The Hindu Business Line : Make big savings along the e-route

A procurement system of the Government that is transparent. If that sounds more like Utopia, check www.eprocurement.gov.in, used by the Government of Andhra Pradesh.

But what is e-procurement? "Purchasing of goods and services using the Internet. It covers the full life cycle of purchasing (indent to receipt of goods)," explains an FAQ on the site.

A key component of the site is e-tendering, using which suppliers can "receive notification of the relevant tenders, purchase tender document, submit bids online, and track the status of their bids."

The initiative is an example of `public private partnership', with C1 India as the IT-player sharing the limelight.

A recent communiqué from the company informs that over Rs 40,000 crore of goods and services have been procured using e-procurement, saving the Government "a whopping Rs 2,500 crore in the process". Laudable indeed.

In June 2005, PC Quest's `IT implementation survey' had included the `e-procurement exchange' in the list of `some of India's best IT projects' under the head `Maximum Social Impact'. It noted that annually the Government was spending "about Rs 8,000 crore on procurement." And that "it took four to six months to process tenders"! Now, the tender processing cycle is down to 36 days.

With the "Value of tenders published on the portal jumping from Rs 8,636 crore last quarter of 2004 to Rs 33,352 crore in second quarter of 2005," noted a report on August 31, 2005 (www.thehindubusinessline.com) .

Among the beneficiaries of the system are the Housing Board, State Police Housing Corporation, Singareni Collieries, and Departments such as Animal Husbandry, Irrigation, Roads and Buildings, Panchayati Raj, and Public Health.

Interestingly, the procurement portal finds application at the divine portal too, with Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD) as one of the users. Anitha Shah Akella, Chief Accounts Officer of TTD, was cited thus in the August 2005 report: "With a foodgrain and agricultural commodity procurement bill running into Rs 300-400 crore every year, the temple will be making tremendous gains by pursuing the e-commerce highway. Even a 10 per cent saving on this bill would imply a saving of Rs 30-40 crore every year."

E-procurement is very much in the news. `CIPS takes e-procurement to the Middle East,' announces www.ameinfo.com in a posting dated March 27 about a forthcoming `e-sourcing and e-procurement conference' organised by the Chartered Institute of Purchasing & Supply. Brazil's public sector e-procurement reached $1.9 billion in 2005, informs www.tmcnet.com in a report dated March 15. Quite a chunk, but it was only 3.5 per cent of public spending on products and services last year; yet, a healthy growth, because in 2004, the percentage was just a third, at 1.2.

`E-procurement system urged to minimise graft,' notes Jakarta Post, in a story dated March 10. Talking about `supply chain management for electricity and gas, leveraging the market's leading energy e-procurement platform,' Utilyx highlights in a recent posting on www.socialbc.com that British business loses £3 billion a year `by paying too much for energy'. An idea that's worth buying, therefore, is that of e for buys.

A file from anywhere!

"Are you looking for a solution: That will help you organise your scattered Word & Excel documents that are lying in complicated folder hierarchy? That would not ask you for a file name? That would not ask you where to save a file?" Thus asks a mail from Hazel Infotech P Ltd, and offers a solution in the form of `KDOC, A Smart File Management Solution for Microsoft Office users'. The software "will help you and your office to immediately get organised under a central repository and will manage Microsoft Office Word and Excel documents in a very effective manner so that a document can be retrieved by any authorised user, at any point of time, independent of the creator, wherever saved in your office network and whenever created." It won't be possible then to tuck away files in favourite nooks!

Eternal vigilance is the price of IT security

Joanne VanAuken of Secure Enterprise has listed `The Top 10 Information Security Myths' (www.banktech.com) . `Organisations are more secure now than they were a year ago,' is the first. Aren't they?

Can't say, because "new threats and technologies are constantly and rapidly changing the network landscape," alerts the author. "System administrators must scan the network continually for known security weaknesses, keep their skills current and, most important, re-examine corporate security policies periodically. Business processes defined a year ago may not match the organisation's current needs."

Wendell Phillips said, "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." Applies to IT security also. For, as Edmund Burke cautions, "There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men."

Swipe is in the air

A recent paper from Frost and Sullivan (www.frost.com) is about biometrics. "Since the third quarter of 2004 there has been a flurry of activity by leading PC manufacturers to integrate silicon swipe sensors," notes the study. One learns that four out of five top PC manufacturers have introduced `select models of laptops and notebooks that are fingerprint-enabled'.

Examples cited in the report are IBM ThinkPad, Toshiba notebook, Fujitsu-Siemens tablet PC, and Hewlett-Packard's notebook. "Microsoft launched optical sensor based IT peripherals such as keyboards and optical mice in Q3 2004."

Japan and South Korea led in enhanced application of biometrics, with their `high-end fingerprint enabled biometric cell-phones launched over two years ago.' Such phones are expected to enter the European and US market by Q1 2007, forecasts the report.

"Non-Automated Fingerprint Identification systems (Non-AFIS) are the prevalent biometric technology being adopted in the commercial sphere, in particular silicon swipe sensors," notes Frost. "Leading silicon manufacturers have invested heavily in research and development of silicon swipe sensors to be used for both electronic commerce (e-commerce) and mobile commerce (m-commerce)."

However, increased usage of biometrics can happen only when users are confident enough that these devices are secure enough to wipe off their anxieties.

BPO matchmaking

"Are you a buyer looking for outsourcing IT or BPO projects? ITMatchOnline is the easiest way to find the right partner. It's totally free for buyers!" says www.itmatchonline.com. "1. E-mail your project details on projects@itmatchonline.com; 2. Our editorial team will post your project; 3. Interested Service Providers will contact you directly," read the steps. "No Middleman, No Fees, No Obligation on you to award the project!" The company is part of Hi-Tech Export, Ahmedabad. The project started on `an experimental basis' and has `now won the faith of over 3,200 Service Providers,' informs a mail from Tapan Sant, the company's Director (Operations).

E-mail to: ITworks@TheHindu.co.in

Blog at: http://it-in-the-works.blogspot.com.

Picture by Bijoy Ghosh

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