Masters in Government Projects

Udaipur based E-Connect solutions (ECPL) started its operation in the year 1991, with the formation of Tayal Software Consultancy Services, as a small software development firm for the SME segment. But due to the shrinking bottomline, it decided to go slow on software business and ventured into IT hardware business in the year 2002.

ECPL was established by two partners, Manoj Agarwal and Jaimin Patel, both of who studied engineering. While Agarwal did his electronics engineering from Bits Pillani, Patel did his engineering in Textile from MIS University, Baroda in the year 1985.

ECPL went into a complete change in the year 2003, when it looked at government as good and prospect customers for its software solutions. Since then, there was no looking back for the company and today ECPL has established itself as one the most preferred partners in the government domain.

Over the years, they company has built its expertise in developing and managing government projects, with its four solutions including State Excise Revenue Management System, Human Resource Management System, Urban Development Information Systems and GIS based ERP mining solutions.

"Being based out of small city like Udaipur, with an experience of 21 years, our journey in the IT business has been very interesting. Our mission is to become a major player in IT services in the Indian and global market with a commitment to our clients in providing software as a solution to our government and large automation customers," said Agarwal, MD, ECPL.

 

How the journey started...
In the year 1992, ECPL took an initial order of `50,000 for a software solution for Bajaj Sevashram. However, the limited customer base and shrinking topline forced ECPL to get into hardware business. By 2003, it focused more on hardware and went on to become the biggest partner for Compaq and HP, majorly catering to South Rajasthan.

In the same year, it also tied up with large automation companies like Larsen and Turbo and Rockwell Automation to which it provided the complete IT hardware solutions. It offered services like consulting on hardware solutions, designing the IT network, server, messaging solutions and designing the entire IT hardware backbone.

The alliance with automation companies, allowed ECPL to do high-end product selling and turn key projects for Microsoft, HP, Cisco and others, which are based out of Udaipur.

However despite all such feats, the company was not satisfied with its bottomline as it did not give Agarwal and Patel, a sense of achievement.
"With our hardware business, we touched `6-7 crore of revenue in the year 2003. Today, maximum of Udaipur resellers are not doing business in crore, with only few of them touching the point," said Agarwal.

Working out from Udiapur to all over the place and with the government itself, is a challenge. Also, the gestation period in government space is long and their need is enormous.

Government is the key pillar
In 2003, the company started focusing on the government domain. It bagged its first government project with Rajasthan State Excise, wherein it ordered to design its software solutions. "This project opened our eyes towards the potential available in the government sector.

 

We started with Rajasthan State Excise and developed a full solutions in the State Excise domain, which was a complete supply management solutions for the liquor industry of Rajasthan state. This project was with us for almost eight years. During this period, we expanded into this segment," said Agarwal.

ECPL feels, government business is no more limited to tendering on buying the PCs, software licenses, datacenter and server and network switches. Rather, government is slowly realizing that end to end solution is the key, which is where ECPL expertise lies in.

"For us cloud adoption in government has been increasing. Today, we take up projects where we are investing into government's IT infrastructure including software, hardware, data center, manpower and everything and we are charging as per transactions basis. We have done couple of success stories, we did solution as services for Uttaranchal government and currently working for Punjab State excise liquor industry, the entire solution is hosted on our datacenter. We are managing the entire gate pass management of liquor industry including surveillance of the gates and data of every truck passing through the Punjab distilleries is mapped here at our datacenter. There are 14 distilleries which are connected with our data center and at Patiala headquarter of Excise department. Some of the other projects that the company has bagged in this space are with Uttaranchal government," he explianed.

It is also doing large and multiple projects with Department of IT, Jaipur and project for department of mines and geology in Udaipur, which is in the fifth year of operations. It has been appreciated by Central Empowerment of Committee of the mining department, government of India. Following this , government of Karnataka gave repeated orders to it and the company is also in talks with the governments of Goa, Tamil Naidu, and Jharkhand.

On the principal IT front, its has strong and long alliances with HP, Digilink, Oracle, Cisco and others.

Current Scenario
With the change in business, ECPL currently focuses on services and its hardware business adds on to its software business. The company has grown by leaps and bounds. It has made its presence felt outside Udaipur. Currently, with its four solutions, it is working in partnership with the governments of states like Uttaranchal, Punjab, Karnataka, Bihar, Goa and Delhi. This year, ECPL has also started working for government of Karnataka and Bihar.

Presently, ECPL is operating from its newly built 25,000 sq ft office, which is located in the recent developed IT park of Udaipur. It has a total strength of 350 people on its rolls, wherein 125 people are working in this campus. In the year 2011-12 , the company registered a total turnover of `30 crore,out of which `12 crore were contributed by software and services business, and the rest came from its systems business. In the services business, the company did 80% of government projects and rest from corporates, wherein the system business, it did 30% of government business and the balance from large automation companies like Rockwell automation, Larsen and Toubro, Secure meter, Hindustan Zinc and other cement companies like JK cement.

Speaking on its strength, Agarwal said, "Our strength is technical domain knowledge and 10 years of experience in designing, developing managing solutions for government and enterprise. We know how to deal in and implement solutions at the government and make money out of that. These are tough strengths required to survive in the government space."

Future plans
The company that intends for a 20% year-on-year growth, now aims to make a mark internationally too. "We are looking at marketing as some of our HRM solutions in the middle east market, and at the US market," revealed Agarwal.

Sandhya Malhotra
(sandhyam@cybermedia.co.in)