CITY PROFILE: IT Solutions To Services— Nawabi Style (Lucknow)

Lucknow,
the capital of Uttar Pradesh, is situated along the banks of the river Gomti.
The city became known as a centre for Urdu poetry and courtly diction, and
reached its acme during the reign of Nawab Wajid Ali Shah who was a connoisseur
of music and poetry.

The city's tryst with IT got a national push when Reliance Infocomm chose
Lucknow for its national launch of mobile operations from the hands of the then
Prime Minister of India, AB Vajpayee in the year 2002.

It has now become the hub of IT activity with major distributors and
resellers like IngramMicro, eSys, Redington and Rashi Peripherals - grounding
their efforts. Even though, Lucknow has got its share of institutions and
government organizations fuelling the IT requirements of the region — the
place has not been able to attract bigger names from the global IT fraternity.

When
it comes to IT reselling, Naaza market is the place, which is located near
Hazratganj and almost 150 small to big resellers are based there. With other
cities like Allahabad, Varanasi and Kanpur fast catching in on the state capital
and margins coming down, the reseller community within the city has learnt to
leverage on the volume game.

Realizing the pitfalls of being a box pusher - a number of players have moved
towards the services segment and created a niche for themselves. Lucknow-based
CSPL is one such example where the company has grown because of its conscious
focus on services.

A number of government and non-government institutions like NBRI, CDRI, CIMAP,
HAL and educational institutions like the Lucknow University, NIIT, UPTEC and
the IIM Lucknow have ensured that proper flow of IT equipment is maintained all
the year long. According to various sources in the channel community, the
overall market in the Lucknow region is around 1500 PCs per month. Almost 60% of
this is fuelled by the government and educational institution requirements,
while the rest comes under the home and SOHO segment. 

The
home segment is driving business dynamics in neighboring towns like Bara Banki
or Kursi. Big IT names like Microsoft, HP, IBM and LG are targeting small to
very small cities. The state government has also started taking IT seriously.
The government has recently introduced a number of initiatives like e-Suvidha
towards streamlining its IT activities in the state.

Cashing in on the national e-governance drive, solution providers and system
integrators are seemingly more than anticipative when it comes to executing
large projects on the e-governance sector. Coming months will bring a lot of
action on this front.

It is understandable to note that most of the serious system integrators are
not interested in politics of any kind. This is perhaps one of the biggest
reason why big system integrators or solution providers have abstained
themselves from the regular association meetings and parties and have rather
came together to join hands within the small group of SIs.

ASSOCIATION PROFILE: Lucknow Computer Vyapar Mandal

FORMED: 2001

OBJECTIVES: To voice channel concerns of vendors and distys and enhance
quality of interaction among SIs

MEMBERS: 175

OFFICE BEARERS

President: Yogendra Dixit

Vice President: Manoj Singh

General Secretary: Satendra Mishra

Joint Secretary: Vinay Vashney

Treasurer: Jeevesh

Lucknow has a vibrant channel community-focused association-Lucknow Computer
Vyapar Mandal. With around 175 members, it is one of the most active ones in UP.
The association played a vital role in making sure that the state-wide platform
is created to voice channel concerns to vendors and distributors on a bigger
level.

 According to Gurmeet Singh Saluja, Ex-president of the association,
there was a need to create a bigger platform for the regional channel community
from other parts of the state as well. "Bareilly, Varanasi, Allahabad, and
even smaller places like Moradabad are full of IT activity and full of issues as
well. So we came together to form this association to increase the interaction
level among these regions," he added.

In another development in the closely knit systems integration market, around
12 of the biggest Lucknow-based SIs have come forward to formulate an informal
channel association to increase comfort level. They also want to enhance quality
of interaction among the SIs of the region.

This move comes at a time when the erstwhile city of Nawabs already has a
channels oriented association. Speaking about the activities of the newly
formulated group of SIs, Pramod Mishra, Director, Acme Digitek Solutions and one
of the veterans in the Lucknow IT market said that this informal association is
purely aimed at increasing the interaction level among the top system
integrators in the city.

With Naaza market becoming the hub of activity as far as the regular box
pushing is concerned — Lucknow Computer Vyapar Mandal is being considered as
the voice of the local channel community. However, most of the big system
integrators in the city like Uptec, Acme Digitek or CSPL have stayed away from
the more than vibrant channel association.

Zia Askari