Information vital in e-economy: Aziz Premji

By Our Staff Reporter

BANGALORE, AUG. 29. In the fast changing scenario of the e- economy, those who can use information well will achieve formidable competitive advantage, Mr. Azim H.Premji, Chairman, Wipro Corporation, said here on Tuesday.

He was speaking at the valedictory of "Management Paradigms in the E-Millennium", the 12th annual convention of the Association of Indian Management Schools, at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. Mr. Premji said that global reach offered by e-economy would have tremendous implications for the way businesses were organised.

The knowledge creation and management -- a market reality -- through computers had made it possible for small companies to compete with bigger ones, he said. It had paved the way for companies to organise themselves differently from the hierarchical structures and "shift from the make and sell paradigm to the sense and respond mode," he said.

Digital marketplace

The e-economy would see the advent of digital marketplace, Mr. Premji said. It was estimated that by 2004, the B2B e-commerce market in U.S. would hit $ 2.7 trillion. Some of the opportunities thrown here were applications that enabled companies on the sell and buy sides to build storefronts to sell, and buy from cross existing and/or new suppliers, brought multiple buyers and sellers together, allowed integration of supply chains, and enabled Enterprise Application Integration where companies could integrate their backends fully into online trading communities.

On the B2C front, the Indian customer's preference for touch and feel involved in buying a product was slowly waning, Mr. Premji said. A recent study by Taylor Nelson Sofres Interactive had ranked India at number 17 in a list of 27 net shopping countries, placing it on par with Singapore and Malaysia.

Mr. Premji ended on a note of caution that the risk of information systems being misused or sabotaged would be a major concern.

Concerns facing management education

Mr. Ashoka Chandra, Special Secretary, MHRD, Government of India, spoke about some of the concerns that the academic community involved in management education needed to face.

Increasing the productivity of the informal sector -- which provided the maximum employment -- would enhance the growth rate of the country, he said. Those teaching management must internalise this concern and find ways to bridge the gap between the productivity of the formal sector and that of the informal sector, he said.

Development of teachers was an ignored problem and creation of an atmosphere that would attract talent towards teaching was needed. The current shortage of teachers in the engineering streams was 10,000 and the corresponding number for management would be higher, he said.

CII Centres

The CII was setting up four national-level centres for the explicit purpose of converting teachers from other disciplines to management, by providing them inputs, Mr. Chandra said. The Centre too was considering a similar move to tackle the severe shortage of professionals in management education, he said. International institutions of management could help facilitate this process, he said.

While the National Accreditation Board under the AICTE Act and the National Assessment and Accreditation Council under the UGC Act had been formed to streamline the process of accreditation, both the bodies had failed to address the issue of accreditation of management institutions, Mr. Chandra said.

In this context, AIMS had a role to play, he said. The association could approach AICTE and take the responsibility of evaluating various institutions in accordance with AICTE norms and submit recommendations on accreditation, he said.

AIMS should play the advocacy role and articulate on issues that had a bearing on management education, help in institution building and promote quality in management education, he said.

Three professors, Dr. Dharnidhar Prasad Sinha, Prof. Yadu Kul Bhushan and Dr. Ramaswamy P.Aiyar were presented with the AIMS, Ravi J.Mathai National Fellowship Award for 2000, for their distinguished contribution to the field of management. The awards were presented to them by Mr. Azim Premji.

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