Power downtime costs India Inc Rs 43,205 cr

Mumbai: Manufacturers' Association for Information Technology (MAIT) and Emerson Network Power (India) announced the findings of their joint study on Network Power Downtime. The study, an in-depth analysis of the impact of downtime in corporate India due to high occurrence of power outages, scheduled as well as non-scheduled, revealed that India Inc lost Rs 43,205 crore in 2008-09. The amount of such direct losses has more than doubled since 2003 when these amounted to Rs 22,000 crore.

With significant companies relying on IT infrastructure for automation, productivity and business management, employee productivity and customer management were severely impacted by such downtime. Among the various verticals studied, the manufacturing sector was the most adversely impacted.

The study, in its third round, to map the impact of network downtime in the industrial sector, was conducted by Feedback Business Consulting Services in January 2009. The study covered around 800 firms across seven industrial centers, namely Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Pune. Detailed information on downtime experiences, typical causes and solutions adopted, reactions to uptime etc was sought from senior executives across 14 major industry verticals, including manufacturing, electronics, telecom, IT services, IT-enabled services, banking & finance, pharmaceutical, biotechnology, SMEs, retail, hotels, real estate, infrastructure and hospitals.

Vinnie Mehta, Executive Director, MAIT said, "Contingency planning is part of the India Inc mindset, based on traditional experiences with infrastructure limitations. This trend will continue in the light of global power failures encountered in western countries. Firms will need to pay more attention to maximizing uptime if they are to remain competitive in a globally networked economy."

Commenting on the findings of the study, Sandeep Nair, MD, Emerson Network Power (India) said, "In India, while the metros have a good power supply, the interiors reflect a different picture altogether. As one moves towards the hinterland, one realizes that there are frequent power cuts. The problem is further compounded by unclean power and other basic constraints like earthing, cabling and lack of a viable infrastructure. This has necessitated deployment of Business Critical Continuity solutions for growing businesses. Today, we are moving towards a border-less world and constant supply of electricity is crucial to stay connected 24x7. "

Highlights of the study:

• Nearly 62 percent of the firms polled were extremely dependent upon IT and automation
• Power disruption frequency highest in Delhi followed by Pune and Bengaluru
• The average speed of restoration is 71 min, Bengaluru most affected with high frequency and longer outages. In Hyderabad outages are infrequent but long
• Telecom segment had the fastest restoration, while it was slowest in pharma/biotech, hotels/hospitals and manufacturing
• Downtime losses, across all verticals averaged to Rs 54,434 per hour-highest in telecom and real state/infrastructure companies, lowest in the SMEs
• Major impact of downtime is employee productivity and customer management
• Companies, without alternative sources of power, were highly depended on the grid. Mumbai continues to be most depended on grid for power