role of a critical enabler.

Analyst Manish Bahl pointed at some key government priorities that will create the greatest opportunities for IT vendors over the next five years with emphasis on some IT market segments (hardware; infrastructure and platform software; packaged and industry software; systems integration; and IT consulting and training) and four solution categories (analytics; cloud computing; mobility; and social media and collaboration).

Notably enough, realizing the increasing importance of healthcare, the government seems to have increased healthcare funding by 25 per cent year on year in the 2012-2013 budget, as shown in the Forrester report; with a 15 per cent increase in allocation reserved for the National Rural Health Mission program.

With the emergence of many new large and small hospitals and healthcare units in rural areas, IT hardware like storage, services, security, and networking equipment and software like digitization, clinical information systems, and hospital information systems will receive a boost from rural healthcare spending. SAP's TracOHealth application is incidentally aimed at paving way for an inclusive approach to better collaborative outcomes in the area of child health, claiming that the TracOHealth helps in maintaining all the health related information for a lifetime of every child across India. It will purportedly leverage the power of Aadhaar (UID) to uniquely identify beneficiaries and has been architected and designed with the ability to work even in the remotest corners of the country.

There is a lot of potential when it comes to the drive to govern smarter will drive investments in analytics. As the pressure to lower costs and use fewer resources increases, Indian government bodies are finding their operations more difficult to manage. In response, many are increasingly relying on business intelligence and decision support tools and services to obtain better metrics from their current systems, make more timely and informed decisions, and bring about more transparency and accountability. For example, the central government's CCTNS relies heavily on analytics to provide real-time information and data on criminals to police stations across the country, as the report noted.

Now, in February 2012, NIIT Technologies won a $53.5 million deal to implement a Union Home Ministry project called the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network System (CCTNS). Rakshak 2.0 then sounds like a bang on hot iron here.

 

But among sunlight areas like growing government attention for better citizen services; there exist some shadow challenges as Bahl rightly highlighted. The lack of a government CIO role, scattered state data center initiatives, mixed public/private partnership successes, and threats around the UIDAI program will continue to affect government spending. Successful IT vendors will be aware of these challenges and approach the market with strategies that minimize the risks they pose. The lack of a government CIO role in limiting the success of government wide IT initiatives still stays conspicuous.

The DIT is the central government body responsible for regulating and promoting IT development in India, but its role has been restricted to developing frameworks and guidelines rather than driving more comprehensive leadership.

"Moreover, looking at the current Indian statutory structure, the DIT has failed to push the centralized ICT vision of the government at the state and city levels. Vendors will continue to be challenged by disjointed efforts within the government when pursuing technology initiatives, which may result in delays and complexity in project execution" as per the report.

Amidst this wide array of red-light challenges and on the long red tape, SAP's radar seems to be scouting a slew of possibilities with the passion of a red-eyed pilot. With more than 1,250 public sector organizations in 70 countries, SAP today counts in its ambit names like Department of Post, Power Grid Corporation of India Limited, Government of Andhra Pradesh (Treasuries and Accounts), Ministry of Company Affairs, Bharat Dynamics Limited, Electronics Corporation of India Limited, Assam Power Distribution Company Limited and Andhra Pradesh Power Generation Company Limited.

But how much of this pursuit has been or will stay easy?

Indian government or PSU desks are not all about files gathering dust or geriatric systems getting fossilized in stubborn Luddite atmospheres. It can also be about no-more-wallpapers approach to redesigns, a distinct leap-frog-advantage-for-India, the fairy-tale-like-mobility-story, a more-friendly-licensing-emphasis, re-looking at perceptions of open-source options and navigating project management steeplechase etc.

We cover all this and more and see how much of this buoyancy is actually playing out in this interview with the enthusiastic and cheerful Senior Vice President, Industry Business Solutions, APJ of SAP Asia Pte Ltd -Adaire Fox-Martin.

India and public sector. Tell us your snapshot view first? Has India offered a different set of challenges and honey pots than other markets?

We have been building lasting relationships with PSUs in India. To illustrate our strong focus here, the ‘SAP in Hindi' initiative is probably the biggest localization experience that we have attempted. There is a lot to be done, but now the sector is reaching a tipping point when we think of acceptance of COTS (Commercial Off-The-Shelf Software). Earlier a lot of time was spent in the education and awareness-building parts. In India it is more or less the same scenario as in other countries. There have been the silo-challenge but at the same time the need to put the citizen at the centre. It is just that may be some countries like Singapore are better at presenting the essence of citizen-focus but that does not mean it does not exist here. Now, especially in the last three years, the phase of new-wallpapers-on-the-wall has gone and extreme focus is coming to the foundation. India is so much about scale. I guess this is what Indian and Chinese markets will help us give back to the world, the ability to execute at such scales. India is a unique culture too. But I would rather say that you can both focus on ‘sameness' or on differences, and that alone can define so much. That attitude can in fact help wring more value. This is where SAP has been successful with its backbone advantage.

There is a BYOD cousin in this segment if we think of the new genre of digital divide which comes as a consequence of citizens empowered and enamored with the fleet of new gadgets and devices while their government counterparts are still coming of age of sorts? Is that a problem or an opportunity?

I am not from here so what I perceive can be entirely an external perspective. But I see that lot of PSUs are making efforts in mobility specially. Other countries have legacy systems. But switching off is always tougher than adding something. New codification is an area to reckon and that's how India has a strong capability to leapfrog. It is a land with a lot of lessons for other countries when we think of what it has done with mobility.

Usually government customers are wary of factors like restrictive licensing or risk of disruption, more so with all those bureaucracy hangovers. Is that something you confront as well?

We have made concerted efforts to understand every special set of customers.Our licensing takes into account the needs of PSU customers. Same is the case with the adequacy levels of support and services. As far as disruptions go, is that not why it is more of a business decision than an IT one? At SAP itself, at one point of time, we had identified that about 120 processes could be moved to providers like AWS as they were not so mission-critical, and hence could be done cheaper. The beauty about SAP is something that is buried deep inside in its architecture. People who have built this have really used foresight when it comes down to business process architecture, openness or flexibility.

Government sector is understandably wary of Frankenstein effect with so many DOS attacks we hear about and given the impact and scale of government footprint. How does that align with automation?

Business processes inside SAP represent best practices. We do things beyond a software point of view. With a wide and deep database of customers globally, we are in a position to cite so many benchmarks with so much variety. The as-is and post-SAP scenarios help customers decide and foresee so much. That too in the language of dollar-figures with respect to automation. So process change with SAP is about value engineering as a service as well.

Do government customers have very different or difficult set of expectations? Any lessons we can pick from projects like MyCALPAYS in California or Kentucky HRIS going out-of-kilter?

A lot of a project's success depends on capacity and the human being element. The human part has to understand his/her role in delivering and absorbing the change. That is a vital part and has to be planned appropriately.

Can concepts like G-Cloud be game-changing indeed?

We have surely seen big movements in Cloud space. People always had reservations in PSU context, like security, standards etc. But all issues are surmountable. Cloud allows you to buy for service peaks which can help government services tremendously apart from changing the expenditures to opex levels. It also allows you to buy at a time and flexibility they wish with. The procurement process in such concepts is different and standard processes must apply. At the same time, while the -at-the-swipe-of-a-card flexibility is great, there should be something to accommodate the flexibility that may be expected for a specific department's needs. In a lifecycle of 18 months, lot of changes can happen in technology itself.

Is open source still caught in the ‘it's free and cheap' zone in this segment or has it moved beyond?

 

People want choice and that's a good thing. In an enterprise environment what matters is continuity of a platform and its ability to evolve. Technology changes so fast. Do you want to run the risk of being archaic? Do you want to stick to something cheaper? It's about choice.

To conclude, is this segment of customers all about moving up on ladders of opportunities but then sliding down a specific govt-sector-challenge-or-mindset snake out of nowhere? Have things changed since you started here?

As long as we continue to deliver our contracts with what we promise, there is no possibility of encountering snakes in PSU segment for SAP. There is still opportunity to squeeze even with what we have covered. People put backbone first and use it to achieve goals for the department. Breaking down silos is crucial. It can be a constant process of education, customization and project management. So I would say this game is more like Lego, where you put one block first and then next and then keep building upon from the earlier steps. We long as we can be imaginative, and customers continue to engage with us, the growth will co-incide for both. It is all about business expertise married to developmental capacity.