Past, Present and Future of GIS in India

Why is Enterprise GIS implementation penetration low in India?

manojmisra — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 21:38:00 +0000

Back in action after few months!!! Reason, I will be visiting GIS India show tomorrow to get reconnected with GIS community and I realized that the blog is not updated.!

Sometime back, someone asked to to give my views on Indian GIS market. I decided to analyze the reasons for low implementation of enterprise wide GIS systems in India – specially private sector.

Indian Geospatial Market is on the verge of a humongous growth. We are witnessing huge growth spurts; companies are bagging projects that are valued more than the total annual revenue of company. In the early 1990s, most Indian GIS companies relied on outsourced business from overseas market with US accounting for bulk of business followed by UK/Europe. Indian business used to account for less that 10 per cent of the overall business of large companies. However, trends are changing and so is the equation as business from the Indian market is increasing and what is noticeable is a fine geographic mix of business. It is a welcome change, albeit a bit slow.

GIS, in India, is coming of age. Gone are the days when it used to be a fashion statement and people would harp on how governments use GIS. Now the momentum has is picking up and all the rhetoric is transforming into reality This is largely attained due to government focus on use of GIS and large initiatives like R-APDRP and NLRMP but this is just the start. US GIS market had seen growth in 1980s on account of parcel digitizing (sort of subset of our NLRMP) and in 1990s on account of large AM/FM conversion projects. For India, both growth shots are administered at the same time. Landscape of competing companies is also changing very quickly with companies like HCL, Infosys and Wipro showing interest in Indian GIS projects. TCS and Satyam were trying to use GIS from the early years, while TCS is getting more and more active, Mahnidra Satyam still needs to find its feet in Indian market. In addition to that huge number of small companies has also mushroomed.

In true sense, both NRLRM and R-APRDRP projects will give effective results only when an effective enterprise GIS system is deployed by the states. In the private sectors utility companies (Telecom, Power, and Gas) are early adopter of GIS and lot of them will keep on enhancing their enterprise GIS systems. So the industry will witness state of art GIS based enterprise systems in coming years. However, sadly, rest of the private sector is significantly lagging behind in enterprise GIS implementation.

One can argue that implementation of enterprise GIS systems is lagging in India because of economic slowdown around the world. But, this is the time to implement enterprise GIS systems as GIS will help in increasing operational efficiencies. GIS solutions can help organizations overcome their operational challenges and deliver improved profitability. Banks, retailers, realtors, insurers, asset managers, and others seek to understand markets better before embracing GIS for micro and targeting marketing, optimizing business openings and closings, segmenting consumer data, and managing fleets. GIS can visualize, manage, and analyze any business asset (employees, customers, and facilities, all the way to the supply chain network) because it has a place in the world. Over 75 per cent of business data has an address component. Sadly though, the “eco-system” for enterprise system deployment in India is not highly conducive and even though there is lot of ideas on table, implementation is not as cost effective and hence has not gathered momentum.

Reasons for less adoption
There are several reasons for less adoption and implementation of enterprise wide GIS systems in private sector in India, the top two are:
a) Low cost, high quality standard GIS base map
b) India specific Geocoding engine

a) Low cost, high quality standard GIS base map
You need a base map for your GIS enterprise implementation. A base map on top with which company business specific layer or information or assets can be mapped. Sadly though, blame it to less adoption by market or low investment by Indian GIS companies or on Indian government mapping policy, there is no standard national base map that can be used by enterprises and application developers.

Even in R-APDRP projects, base map will be generated by the states from scratch. This is shear wastage of efforts and resources. There was and still is window of opportunity for companies TeleAtlas and Navteq to push their high quality maps as base maps (as derivative product) but with respective acquisitions by TomTom and Nokia, these companies seems to be going slow on government and private sector data sales.
Indian companies like Computer Eyes (MapMayIndia), SatNav, ML Info etc are still trying to crack this market with varied level of success. Google is also creating its own Google Maps but adoption of the data is so far low at enterprise level. Advocacy to use Hybrid map (satellite data merged with limited vector data like prominent landmarks) has still not lost momentum but the fact remains that if there was a single base layer available for organisations that is high quality and low cost, application development for enterprises will gain momentum.
In the present scenario, few of companies get their own base map developed and then over time, the GIS implementation is sub-optimal as the base maps get outdated. Large Telcos in India are using their GIS systems sub-optimally simply because of the base map issue. Or are ending up spending money (like Reliance) to keep them updated.

b) India specific geocoding engine

In UK, using Postcode Address File (PAF) of Royal Mail you can do a building level Geocoding– a feature that is used by numerous organizations for visualization of addresses in GIS. In US, there are numerous commercial geocoders available that provide a street level geocode of any address. For select Metro area, parcel level geocoders are also available. In India, at best you can get locality level match. So if you have to do accurate mapping of your individual consumer database on GIS, that has to be done manually, a huge cost and time deterrent for any enterprise GIS implementation that wants to deal with geographic visualization of the address database.

Not many GIS/product companies have tried to develop an India specific geocoder. Large part of the reason is non standard addressing in India but to some extent it has to do with the fact that we do not have a government data-source as a start point unlike US and UK. While there is a huge initiative taken up by department of post to modernize,, develop a geo-tagged address database this will be a huge effort. One hopes that UID project will map each address and potentially geocoded address database could be developed from the UID database (as a by product, provided each UID is tagged geographically to an address).

There are reports that Google is working on an India specific geo-coder. If the geocoder is available for rest of the industry for developing applications, it will give a huge fillip to the Indian enterprise GIS application development. Tele Atlas and Navteq also has incentive to develop geo-coder (database). Not sure if that’s going to happen, given Google moves has put TA and Navteq on back foot!!

In addition to the above two key reason, lack of availability of high quality demographic data in GIS format will probably be third key hindrance in development of enterprise GIS. Essentially you need to free the enterprises for the core issues and challenges of basic GIS data layers for them to focus on their business need and leverage GIS for enterprise efficiency enhancement.
Five years down the line (by 2015) hope is that substantial data (from government departments) may be available for enterprise GIS developers and business to exploit it and develop enterprise GIS applications. So while Indian GIS companies are busy executing R-APDRPs or NLRMPs or other government programs and missions, there is an opportunity for someone to address these basis issues and exploit the so far relatively untapped enterprise GIS systems market in India. Regardless, the Indian GIS future appears extremely bright!!

I look forward to meet with many of you over the GIS India event!! See you at Gurgaon – place that I have got to know really well in last 3 years – as one that has given highest real estate returns in the entire NCR market in last decade!!

Manoj

What motivates blogger? I was missing from action for a while

manojmisra — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 05:53:00 +0000

I was a bit tied up. The core business on real estate information front side, appearance on TV channels, travel, socializing and facebook took most of the time! But I keep on coming back to think about GIS market!! Some investment interest, past friends and contacts keep discussing GIS and I keep on hearing about events/happening on GIS space. Few tit-bits for you:

1. In past I have blogged about routeguru . Looks like these young entrepreneurs are not able to monetize their idea. So the old school has won! Also, I have not seen too many GIS based product start-ups in a while. So you if you come across someone, send me details. But I am still hopeful that the people on whom I have put my bet will succeed.

2. Met with two companies (one survey focused and other GIS solutions focused) last week. Even after their existence for more than 6 years, these folks do not have seizable revenues. Focus – only India market. But both entrepreneurs were bullish about future of the company and satisfied with what they have been able to archive! Confusing signals!!

3. Got call from three survey focused companies. Hmm.. everyone talking about R-APDRP and the recent 400 Cr ($100 million) plus GIS project award . So at what rate it makes sense to do consumer survey? Will such projects be viable? I have some comments on this but will write later. Should I!!! BTW people in general are skeptical but

4. There is some level of interest coming from US/international companies to start business in India. But they are struggling with India positioning !!! (Sorry, can’t share much details about these companies. Thanks to industry contacts and blogs, two of the companies have spoken with me but it will be inappropriate for me to reveal any further details.

5. Has lengthy chat about Indian GIS Industry and GIS industry in general with two Indian GIS industry veterans (and my good friends). Both are playing leading roles in their respective companies (and their companies at some point were directly competing with ESRI – but no more). Surprisingly both do not see much future for GIS experts!!! This topic deserves much bigger discussion and separate post!!

6. Met with one of the large user of GIS in India. Let me correct – one of the select companies in private space that have spent money (upward of few million USD) on GIS system. The opening statement – GIS is more of a trouble now. We are not able to use as data quality is really poor!!!

Net – net, looks like nothing much have changed in Indian GIS market. Large contract awards, struggling new companies, not so satisfied large corporates!!

So the opportunity exists.. or is my optimism for industry there simple because I always think positive!! Too much to ponder upon and analyze. Hope I get a chance to do so and come up with a blog that contains facts and analysis!!

Hopefully soon!!

Manoj

IS GIS fashion or Obsession in India?

manojmisra — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 16:05:00 +0000

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:

________________________________________________________________

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.

___________________________________

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

manojmisra — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 03:43:00 +0000

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 !!!

manojmisra — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 06:08:00 +0000

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 !!!

manojmisra — Sat, 24 May 2008 04:29:00 +0000

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…

manojmisra — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 13:17:00 +0000

…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

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

manojmisra — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 13:17:00 +0000

…we call it technology and innovation applied to purpose!

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!

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.

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?

manojmisra — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 12:20:00 +0000

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):
_______________

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.

————————–

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

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

manojmisra — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 12:20:00 +0000

————————–

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/

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