Author: Anupam Agrawal

Happy Independence Day to All !!!

Today being the 75th Year of Independent India, the early morning email check prompted a thought. Has this technology named Internet made us independent or has it made us more dependent?

While reflecting on the question there were multiple aspects which came to mind. One thing was sure from my standpoint that this technology named Internet has allowed freedom of expression, freedom of thought freedom of creativity. This blog, the possibility of reach out to thousands without being bogged down by the borders is what Internet has to offer. But how come a technology has survived for so long when others come and dissolve with years or decades. This reminds us that the principles of Internet of decentralisation is a powerful principle and is at its core. However, this DNS is going into a overdrive of centralisation and its not the governments of countries but strategy of organisations which is possibly against the decentralisation principle.

As India moves into its 76th year of independence, efforts are on to strengthen the community of people who can work on Internet governance and ensure that the decentralisation is maintained. India Internet Governance forum is a right step in this direction in this year. The opportunity of being part of the coordination committee organising this first ever India IGF is the best gift to offer to fellow countrymen.

This step of bringing the community together will allow that the freedom continues to exist. This is is the beginning.

thought was has Internet allowed us to be independent or

In the global ecosystem of trade and commerce, comes in a technology which allows the creators/ manufacturers to add unprecedented value to what they were creating. It gave voice to hundreds and thousands which otherwise were getting trampled by the system itself, wherein the system was taking it what it wanted and then taxing what was left anyways. The value creators now had the power to decide how and where to drive their sales and use their resources. This technology is what we know as Internet.

Internet made the notion of honor equated with money go down. The question which gets going now is how has one made that money. If the answer is that it is without any value add and only through backroom deals, any amount of money does not gets the honor. This was reflected in almost all online polls/ reactions which was the mirrir of the conscience of the society as a whole.

Amidst all these, came the aggregators who said to the value creators that guys, it is your job to create value in production and as such you do it what you do best and then leave the rest to us. This again drove the dependence on Internet to a brand new level. However, the aggregators realised that they will not be able to survive this unless they add value. So most of the aggregators are diversifying to find value to what they were doing actually, aggregating. The value in aggregation came though service modularization. The aggregating platform for human transportation say Uber modualrized it wherein the component of booking of cabs is using all sort of AI and data analysis to find the cab for the user.

The value of Internet is in how it helps create value in the process over and over again. So the future of Internet will depend how the value creators in the global trade and commerce ecosystem will be able to leverage it and the users are able to find the right product and service. There has to be an universal acceptance to Internet.

The entire focus of standardization in India has been to maintain the quality of the products being produced / assembled by using the instruments of certifications and lab testing which were enforcing the quality by testing through a set of standards earmarked for it. However, the key area which was bringing dollar revenue to India and contributing majorly to GDP was the service sector as well. This area lacks standardization and as such has been adequately focused in the Indian National Strategy for Standardization. (INSS)

The services sector standardization has been adequately focused in the Indian National Strategy for Standardization and has been the driving factor of creating the Service Sector Council in Bureau of Indian Standards. The council is organized for 12 sectors with sub committees for each sector and IT/ITeS happens to be one of them

Before coming to IT/ITeS in particular, let us the see what INSS mentions as the road map for driving standardization in this area.

• Set up a national task force to accelerate service standards development work
• Identify service quality gaps, standards required for related infrastructure and occupational skills
• Develop fast track national standards based on gap analysis
• Take leadership role in international service standards development work

Limiting the discussion to IT/ITeS services, the difference in services and products has not been made in the international standardization. As such if the same is being attempted in India, it is sure to give an advantage to the service sector with multiple organizations will be able follow the standard approach. This will force the existing organizations to adopt and innovate to remain relevant. Instead of standardization of the entire service sector, we need to see the user interface of the services and that should be standardized. For Example – if you give a call to bank helpline because you have lost the card, you need to be attentive enough to find out the right option to lodge the card lost information. This can be standardized by ensuring that for every bank helpline, the first option is to deal the emergency and then rest of the options follow. Similarly, an ecosystem can be created that whenever you call a helpline and there is wait time, there should be a system to call back within a stipulated time. This will be of value to the users.

There is scope for services improvement and the national task force mentioned in the INSS implemented should take the user point of view for standardization rather than the management point of view which otherwise is well considered in the current ecosystem of International Standardization.