IS GIS fashion or Obsession in India?

Election commission in India has adopted GIS in big way. Before the recent general election, I watched an interview of CEC (Chief Election Commissioner) of India about delimitation of parliamentray constituencies. He was referring the use of GIS Software for delimiation as if everyone watching NDTV knew what is GIS!!! It was facinating to see the use of technology that we have profess as OUR baby, now becoming almost pevasive.

NDTV, looks like took a cue from that inteview and was heaving relying on Google Maps to show the election results to its viewers.

But the best piece of new I have save for you goes as follows:

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Election Commission to use Census data, GPS to track voters

Delhi Bureau , August 25, 2008 12:25 IST

In an attempt to curb bogus voting and monitor the migration of voters across India, the Election Commission is planning to link the Census data of 2011 with its electoral rolls. The EC then plans to use global positioning system to automatically record the voters' migration or shifting of residence.

A software, developed for this specific purpose, will be demonstrated to the Election Commission by the Registrar General of India at the Nirvachan Sadan.

Once the Census data is made available to the Election Commission, it will be clubbed with the electoral rolls. The GPS chip would be added to the electronic photo identity cards already issued to the voters.

The identity card will enable the Election Commission to record the movement of voters and pinpoint their location at the time of polling.

The ID will also detect bogus voters, said Commission sources said.

The GPS will also cut down the time taken in revising electoral rolls, as it will provide automatic updates on the basis of the voter's location, the sources said.

The RGI, which carries out the Census every decade, agreed to make the necessary changes in the software to facilitate its data's link-up with the electoral rolls.

According to sources, this data would be useful for the timely demarcation and delimitation of constituencies.

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This is on rediff.com! Guess the budget for the above project!

Is GIS now an obsession on India? And are we trying to learn from projects done is US/UK/Canada?

Your comments?

Manoj

Indian GIS Market: On an Upswing

Indian GIS market will grow much faster than any other market in world! The die is cast!!

Indian GIS market is witnessing a major transformation**. Central Government (Federal Government) has spent several hundred crore Indian rupees (Several 100 million $s) under APRDP-R and National Land Records Modernization Programme (NLRMP) and planning to spend much more in future. Sample this - Rs 473 cores was allocation in NLRMP last year – that mean almost 100 million USD at the start of the projects!!!

“NLRMP has been approved by the Cabinet in its meeting held on 21.8.2008. The budget provision for the Scheme during the current year (2008-09) is Rs.473.00 crore. Accordingly, it is proposed to implement the NLRMP across the country and to make it fully operational over the next five to eight year period”

If we put together all the budgeted numbers that are planned for GIS related expenditure by Indian government, it will be a substantial percentage of the “total world GIS market size” estimated by Daratech report!! Actually, Daratech report of past years has given a complete slip to the Indian market (and none of the Indian companies figure in the list of Daratech)!!! All that should change for good now!!! And BTW, in addition to the government planning, some serious money in being spent in private sector as well!!!

Today’s TOI Business page has interesting news – “Finmin set to web-monitor infra projects – GIS Mapping will enable Officials Identify Causes of Delay, Deadline Miss”.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India-Business/Finmin-to-web-monitor-infra-projects/articleshow/4655913.cms . This GIS based process is $800K project. And you will hear many more in coming days.

For last few days, I started doing some research to re-assess and re-evaluate the Indian market. It will take me few more weeks to put together a market size evaluation and document the new dynamics in market (yes, its changing fast). Those of you who are interesting may send a request for the copy of report to me.

But there are several big question: Where is all the money going? Are these big budget projects getting successfully implemented? Are companies making money on these projects? Are Indian companies/government seeking out expertise from countries like Canada and USA to learn from the experience and mistakes committed by the countries who have invested heavily on GIS based systems?

Is Indian GIS market mature? More on this in future but I am keen to share an Incident that is almost 10 years old! There was a tender by Municipal Corporation of an IT savvy Indian state for a GIS project. Who’s who of Indian GIS industry participated in the pre-bid meeting. At least 30 executives of top companies converged in the city. Several thousand $ must have been spent by companies on preparation for the bid! Finally the project was awarded for USD200, yes there is no K in that – Rs 10,000 only!!! And all big companies lost out. Chairman of that company is a good friend and his logic was very interesting – he said my objective was to beat you(RMSI), Infotech & Rolta and I have done it!!! Cheers.

How different is situation now? Let’s discuss in coming days!!!

Manoj Misra

PS: ** I am fascinated by the word “Transformation”! My favorite questions, when I used to interview staff for technical positions used to be – what’s the difference between “Projection” and “Transformation”!!! The big question about Indian market is – is this “Projection” of market or true “Transformation”?

INDIAN ARMS BRIGHTEN UP MNC STORY !!!

Is Indian GIS story still on? I have no doubts!!! As always, I am extremely bullish about the future of GIS in India.. In the last 2 years, I have been fortunate to have interacted with some extremely talented GIS professionals and "GIS" entrepreneurs. Almost every one echoes my view!!!

Tope story in today's edition of Economic Times reads "Spreading CHEERS - INDIAN ARMS BRIGHTEN UP MNC STORY"

"INDIAN subsidiaries, relatively minor cogs in the wheels of large multinational companies till 2007, have emerged crucial profit generators, as earnings in developed western markets tumble amid the worst economic downturn in a generation. 

Barring a few exceptions, the locally-listed units of companies such as ABB, Glaxo, Siemens, Cummins, Oracle, Suzuki, Whirlpool, Nestle and Areva have increased their contribution to the global consolidated earnings as growth remains robust across various sectors of Indian industry.

 Significantly, this has happened despite a sharp depreciation of the rupee against major international currencies in the past one year, which tends to depress earnings in dollar terms as the dollar value of the subsidiary’s contribution is lower after currency conversion. Had this not happened, the contribution of these Indian units would have been much higher”

So how’s Indian arm of ESRI, Liaca, Intergraph, Autodesk, Bentley, Pitney Bowes etc doing in India? It’s anybody’s guess.

 

• What’s different between Indian an ROW (Rest of World)?
• What are the “facts” and “figures” behind this growth story?
• Where’s the money being spent? And who’s chasing this money?
• How’s technology driving the changes here in India?
• How’s the landscape of Indian GIS industry is changing? Believe you me – it’s changing at a very fast pace!!
• Has Navteq and TeleAtlas made any impact as yet Indian GIS market? How still CE (MapmyIndia) and Satnav bullish about pumping money into content development?

 

Stay tunes to hear from me… this time I will convert my “wish” into a “will” to write and I will!!!

 

Manoj Misra

So Long !!!

Dear Friends,

Its almost one year since I last wrote. A lot has happened in the last 11 months and I will be sharing some of the experiences (in the context of Indian GIS market) with you in next few blogs.

But first, reason for not writing for so long and the reason to come back to writing! I was busy, terribly busy. Few days back, I read the blong written by Amitabh Bachhan. I am amazed to see that he is writing almost every day. His blog has put me to shame - I am definitely not as busy as AB and hence the execuse that I am busy and hence no blogging is no good! If you are keen to read what AB writes, check out - www.blogs.bigadda.com/ab/ I am sure that some of you (especially Indian AB fans) will like his writings. I especially liked one of his post - http://blogs.bigadda.com/ab/2008/05/18/day-31/ The message there is:

“Man ka ho to acchha. Man ka na ho to zyada acchha !”
If things happen according to what you wish. It is good.
If things do not happen according to what you wish. Then it is even better.

A lot of things have not happened as per the wish in last several months. But I guess there must be a reason for the same. My deep apologies all those who sent me emails to write the blog but I did not respond. I hope that I will be able to make corrections and be able to share my througts with you.

I am happy about one thing that a lot of positive development has happened in last 11 months in the Indian GIS market. And a lot more is about to happen. Without doubt, we are going to witness a significant growth in the coming time.

I will be back with you, soon, with some thoughts,

Regards, Manoj

One more Google Map based Indian web-site? NO…

…we call it technology and innovation applied to purpose!

So finally we made www.idhoom.com live – yesterday night!! It is alpha launch and site is now open for public use, comments and feedback. In less than 24 hours we have seen visits from 32 different cities, across the globe!! This is s a great moral boosting point for all of us at AUGTICS.

I request you, especially the fellow GIS industry professionals (who read this blog regularly), to explore the mapping functions and drop a line in the suggestion box!

This site one of it’s kind in India and is intend to be single point source of information about all the residential societies (apartment complexes) – existing ones as well as new (upcoming) ones.

For the people who live in these societies, we have provided several cool features that will benefit the users. Key advantages:

1. Web presence & unique identity for your society
2. Secure intra-society communication platform
3. Tools to manage your society affairs
4. Mapping features to know your neighbourhood better

Those of you who are searching for the apartment complexes will find the “easy to use”, “google type” search functions handy.

We hope that this site will benefit millions of people. We have planned to bring in several more features for the next launch and hope that time we will have significant content and traffic on the site!

What’s the connection of IDHOOM.COM with real estate? It’s not a property listing site!!! But those who intend to live in a specific apartment complex can use IDHOOM to know details beyond the individual flat they may be interested in selling/renting. That’s all at this stage!!!

What’s our business model to monetize from this site? I will answer this in some future post. But wanted to let you know that this site is first in line of few more “different” ones that will be launching in future – all catering to existing, unmet needs!!

Stay tuned! And if you live in an apartment, get your society registered here to give in a unique presence over WWW and let your fellow residents explore the power of IDHOOM and get benefited!!

Manoj Misra

Is India a "test" market to train staff or a real GIS market?

So, finally after a long delay, AUGTICS will be launching the Alpha version of "community web-site" for "Society (Apartment/Group Housing) living" . I am very excited that AUGTICS team has created a product that is simple yet powerful. More on this on my next post - very soon!!

I was browsing GIS Development website and read the interview of Mohan Reddy, founder and CMD of Infotech Enterprises. Mohan has done a great job of starting Infotech and making Infotech as one of the top GIS companies in India (revenues in excess of USD 120 Million). So, it's always great to hear/read his view point. In the interview there is one specific Q&A on Indian geospatial market that I am reproducing below (I have highlighted the points that are interesting/relevant to this forum):
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Q. What is the relevance of domestic geospatial market?
A. The domestic market should improve. Due to the lack of a strong domestic market, Indian companies face lot of challenges in the international space. The point is, where will we get the expertise to provide value addition to global customers? If you look at the private sector which started using IT many years ago, as a result of that, you have a strong IT base for the country providing services globally based on experience gained in the domestic market. Coming back to the GIS industry, Survey of India is the only acknowledged mapping agency. There is nothing like a geospatial industry in existence over here. The domestic industry has to take off and there is enormous advantage to derive from it. Because my trainee engineers cannot immediately work on projects overseas, we have to first act locally, with local supervision, which is a cost effective way to train people to provide value added services overseas later on.

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One point comes out clearly. Companies like Infotech look at Indian market for picking up few new skills and train staff and then provide value added service to international clients. Clearly a good strategy!!!

However, there are few completely contrasting view "school of thoughts" are emerging in Indian market! In my past posts, I have referred about a start-up http://www.routeguru.com/

Couple of weeks back RouteGuru was launched for alpha testing. RouteGuru provides simple usable driving direction by using and referring to landmarks, liberally! Something that is very easy for common man to understand. I read review about RouteGuru somewhere and reviewer mentioned that RouteGuru will compete with with local paanwalas and rikshaw-drivers in providing driving directions. What interests me in Routeguru is the "GIS technology" that is applied and also dedication and determination of founder, Avinash Agrawal (an IIT Mumbai graduate, who has worked in the US, Middle East and India for several years and applying his knowledge and skills to serve the Indian market).

So one viewpoint of the Indian market is held by companies like Infotech and the other by new start-up companies like RouteGuru. One views comes from solid experience and proven business leader and other comes from the young entrepreneur, Avinash Agarwal, who has put in his life savings in a start-up venture looking at India as a big market!

I just wish that both contrasting views are strongly up-held in future as well. For that Infotech has to do well in future (more predictable) and "RouteGuru" has to become a viable business!

Manoj Misra

Who will launch navigable Indian street data first? We now know...

In my June 2 post, I asked the question - Who will launch navigable Indian street data first?

http://manojmisra.blogspot.com/2007/06/who-will-launch-navigable-indian-street.html

The answer is now known. It's Navteq!!
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NAVTEQ First Global Digital Map Supplier to Release Map of India June 14, 2007
Company: NAVTEQIndustry: Wireless / NavigationLocation: Chicago, IL, United States of America

Chicago,IL -- NAVTEQ , a leading global provider of digital map data for vehicle navigation and location-based solutions, has announced its first availability of digital map coverage in India. The NAVTEQ(R) map of India covers a population of more than 53 million and includes over 64,000 kilometers of road for the cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore and the roads connecting these cities. The city centers of six major cities are covered at NAVTEQ's Detailed Coverage level, the highest and most complete database specification. The surrounding city areas include all navigable and named roads. All coverage areas include Points of Interest (POI) which can ease the use of navigation destination functionality or help users locate places and attractions of interest.

India is the world's second fastest growing economy as well as its second largest country in population. "Our customers have told us that focusing on the country's main economic centers enables them to optimize their business plans," stated George Filley, Vice President of Product Management, Americas and Asia Pacific, for NAVTEQ. "Additionally, industry experts anticipate huge growth potential in fleet and tracking solutions. Creating a north-south corridor with the connector roads further extends our customers' potential opportunities."

"We continue to align efforts in support of our customers as they expand their business models to reach further into Asia. And our global specification enables them to gain efficiencies in areas such as compilation which can improve their time to market which is so critical in an economy like this," added Rafay Khan, Vice President, of Business Development for Asia Pacific.

NAVTEQ has extensive coverage in Asia including, along with India, maps for the following countries and territories: Australia, Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and through NAV2, NAVTEQ's joint venture in China, a map in China.

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It needs to be, now, seen how Navteq capitalizes on this early mover advantage. And how much time TeleAtlas takes to come up with a competing product?

Whatever is the answer, this is a very positive development for Indian Geospatial and LBS market! Given the fact that there are several LBS companies springing up in India, let's hope we see some Indian nominations in the next NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge!!!

Manoj Misra

Indian Real Estate Forum

I am a member of "Indian Real Estate Forum". Even though that forum has got nothing to do with GIS (at least until now!), it's a great source to get information about happening in Indian Real Estate industry. Some of you will find it relevant for yourself and your friends, in case you have any question on Indian Real Estate. The link is www.indianrealestateforum.com

Will be happy to see some of you there,

Manoj Misra

Who will launch navigable Indian street data first?

So finally good "street-mapping" data for India will be available, soon. And this will be one major step forward in the Indian GIS industry.

There are series of emails floating around about a new JV company in Pune. Without naming the company, there are several job postings that are put. Naukri.com list the following description:

"MNC with a leading global position in digital mapping and geospatial content products, launching a Joint Venture cooperation with an Indian GIS company. Key markets will include in-car navigation, portable and wireless navigation and location-based services in India and South Asia. The Indian operations will be part of a global organisation, covering six continents and activities in 64 countries and will be headquartered in Pune with regional centres throughout India."

From the positions that are there, you can easily make out that that the scale of operations will be massive!!!

Welcome TeleAtlas to India again! (My guess and do let me know if you get information otherwise). Two questions:

1. Why will TeleAtlas need to set-up India operations again (remember TA NOIDA operations was sold to Infotech) when they have good(?) Indian vendors?

2. Does TA JV partner has the management bandwidth to handle the scale?

Whatever is the answer( and definitely these are not the questions for public debate), one thing is for sure, Indian GIS companies will be loosing some staff to this JV operation. And managers will find one more reason for asking their management/board to increase the salaries of their staff to retain them!!! War for talent(?) is on and salaried staff never had it so good!!!

But with these rising salaries, will the Indian GIS companies be able to keep their cost low and remain competitive in the International market? Yes, if they are efficiently run and keep on increasing their top line year-on-year in excess of 30%. Keep a track of the growth!!!

Manoj Misra

AUGTICS is hiring

Not a regular post item, but wanted to let you that that AUGTICS is hiring.

We are looking for people at entry levels (1-2 years experience) and high analytical skills. People from GIS industry who want to apply their knowledge for developing unique solutions for Indian Real Estate Industry will find the job most exciting and fulfilling. AUGTICS will offer the best possible GIS application job in India, a wonderful and challenging working environment and a fast track career growth. The selected candidates will be eligible for employee stock options. We do not want "yes sirs" and "blind followers". For that matter, we do not have a “sir culture” at AUGTICS. We are looking for people who have "can do" attitude and are willing to change and challenge the existing order! Yes, attitude is the top most characteristic that we will look for. If you know any candidates who will fit in the bill, please do pass on their resumes at jobs@augtics.com or get in touch with me directly (in strict confidence).

We have various openings at senior level as well. Please get in touch with me directly, if you are interested.

Stay tuned to for my regular post!

Manoj Misra

Are we map-literate?

I am getting less and less time to write the blog. Hope that I am able to reverse this trend soon as we get into the next phase of AUGTICS life!! But, I do manage to keep a close track of the development within the Indian geospatial market.

I have been overjoyed looking at the recent developments in the Indian Geospatial industry. In sharp contract to the business model followed by the existing market leaders (Rolta, Infotech, RMSI), there are several companies that are springing up with a product based strategy. In the past I have mentioned about SatNav, RouteGru etc. Couple of days back I met with another company Geotrackers (http://www.geotrackers.com/) started by young IIM graduates, that plans to come up with LBS products and services. There is another company Bannari Infotech - Geo Edge that claims to be a pioneer in location based services in India (are they?)!. Company write up says – "we pride ourselves with having created many world-class pioneering products in the location services industry, often offering solutions not available elsewhere in India and at times even in Asia”.

Also, news of MapMyIndia raising capital from Kleiner Perkins & Sherpalo Ventures (undisclosed amount) escaped industry attention. The money will be used for creating highest quality GIS information. Source: http://www.contentsutra.com/categories/name/Venture%20Capital/

In previous post I mentioned that Navteq and Teleatlas are planning to be active in Indian market very soon. Keep your focus on Reliance (ADA), who may spring a surprise in near future by coming up with web-gis/LBS products. Have tasted great initial success with Zapak, if they do plan to launch an LBS product, you will see a lot of publicity.

Clearly, a new trend has set-in and we can expect to see action and war in LBS space in India in the very near future!

But one of the fundamental points that I keep on asking myself – Is Indian population, in general map-literate? Do we really like “reading maps”? Are we good at “reading maps”? Are we “taught map reading at high-school level”? Do we really depend on maps in our day to day lives? The answer, most likely, will be no! We don’t sell maps at petrol pump stations (like in US). We do not find a hood map of a city when we go to a place like (Ranikhet). And we do not see “city map board” in our cities. This fundamental issue may have an implication in adoption of LBS technology in the market. Those who are able to come up with smart non-map based applications, will take lead and those who relay largely on map display based applications, may not get the desired results.

Manoj Misra



PS: "Ranikhet" is a beautiful hill station in Uttarakhand. I spent first 17 years of my life at Ranikhet. You can get a great view snow-clad Himayala range there and Ranikhet gets snow every winter. Forget air-conditioner, you don't even need a fan in summers!!

M&A activities in Indian GIS industry

M&A activities in Indian GIS Industry seems to be on the rise..

1. A press release from Infotech, today, indicates that they have acquired majority stake in a Hyderabad based GIS start-up Geospace Integra. I had mentioned about Geospace Integra in one of my earlier post and was impressed to see the company growth since its inception about a year back. What's surprising is that the company put itself on the block within the first year of inception! What's even more surprising is that Infotech, one of the reasonably successful Indian GIS companies, in India felt the need to acquire another Indian company to grow it's India market !!! Read press release at..

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Infotech Enterprises makes strategic investment to address geospatial market opportunities in India and Middle East

Infotech Enterprises Ltd on May 15, 2007 has announced its strategic move to address Geospatial business opportunities in India and the Middle East by taking majority stake in Hyderabad-based Geospatial Integrated Solution Pvt Ltd (Geospace Integra).The geospatial market in India and Middle East is estimated at Rs 1000 crore and is expected to see a 12% growth rate over the next five years. The India government's Open Map Policy and Survey of India's large-scale mapping initiatives are unlocking geospatial opportunities in several areas. These include land records; urban planning; environment, forestry and natural resources; utility infrastructure planning and management; and defence. Similarly, the rapid pace of infrastructure development in the Middle East has led to a growing demand for geospatial services in that region.The Company is a world leader in geospatial services, particularly for the telecom, utilities and government markets in North America, Europe and Australia. It also enjoys a significant presence in the telecom and utility segments in India. By investing in Geospace Integra and leveraging the combined entity's strengths, the Company moves into an even stronger position to address the high-growth geospatial markets in India and the Middle East.Under the terms of the agreement, the Company and Geospace Integra will consolidate their geospatial business in India and Middle East into a single entity led by Chandrasekhar Nori. Chandrasekhar Nori has over 25 years of experience in Remote Sensing and mapping industry in India. He is credited with engineering and development of photowriting and imaging technology for Indian defence industry. The new entity will operate as a subsidiary of the Company.BVR Mohan Reddy, the Company's Chairman and Managing Director commented: "As we continue to reinforce our leadership position in the global geospatial markets, India and the Middle East become increasingly strategic to our growth objectives. By leveraging the knowledge and experience of Geospace Integra, supported by Chandrasekhar Nori's leadership, we have a compelling value proposition for customers in these markets. We expect to achieve Rs 100 Crore revenue in the next 3 years from our India and Middle East business."
Source: Equity Bulls
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2. November 2006, I met with one of the founders of Manchitra Service who mentioned to me that they are existing out of business and and company will have new owners. There was no formal news about this transaction but a visit at the Manchitra website will indicate some changes in the management team.

3. A leading global street mapping company has closed (or is very close to finalizing) the deal to acquire a Pune based GIS data company to further it's Indian street data plans (I hope that there is a formal company release soon)

Although the size of these deals is not known and is not likely to be too big, it's a good pointer to the fact that GIS industry in Investing - in India based GIS business! As I said earlier, a bright future ahead!!

Manoj Misra