The effectiveness of PPP model is a hot topic today beyond the traditional outsourcing space. HMRI is one of the greatest working examples of this. Here we have another successful PPP model where in the e-learning space ‘IT as an enabler’ brings state-of-art teaching methods to the students of Chattisgarh. Yes that’s right – you heard it right- CHATTISGARH.  

Under the project called “Gyan Vinimay”, virtual classrooms are setup and online lectures from IIT Kanpur are screened using video-conferencing facilities to the state engineering colleges. In the earlier part of this decade, there was acute shortage of faculty in these areas and the students had no access to high-quality education. This issue was thus addressed by the higher education department.  The program was piloted in Govt. Engineering College, Raipur and Institute of Technology, Bilaspur. They were connected using VSAT technology from Hughes in 2006-07. Later on, four more colleges were added and connected by a terrestrial VPN over Boardband (2MBPs) BSNL for uninterrupted connectivity.  

“The Private sector resources would carefully dovetailed with their commercial interests and those of the Government to provide Value Added Services” says the policy document from the Govt. of Chhattisgarh emphasizing the need of PPP in effectively implementing e-Governance solutions. The various players include initial infrastructure funding by the Higher Education Department, respective colleges pitching in for recurring costs like bandwidth charges and courseware and also funds raised in Jan Bhagidari Samitis. The Government plans to bring the 18000 colleges in e-classrooms via the “National mission on education through ICT” initiative.  

 The Senior Scholars Best Publications Committee of 2008 has selected Prof. Ravi Bapna’s paper ‘Consumer Surplus in Online Auctions’ as one of the five best Information Systems Papers published in 2008. The paper was published in Information Systems Research. CONGRATULATIONS!!!


ABSTRACT

Despite the growing research interest in Internet auctions, particularly those on eBay, little is known about quantifiable consumer surplus levels in such mechanisms. Using an ongoing novel field experiment that involves real bidders participating in real auctions, and voting with real dollars, we collect and examine a unique dataset to empirically quantify and understand determinants of consumer surplus in eBay auctions. The estimation procedure for private value auctions relies mainly on knowing the highest bid, which is not disclosed by eBay, but is available to us from our experiment. For common value auctions, where bidders bid strategically to avoid winner’s curse, we develop an estimation procedure that infers the bidders’ signals from their bids, and subsequently infers the item’s common value and resulting surplus, from the signals. Our analysis, based on a sample of 4514 eBay auctions, indicates that the median surplus level per eBay auction is $3.61, which roughly translates to $1.5 billion in accrued consumer surplus for the year 2003 alone. On a percentage basis, consumers are capturing at least 18.3% of the total surplus generated in eBay auctions. We find that consumer surplus is significantly different across currencies and item categories, negatively influenced by seller experience, auction duration and competition, and positively influenced by bidder experience, bidder aggressiveness and item price.

To read the complete paper, http://www.isb.edu/SRITNE/Image/WP-07-2004.pdf 

  SRITNE is back with yet another interesting issue of quarterly newsletter. This time the newsletter is theme-based. When the team was brain-storming on which theme to carry, we came up with several ideas. Then we came across a 2009 Gartner paper which predicted that by 2010, 20 per cent of organizations will have an industry-specific analytic application delivered via software as a service as a standard component of their business intelligence (BI) portfolio. We looked at the Indian scenario and realized the growing usage and demand for BI tools and applications. The companies are making strategies based on insights delivered from these tools.  Hence, we zeroed on the theme of BI usage in India. 

In the Industry Connect, you’ll find Mr. Arun O Gupta, Group Chief Technology Officer Shoppers Stop, talking about using the huge database in retail sector to avail competitive advantage. He recalls Shoppers Stop journey of using BI tools and how has been the ride so far. 

In Faculty Research, we are focusing on a case study developed by Prof. Ravi Bapna. The case talks about usage of data warehousing as a strategic tool at Bharati Airtel.  

The newsletter also covers the internationally renowned Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems. The conference was hosted by SRITNE, ISB. The conference carried the theme of ‘IT Services in a Global Environment’. The conference had 3 industry panels and various research papers with a wide range of topics.

 In the Student’s Corner, an Experiential Learning Programme (ELP) project is featured. The project targets to study the BI tools in retail sector – current usage and the need-gap analysis. 

Overall, we’ve tried to bring you an exciting newsletter. Do read it and let us know your feedback. The link to the newsletter is: http://www.isb.edu/sritne/File/SRITNEsQIII-Newsletter.pdf  

We save. We do save for making investments, for an acquisition, for building up our resources; we also make a contingency fund. But do we save the basic resources required to sustain our businesses. Do we save clean air? Do we save electricity? Do we save water? Do we save paper?

Optimum utilization of natural resources and using the available resources wisely, in short, GOING GREEN is the new mantra. It not only helps to protect environment, but also saves monetary resources and put across a company as ‘Environmental Friendly’.

ü      The data centre of Kotak Mahindra Bank has been consolidated into a new one which has smart cooling.

o       Result: Reduction of power consumption and a saving of Rs. 4.5 crore

ü      IBM has designed three green data centers for Religare Enterprise. Technologies used are – high density computing, virtualization and precision air-conditioning.

o       Result: Religare expects a saving of more than 3600 units (KWH) per day in power consumption. Approx. Rs. 1 crore per year.

ü      Thanks to virtualization, HP  has reduced its number of data centers from eighty five to three

o       Result: Data centre floor space has come down by 33%. Also a saving of $33 million and 380M KWH.

ü      HP has adopted duplex printing

o       Result: Saving of 800 ton paper per year. Approx. $7million per annum

Given the resources crunch, what these companies have done is commendable.

It isn’t required to be a big brand to go green. There are many SMEs which have adapted to green technology. Going green not only saved money, but also, helped sustaining them in this financial meltdown.

In my earlier life, while working as an IT engineer/consultant, I had a chance to work on a unique project commissioned by Kerala Tax department. The state’s vision of a more transparent process that yielded better results was a wonderful testimony to what IT can do, provided one has the vision for it.

Last week, I had an opportunity to observe another such visionary initiative in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh: HMRI. I visited a village to see the operations in person, and then had a subsequent chat with the management folks at HMRI.

So what is HMRI and what makes this project unique? To set the context, I have to explain the state of healthcare in India, and rural healthcare in particular. I am going to talk about the facts as I got them.

So consider this: We have a population of about 1.1 billion. Assuming 4 visits to a doctor per annum we generate a demand of 4.4 billion a year. How many of this can be catered to? At an estimate (HMRI figures), only about 0.5-0.6 billion is catered to by the public healthcare, another 1.0-1.1 billion by the private sector. So, there are between 2.8-3.1 billion who are treated by unqualified practitioners, or not treated at all.

While I wrap my head around these staggering numbers, I also ponder on the why. Of course, in many regions/states in India, it is the general apathy and corruption in the public sector. This coupled with the lack of the right incentives for health care personnel to go to the villages, should explain some of these stats.

Then how are we to achieve universal healthcare? Aha, that is where HMRI steps into the picture. The central idea is based on factual observations about the healthcare demand cycle. A majority of the visits to healthcare professionals are routine ‘reassurance’ visits that can be catered to by registered trained nurses, a few need the attention of a qualified doctor, and a very few are emergencies. So, HMRI was initiated. It has two central lines of operation: A toll free hotline (104), and a contingent of mobile vans.

I observed both the operations at first hand. First the village where the van was stationed for the day. It was indeed very interesting to see the villagers being taken care of – registration (state of the art, using biometric software), initial height and weight check up, then BP then other tests if so needed, and even a pharmacy counter. The efficiency of the whole operation was astounding! And it is free! A van rounds up a village once a month, and for up to 8 hours for a population of 8K. This is especially useful for routine care (as in pre-natal), and chronic ailments. Serious cases are referred to either emergency care or sent on to a doctor. Considering that many of these villages did not have access to any medical facility ever, this once a month is a blessing!

Even more interesting were the phone operations. The call centers handles a volume of as much as 27K valid calls a day, and caters to people in AP region in 3 languages: Hindi, English, and Telugu. Amazing! People can call in and get advice on problems ranging from acne to severe trauma, and get counseled by qualified professionals. It surely doesn’t get any better than this. And free!

So how does IT come into picture? Aha, thought you would never ask! Whether it is the mobile van or the call center, the data are fed into a sophisticated database and help with trend watching and predictions. The data also help fine tune the algorithms that aid call center operators. And, of course, the IT artifact is hard to miss, the scale of operations, the supply chain, and data analysis would have been hard to do without IT.

In the end, however, IT has been an enabler, no more. It takes vision to get this going. It takes innovation to come up with this novel approach to universal healthcare.

Good job HMRI!

Written by Prof. Nishtha Langer on her blog.

With the growth in IT, terrorists are going high-tech too. There are reports that the planning of November 2008 Mumbai attacks involved using a Russian server with masked identities. Internet being anonymous on its face, the cyberspace is used for a lot of the planning including, communications, map reading, fund raising and most importantly intelligence gathering. This is a big threat and we need to find an effective and preemptive route to thwart such attempts. This is a race of who is more tech savvy.

Here comes the cyber forensics- branch of forensic science of obtaining intelligence from information (traces of activity) found in the computers and storage mediums. There are a few tools and technologies today, like “trackback analysis” and web-mining applications to support this initiative. There are two kinds of approaches here, pre-event and post -event.

Pre-event – the preemptive tool to detect and prevent misuse of technology for terrorist purposes, and following the lead to identify the masked criminals. It encompasses network monitoring, developing patterns and identifying suspicious activities. Post-event – the postmortem tool to analyze the traces left from all the digital media used including but not limited to cell phones, GPS devices, laptops, palmtops, portable storage devices and usage of internet to understand the routes and networks of the terrorist outfits.

Another common means for information transfer, as identified by this forensic science, is steganography – the technique of including hidden written content in a digital photograph that may be decoded at the receivers’ end. Detection of any of these means and methods lie in the pattern identification. The intelligence needed to actively monitor all networks is a lot more than what can be maintained now and the support is still very embryonic.

Cyber forensics, once well developed and deployed may also be effectively used in cyber cafes across India, along with closed circuit TVs (for further physical monitoring) and identification requirement can play a key role in persuading against the usage of technology for criminal activities.

As it is still nascent, young and small industry, there is a lot of entrepreneurial and R&D opportunities in this space.

Having an estimated 45.3 million ‘active’ internet users, as on Sep. ’08, India has come a long way from being computer literate to ‘active’ internet user. Though this figure comprises of less than 4% of India’s population, elections of 2009 saw an advance usage of technology to woo the voters - revamped interactive websites, YouTube, Blogs, Communities on Facebook and Orkut, SMSing to the voters etc.

Some interesting facts:

ü  Youngistaan – Land of the young. Elections 2009, had close to 100 million prospective voters between the age group of 18-25, of which close to 43 million were first time voters

ü  Election Commission of India distributed 30 GPS enabled mobiles to Sector officers in Karnataka to coordinate and communicate

ü  Close to 1 million electronic voting machines were used in Elections 2009

ü  Voteindia.in offered electronic downloadable copies of Government forms required for voter registration

ü  The internet usage has increased in several states and registered election related searches on Google

ü  Bharatiya Janta Party  (BJP) has placed Bluetooth pushers at several strategic locations (high footfall areas)

ü  BJP leader Mr. L.K Advani has a blog, a Facebook / Orkut profile, live chat; whereas Indian National Congress (Congress) leader Manmohan Singh doesn’t even have an interactive website.  Other leaders in congress also don’t have a blog or live chat option. But still, Advani is not the most talked about candidate on blogs and twitter feeds. It’s still the Congress politicians Rahul Gandhi and P. Chidambram. (Source: livemint)

The results are out. Congress won and BJP would be sitting in opposition.

In their campaigning, while BJP was digitally very active while Congress used the traditional media, like Television, Print, Movie songs etc. Does that mean being digitally active is neither a hygiene factor nor a delighting factor? It’s just an experiment by a National Party.

What do you think? Do share your thoughts

In today’s times the geographic boundaries are fading, economies in the world are transforming from being independent to being inter-dependant. A well-connected market is emerging. The demand in Europe is fulfilled by supply from India; and this feature holds true across industries. Economies are focusing on comparative advantage. Hence, what we see today are networked economies.

Information Technology (IT) industry, one of the fastest growing industries in the world, is responsible for bringing the world closer and much more networked. With the growth on such a large scale, come the challenges. Srini Raju Centre for Information Technology and Networked Economy (SRITNE) has been set-up at the Indian School of Business (ISB) to address these challenges; investigate the issues, and promote innovative thinking associated with IT industry. Its mission is to encourage innovative thinking in maximizing the benefit of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to business and society. It fosters ICT centric inter-disciplinary research, education, and outreach that demonstrate how to leverage and get business value and competitive advantage out of IT investments; develops global best practices to strengthen Indian IT/ITeS industry; fosters way in which ICT can contribute towards economic development.

The centre organizes some world-class conferences which bring researchers; scholars; industry people etc. together and becomes the breeding ground for ideas and insights in the realms of ICT. Recently, the centre, successfully hosted its annual conference: International Symposium on Information Systems (ISIS). ISIS2008 commenced with a vibrant Industry day covering various topics such as Captive v III Parties:- Defining the value Efficiency frontier, Transformational IT Management: New trends in IT consumption for business value and over 25 thought provoking papers on ICT, business and society. 

SRITNE has also successfully bagged the right to host Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems 2009 (PACIS-‘09). The conference theme is "IT Services in a Global Environment" and would engage eminent speakers from the industry and the academic fraternity. The conference would be held in July.