How this IT firm helping State govts across India transform public services

The $200 billion strong Indian IT industry has many specialized players who have created a niche in specific domain. Bhubaneswar-headquartered IT firm CSM Technologies is one of those IT services companies that has specialized in government technology (GovTech) segment. Despite risks like payment delay and entrenched bureaucracy, CSM has so far successfully delivered projects with various state governments including Odisha, Bihar, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, and Himachal Pradesh among others.

In an interaction with the Bizz Buzz, Priyadarshi Nanu Pany, founder & CEO of CSM Technologies said the company is also expanding its enterprise business and is confident of receiving outsourcing projects from the US and other developed economies. The company has already been operating in many African nations. He said that despite the talent war, the mid-sized IT firm is able to attract and retain talent on the back of slew of employee-friendly measures. Pany also said the company's engagement with the startup world remains strong.

What is the motivation behind choosing GovTech over the lucrative enterprise business domain when you set up CSM Technologies? Can you throw some light on this aspect?

When I floated CSM Technologies back in 1998, there was always an allurement to make quick bucks out of the enterprise business by serving overseas clients, mostly US-based. Most of the big IT vendors were already thriving in this domain. But as a first-generation entrepreneur, I thought of creating my own niche in the cluttered IT market. My journey began as a tentative startup in eastern India with the creation of a unified web portal for the Government of Odisha amid the dot com boom landscape. As I moved up the maturity curve of entrepreneurship, I figured out that the government departments were working in silos. Then, the realization dawned that digital integration could not just enhance coordination among departments but help the government to improve performance outcomes of schemes and elevate the government to citizen (G2C) service delivery. So, I sensed a huge opportunity nationwide for GovTech. Technology promised to be the game-changer for governments anywhere.

CSM Technologies has developed some of the ground-breaking solutions across sectors like agriculture, mining, supply chain, education. Be it the Paddy Procurement Automation System (PPAS), Student Academic Management System (SAMS), Integrated Mines and Minerals Management System (i3MS) or the Digitalized Public Distribution System (PDS), tech interventions have redefined the paradigms of public service delivery and benefited all stakeholders. Looking back, I can claim with a touch of pride that GovTech has made CSM Tech the differentiator it is. And as an entrepreneur, it's heartening to break through barriers in public service delivery with emerging technologies. Touching over a million citizens' lives keeps me energized and motivated. GovTech is our USP and we aim to create more cutting-edge solutions in the future benchmarking with the global best practices in governance.

Can you elaborate on the types of clients the company current has across India and the world?

We cater to governments at federal and state levels and also enterprise clients. Inside India, we have worked with multiple states like Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra and many more. If I cite the example of Odisha where CSM Tech started its business operations, we have designed solutions for many departments and also for state controlled entities like Odisha Mining Corporation (OMC), Odisha Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (Idco) and Bhubaneswar Smart City Ltd. For the Bihar government, we have developed the Seed Certification System and the unified admission system for college students. CSM Tech has developed the e-Land Management System for the Aurangabad Industrial City (AURIC), a planned and greenfield industrial Smart City and part of the Delhi-Mumbai industrial corridor. CSM Tech has helped design and implement tech solutions for specific government projects in Assam, Punjab (e-School- school administration suite) and Rajasthan (Jan-Aadhaar). In its preliminary years of operations, the company worked for organizations of repute like ONGC and HCL. Beyond India, we have established a strong business footprint in African countries like Ethiopia, Sudan, Kenya and Tanzania where we are serving the government sector clients.

Beyond GovTech, we have developed the Digital Logistics Management Solution (DLMS) for JSW Steel implemented at their four iron ore mines in Odisha. In the enterprise business category, we are actively engaging major corporates like Adani, NMDC, Coal India etc. Presently, around 30 per cent of our revenues come from enterprise business.

We usually hear about the long payment cycles for government projects. How has been your experience so far?

Look, when I set off on this entrepreneurial journey, and selected GovTech over enterprise business, mine was a journey laden with risks. Back then, it wasn't easy to pull off innovation in government ranks because of the well-entrenched legacy systems and mindset that is historically opposed to change. This change management in itself is a grueling task. But fortunately, for us, it wasn't as overwhelming a challenge as it is perceived to be. Once we got into the groove and designed customized solutions for the governments, we won the trust as our solutions produced the outcomes which overshot their expectations. After building this trust and consolidating our presence in GovTech, payments were never a sore point for us.

How big is your portfolio in the enterprise solution business? Are you planning to expand it?

After earning stripes in the GovTech realm, we are sharpening its focus on enterprise solutions. GovTech is still the lion's share of our earnings but we would like to see the trend inverting as we strengthen our presence in enterprise business. Certainly, we would like to expand our enterprise business portfolio. Our enterprise solutions use a confluence of emerging technologies like AI, blockchain, AR/VR, IoT and geospatial & advanced analytics. We are betting big on open source ERP systems and low-code, no-code (LCNC) applications. Our US subsidiary is working on opportunities in this space.

IT industry is going through a talent war. How do you manage this supply issue?

Exactly, a year ago, the talent war reached its summit. Techies commanded stratospheric pay hikes as the demand for skilled digital talent outpaced supply. There was a deluge of techies quitting jobs, leading to the phenomenon called 'The Great Resignation'. Being a mid-tier IT company, we grappled with this challenge to retain talent as bigger firms and some well capitalized startups could poach techies. We realized that this trend was going to be short-lived and focused on an array of talent retention measures. First, we recalibrated our pay structure to ensure that the best talent is suitably compensated. We introduced sign-on bonuses for new hires. Other than pay, we raised focus on upskilling and reskilling programmes of the employees.

Many mid-tier companies are tying up with startups providing SaaS platform to bag deals. What is your engagement with the startup world?

Startups not only offer a booming ecosystem for entrepreneurial growth and innovation but also provide solutions for dynamic business challenges in a post-Covid world. We engage startups for more reasons than one- outsourcing processes for cost-competitiveness, getting easier access to the pool of talented resources for outsourcing some of our key deliverables and adoption of new age open-source tools/products that can value add our portfolio.