Government is not averse to outsourcing

The popular belief that the government, especially the Government of India is averse to outsourcing, no longer holds true.

Dr N Vijayaditya, Former DIG, NIC, affirmed that the government was not against outsourcing. "But it needs to understand what service it will get in return."

Citing an example of the earlier passport digitization initiative , outsourced to Wipro, and that failed, he said, "It did not succeed, and we have to take back the project. For any outsourced project to succeed, you have to understand the capacity of the service provider, and the service delivery and related SLAs."

Opening the door to the service providers, he said, "Certain services will certainly be outsourced. Aadhaar is an excellent example of successful partnership between the GoI and the service providers."

Explaining the delays in decision making, he opined that the government policy drafts are released for popular comments; this gives citizens enough time to read the document, understand and accept it. This then becomes a part of inclusive decision.

Vijayaditya presented the government view in a panel discussion on What Does Digital Mean To Us?, on the second day of C-Change today.

Praveen Sengar, Director, Digital Practice, Dimension Data, who moderated the discussion, kick started by discussing the pros and challenges between IT and business.

Endorsing his views, Pradeep Gupta, CMD, Cybermedia, said, that the human being presents a major challenge in shift toward digital era.

Kapil Dev Singh, Founder, Coeus Age, suggested that the CIOs and IT leaders therefore, should brand and position themselves before a CEO. "That is the fastest way to position your proposition before a CEO."

Dheeraj Sinha, CSO, Grey Worldwide concluded that majority of the customers were scared, and not convinced about ROI on digital.