Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India’s largest information technology (IT) company, is eyeing IT infrastructure related opportunities through government contracts in developing countries in the Middle-East, Africa and Latin America.
For utilisation of these opportunities, the IT giants is looking at an export of contract implementation frameworks such as the digital government (DigiGov) that have been developed in India over the past five years.
“We have built frameworks in India in the process of e-governance contracts over the past few years which are likeable to other countries of the developing world in scope. The idea will be to capitalise on increasing automation of government process”, said Tanmoy Chakraborty, vice president and head, government industry solutions unit, TCS.
In the global context, according to Chakraborty, a typical contract, depending on its nature and size could be in the range of $5-15 million and could take anywhere between 6 to 9 months to execute.
TCS has, over the past few years, paid special attention to the development solutions geared towards deployment of e-governance projects across India. These projects that have ranged from Rs 100 crore to Rs 1,000 crore were used by the company as a cushion against recession as well. “While there has been rapid development of IT infrastructure in governance across the world, applications that are used for this infrastructure to yield full returns is not in place yet. This is an opportunity that we would target in the long run”, Chakraborty said.
A typical e-governance contract in the Indian context has three components- Common Service Centres (CSC) State Wide Area Networks (SWAN), and the State Development Centres (SDCs).
The SWAN networks stand in reference to the provision of online connectivity for e-governance, while CSCs could be understood to be outlets for the delivery of IT services. The SDC on the other hand is the central data pool.
While TCS has identified the market in terms of its scope and target pinning down the exact size of the market in terms of the potential it offers is tough, Chakraborty explained citing the fact that the market is a nascent stage as the reason.
“The business model itself is in a stage of development. The first steps that we will take will be aimed at creation of awareness about the viability of the solutions. The process for the plans to materialise will take 6-9 months”, said Chakraborty.
The services that a typical e-governance contract including the automation of government services would entail automating documents and the filing process, along with ensuring that these become available in the public domain.
Interestingly, the new business orientation will also lead to an expansion of the IT bellwether's global workforce, which according to Chakraborty will have to be hired and developed in accordance with the contract won. “Government contracts are all about the development of the IT infrastructure and related ecosystem. This necessitates hiring locals over expatriates in contract execution, keeping also the government secrecy and security factors in mind”, he said.
