Just as the color of the wine speaks volumes about its quality for consumption, the same could be attributed to the low participation of partners in e-governance projects.
Here’s something many of you probably haven’t yet attempted.
However, post this year’s Union Budget, e-governance is now the hot investment opportunity and vendors across the board are tapping the vibrant cyber marketplace. The government sector has been a vertical from which the channel has been shying away and there are ample reasons for that.
A score of dampeners cloud your mind whenever you think of making a foray into this fourth largest vertical in India after BFSI, telecom and manufacturing.
The principal issues that discourage any e-governance enthusiast are those of corruption and the perennial delay in the payment cycle. Resellers claim that while most large government agencies are transparent, there is rampant corruption in several smaller departments, a charge that cannot be completely denied. However, the government officials also have a point when they say that vendors and partners take them for granted and often dump sub-standard products.
Who is to be held accountable for supplying such faulty products to Laghu Udyog Nigam in Madhya Pradesh resulting in the state government undertaking banning HP for sometime? The president of Association of Bhopal Computers Dealers, Prakash Chander Gupta has already said such episodes could hinder e-governance initiatives in the future.
The payment cycle is another issue that poses trouble with respect to e-governance projects. In some northeastern states the grave financial crunch has been in existence since 1989, when the Government of India changed the funding pattern. Partners in Guwahati have been complaining about the bill that have been pending for years.
In short, dealing with the government is easier said than done. Till hitherto, it seemed that due to the large vendors like Microsoft and Oracle and even desi giant HCL for instance, directly wooing various government sectors for using their computing platform and technology the channel has been greatly discouraged.
The new budget promising greater impetus to e-governance, however, means that there will be mass deployment of IT products opening the floodgates for the channel to pitch in with localized applications and services. The channel, therefore, will no longer have to just sit and wait passively to see what unfolds at the other end. It’s time partners adopt a proactive approach and begin talking to both the vendors and the government for exploring avenues of partnership.
The channel needs to understand that what they bring to the project – would be quite different from what the vendors can deliver. Like Tally s Anil Pant says, the partners have immense advantage of cashing on the relationship with the clientele and “no vendor can take it away.”
On the same line, P K Agarwal of Docket Care Systems, Lucknow, said, “See, there is a great meeting point for channel and vendors. The vendors basically want the governments to use their technology and cough up good payments. Why should vendors mind if there is a partner who is adding value and walking away with his share of the cake?” I am in complete agreement with the partner.
Agrees George Paul, executive VP, HCL Infosystems who said that especially in the post-Budget scenario the resellers would manage to get a slice for working as “fulfillment agents.”
Therefore, despite the hurdles, e-governance is a key growth area that a partner should ignore only at the cost of his own peril.