By M.L. Singla

A year from now, the pc-penetration rate in India is likely to cross 10 per thousand as compared to the current rate of less than 5 per thousand. The total number of systems connected to the Net in India is more than 8 lakh at the beginning of this millennium. The Government Of India's National Task Force on Information Technology, which submitted its report in September, 1998, made significant recommendations towards governance. For instance, the infotech initiatives of the governments of states like Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Punjab, and Delhi are catalysing their evolution into cyberstates.

A new Information Technology Bill on Cyber Law (Draft e-Commerce Act, 1998) is on the anvil for regulating Net-related activities such as e-communication, e-Commerce, and the creation of information highways. Venture capital has assumed significance in infotech infrastructural development. The second Net revolution will facilitate working at home through Webphones, home-shopping , and home-banking, but it may have a long-term negative effect on the psychology of the individual. Free connectivity can make India a virtual country, says Shiv Nadar, one of the brains of the Indian infotech industry. And Net-centric computing will facilitate the creation of virtual organisations, which will repackage on-line services offered by others into a new offering.

If these trends are any indication, infotech is changing rapidly, and Indian business is trying to keep pace with it. First, the global environment is changing. Second, the public is becoming more participative in the cyber initiative. And third, the political think-tank has started viewing infotech as a strategic tool for gaining competitive advantage. So, the application of infotech seems to have grown from a micro-level decision to a macro-level consideration. Today, through the innovative use of infotech, companies can create value by offering world-class products and services at globally-competitive prices. the Warwick Manufacturing Group's new knowledge partnership with the GE for creation, design, development, and implementation of an e-Commerce programme is likely to become a template for training executives to become e-literate. Such initiatives will mark the commencement of a second productivity revolution.

Peter Drucker's forecast in 1988, about the emergence of new organisations with no middle managers by 2000, has been rendered irrelevant. In some firms, middle levels have developed much faster than expected whereas, in others, middle levels have taken away the jobs of top management, resulting in a shift in the power structure. Corporations have undergone changes which seemed impossible a few years ago. Indeed, now, such changes do not seem unexpected. Companies making a transition from the marketplace to the marketspace will be the ones which will survive, thrive-and win.

It is almost impossible to make an elephant dance. Still, large Indian organisations are making an attempt to become e-savvy. For instance, the State Bank Of India, with a record 58.40 per cent of its business going electronic, is moving towards the statutory requirement of 70 per cent computerisation much ahead of the target-date dictated by the Central Vigilance Commission. The Bank's Project it 2001 will place it among the vanguard of banks using the Net as a medium for banking. And Hindustan Lever e-nabled its supply chain in order to bring down the overall turnaround time from 45 to 20 days.

But while the last decade of the previous century saw technology make inroads into the economy, the process was chaotic. To become an e-nation, we need managers to bring order to what is a full-blown technology jungle. Although emerging technologies such as Electronic Data Interchange, Electronic Fund Transfer, smart cards, interactive multimedia, data warehousing, satellite, and wireless communications as well as electronic shelf-edge labeling are evolving rather fast on the Indian business horizon, the deployment of these technologies at the district and state level is still marginal.

James Martin, in his book, CyberCorp: The New Business Revolution, talks about the basic paradigms for bringing about the success of e-Business in India. The pre-requisite, which could become a major hurdle in the implementation of e-business, is the creation of a digital nervous system through the development of a national information infrastructure. Bill Gates, in Business@The Speed Of Thought, emphasises the need for developing such an infrastructure to release rivers of information.

Infotech is no monkey business. Hence, aping someone else will not help. Instead, winning teams will be those that can innovate, and find new applications and architectures. Within organisations, the initiative has to come from the top. CEOs have to be good Chief Technology Officers too. For, infotech leadership is the key to successful implementation of all infotech-based solutions. To make India Inc. a Net-enabled society, strong infotech-leadership among the polity is a must. All initiatives have to be commissioned from the top, and that too, with conviction.

Moreover, for India Inc. to become a major global player on the Net, an appropriate infotech architecture will need to be created. A sustainable architecture will be the key to India's evollution as a successful player. Simultaneously, the government will have to develop suitable cyber-laws for accounting and taxation.

To ensure that the Indian population develops confidence in e-Business, corporates and utilities will be required to work towards the development of efficient delivery systems to minimise post-delivery dissonance. The content-information on e-malls will replace physical displays, and on-screen and on-line transactions will replace face-to-face transactions. And the on-line retailing infrastructure will replace physical sites.

Unlike Singapore's Tradenet, which managed to wire Singapore up almost effortlessly, any entity bestowed with the responsibility of connecting India will find the going difficult. The population of India-one-sixth of the world population-has always been viewed as a national liability. By upgrading the quality of our people, and using communications and technology appropriately, this resource can be leveraged to become the world's top revenue-generator. With technologies like video-conferencing, tele-conferencing, and tele-commuting, India can transform this liability into an asset.

M.L. Singla is a professor at the Faculty of Management Science, Delhi

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