Big business opportunity for IT industry

As the Government machinery gears up for the launch of Digital India Week, the Indian IT industry is looking at opportunities that the nationwide campaign can offer.

To be launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi tomorrow in the presence of top corporate leaders, the campaign will provide a roadmap for the digitisation of the country.

It will cover a wide variety of issues, including education, governance and healthcare.

Though it will take some time for it to assess the actual business opportunity, the industry feels that the Digital India drive will definitely contribute to the ‘domestic revenues’ of IT firms, the segment that has been showing a negative trend in the last couple of years.

“There are three main components of the Digital India drive — universal connectivity, making apps (applications) available to people and digital literacy. Once connectivity is established, it will drive the usage of apps, giving people access to a variety of services,” said Nasscom Chairman BVR Mohan Reddy.

“Though it is difficult to quantify the benefits at this juncture, the initiative will surely result in an increase in consumption of IT and communication. Establishment of a robust network (optic fibre cable) will also boost enterprise and mobile applications, opening up opportunities for IT product and services companies,” he said.

Tech Mahindra foresees an exponential increase in data as more and more people begin to consume information. “The Digital India campaign will drive usage of ICT devices. It will drive mobile applications, requirement of security services and data analytics,” said AS Murthy, Chief Executive Officer of Tech Mahindra.

Digital India will go a long way in making the Smart Cities initiative, again backed by the Government, a success, he felt.

Ganesh Natarajan, Chief Executive Officer of Zensar Technologies, said that digitisation of government departments and services will create demand for software. “You need to digitise all documents. You require relevant software to do that and enable services to citizens. The drive will generate huge employment,” he said.

The campaign will also drive public-private partnerships in building apps, solutions based on the Internet of Things (IoT) and manufacturing, he said.

Manoj Kumar, CEO and MD of Ricoh India, said that the Digital India drive would help the country become a digitally empowered knowledge economy.

“Digital India will help in delivering citizen services electronically and improve the way citizens and authorities transact with each other. We expect billions of dollars in investments to be pumped into the drive,” he said. The firm bagged a ₹200-crore project recently from Delhi’s Education Department for the implementation and maintenance of ICT solutions in 1,100 schools.

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