Founder & MD
ABM Knowledgeware
ABM Knowledgeware’s deep domain knowledge in urban sector after providing several solutions in this space is probably the most unique and irreplaceable advantage that ABM possesses for realising the dream of Smart Cities in India, says Prakash Rane, Founder and Managing Director, ABM Knowledgeware in conversation with Poulami Chakrobaorty of Elets News Network (ENN).
How is ABM Knowledgeware contributing for e-Governance in the country?
ABM Knowledgeware has experience of more than 19 years exclusively in e-governance sector. Credible industry bodies have endorsed our undisputed leadership in e-Municipality segment in India.
Our undying spirit to give customers return on their investment in e-governance projects has brought us today at this height. It has therefore made us the first choice by the major States of India for e-Municipality and many more e-Governance solutions.
ABM’s various e-government solutions deliver 28+ million citizen services per year compared to 4.2 million in 2010 and still growing. To name some of the projects; Roll-out of e-Municipality services and solutions covering around 750+ Urban Local Bodies (Municipal bodies) in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar, ABM Smart Governance solutions running in seven Smart Cities which are approved under Smart City Initiative by Government of India. Department of Defence, Ministry of Defence, for roll out part of its e-Municipality solutions in all the Cantonment Boards pan-India. We are currently doing projects of varying sizes in 11 States in India.
“ABM evaluates the emerging technologies for its fitment to its solutions and client’s need in an ongoing manner and take pragmatic decisions of incorporating the same from time to time.”
Smart City is one of the dream visions of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. How is ABM Knowledgeware contributing in serving the industry in fulfilling this dream?
Various tracks of Smart Cities like Command Control Centre, smart healthcare, smart education, smart transport, smart environment etc. have components that are part of or needs integration with ABM’s smart governance solution. Our solution has ready plug-ins for such integration giving Smart City customers the most required integrated suite of solutions. Thus, Smart Governance or E-Municipality is the foundation for any Smart City and needs a key focus and priority while planning projects under Smart City initiatives for the city.
ABM’s Smart Governance solution is a comprehensive integrated enterprise solution catering to all citizens-centric, revenue-centric and back-office services of any municipality or organisation governing the Smart City. This solution provides Anytime, Anywhere, Services to citizens, business entities and other stakeholders, facilitates online payments, SMS and email alert and notifications. Being developed on SOA architecture, it can be easily integrated with GIS, Digital Signature, other government initiatives like NSDG, SSDG, eTaal, CSCs etc. Solution also offers services on Mobile App and supports regional language apart from English.
Our deep domain knowledge in urban sector after providing several solutions in this space is probably the most unique and irreplaceable advantage that ABM possesses for realising the dream of Smart Cities in India.
What are your expansion plans?
To start with, we plan to expand our e-Municipality business in more States. It includes long term relationships with customers by giving increasingly better quality of service and retaining the patronage of these important customers, adding more States as customers, blending technology with more reforms, maintaining proper processes and a sound value system to address various challenges may be encountered in the Urban Sector reforms.
We have already established our presence in 11 States pan-India by winning prestigious customers in these regions. We will continue with the strategy of collaboratively working with large and reputed IT companies .This is yielding positive results.
“We are also looking forward to working on initiatives like Ease of Doing Business, leveraging empanelment with NICSI for projects in different States.”
ABM evaluates the emerging technologies for its fitment to its solutions and client’s need in an ongoing manner and take pragmatic decisions of incorporating the same from time to time. Thus, it keeps enhancing its existing key offerings. As ABM has a number of ambitious propositions under its wing, it endeavours to enhance pre-existing offerings with regular upgrades on their technology.
We are focusing now on our new segment ‘Cyber Security’. It enables users to work faster with a highly secure, yet simple to use remote access solution. Through cyber security offering, the customer gets security anywhere, multifactor authentication, multi-location and hybrid cloud, web security anywhere, compliance & fast on boarding. We are also looking forward to working on initiatives like Ease of Doing Business, leveraging empanelment with NICSI for projects in different states.
What challenges do you face in your operation and what are your strategies to address the same?
We face following challenges and we make sure that we address them well:
E-government projects are very demanding into project management for tight control over timelines and cost. This poses a challenge when we scale to multiple States in parallel without compromising of our USP i.e. impeccable delivery and continuous guidance to customers about their side of project and change Management. We address this challenge by grooming potential leaders for giving higher responsibility and adoption of process based project execution.
Maintaining healthy cash flows from multiple projects in multiple geographies which is necessary for smooth operations. This is also a serious challenge. Given the procedural delays in payments and hesitancy by users to take firm stand on sign offs required to process payments. This is being addressed by working closely with customers and their consultants to understand the requirement of project outcome and stringent adherence to contract conditions.
Quality Manpower – The segment where we operate is more difficult segment than export oriented IT companies. We continuously groom potential leaders and try to keep good pipeline of leaders by continuously exposing them to the higher level of executive management.