In a bid to help MSMEs reduce their IT infrastructure costs, the MSME Ministry is planning to introduce a cloud computing scheme for the sector.
In this context, Pankaj Gupta, divisional chairman of Indian Industries Association (IIA) in Meerut said to a Bizxchange correspondent, “This endeavour will definitely help Indian MSMEs, many of which do not have the funds to afford setting up of any IT infrastructure at all. Besides, given the present IT boom in the country and the outsourcing contracts coming to India from foreign companies, the government’s endeavour will surely equip MSMEs to handle those orders.”
Significantly, the Ministry is considering starting a Web-based company in collaboration with Google and Amazon, among others, to provide Web infrastructure sharing facilities to MSMEs.
However, Dinesh Kumar Tomar, proprietor of Compurx Infotech Private Limited, a small-sized unit in New Delhi which provides enterprise resource planning-related solutions, said, “It depends on how and what the government is offering to the MSME sector. Unless the government is planning to offer advanced IT solutions, SMEs will gain little benefit from it.”
With the government waking up to the need for cloud computing for MSMEs and offering IT infrastructure to the sector, MSMEs are surely in for great times ahead because their input costs are likely to be reduced by this endeavour.

Source:-http://www.indiacompanynews.com/post/view/2427/MSME-Ministry-to-boost-IT-infrastructure-of-small-firms/

Healthcare institutions charged with cost cutting, improved patient satisfaction and overall operational efficiency are turning to Xerox Corporation (XRX 8.36, +0.06, +0.72%) for help. Solaris Health System, in Edison, N.J., will save more than 20 percent on costs associated with printing, storing and sharing documents, as one of Xerox’s newest managed print services (MPS) clients.

Xerox will deploy an MPS strategy to help Solaris reduce IT infrastructure costs across its network of seven healthcare facilities by consolidating the number of output devices like printers, copiers and fax machines and providing pre-emptive service for all equipment regardless of vendor. Solaris will also use Xerox’s expertise in business process outsourcing to improve the flow of information through its medical network by integrating document management strategies with existing health information system (HIS) applications and technology.

“By changing how we merge, store and use our data, Xerox will make it possible for our physicians to have the information they need when they need it, and deliver a positive experience to our patients,” said Miroslav Belote, director of Information Systems, Solaris Health System.

Using MPS to redirect print jobs to the most cost-effective machine, Solaris will meet environmental sustainability goals to reduce paper use, power consumption and landfill waste. The health system will also benefit from onsite Xerox document advisors to help with more effective patient communications and regulatory forms. By printing documents on demand in the print shop, Solaris will eliminate piles of hard-copy forms taking up costly warehouse space.

Xerox will design training programs and change management procedures to help employees successfully adapt to new technology and work processes.

“The healthcare industry faces tremendous pressure to provide superior services, manage data and comply with industry regulations on limited budgets,” said John B. Jones, vice president, Healthcare Providers, Xerox. “By relying on Xerox’s expertise in document management, healthcare organizations are saving money and freeing up resources to focus even more on what matters most: providing exceptional care to their patients.”

As the largest provider to manage all document and business process needs within a healthcare organization, Xerox is helping healthcare organizations like Methodist Healthcare, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Marin General Hospital and White Memorial Medical Center intelligently organize information — from both paper and electronic sources. Through ACS, A Xerox Company, Xerox manages all aspects of healthcare programs, healthcare IT, clinical workflows, administration and patient accounting, care and disease management, and business office and revenue cycle operations.

Xerox was positioned by Gartner, Inc., in the Leaders Quadrant in the “Magic Quadrant for Managed Print Services Worldwide(1)” for 2009 and the company was recognized as a leader in IDC’s 2010 MPS MarketScape report(2).

Source:http://www.marketwatch.com/story/solaris-health-system-turns-to-xerox-to-reduce-costs-maximize-it-investment-2010-07-15?reflink=MW_news_stmp

The Socitm President, writing exclusively for eGov monitor, argues spending cuts provide CIOs a unique opportunity to transform their organisation and deliver more holistic and successful public sector ICT infrastructure.

In the aftermath of the £6bn cuts package, including the freeze on all new IT expenditure over £1m, it is difficult to think beyond the task of assessing immediate implications.

But think we must, because the current crisis may represent a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for us, the CIOs, to lead our organisations to build a more mature, holistic, invest-to-save and ultimately successful approach to public sector IT.

This is not a soft option: frankly it is very hard – and very little of it is about technology. It actually concerns culture change, outcomes focussed management, staff empowerment and customer needs.

IT departments will need to change dramatically, becoming much less to do with making things and much more about facilitating change and driving efficiency. In the best performing organisations of tomorrow, IT will be a power house of innovation and modernisation – not simply a support service.

That means moving out of the technology focussed comfort zone. IT won’t just be expected to talk in the language of the business, it will become a major part of the business, expected to take risks and responsibility for improvement. The CIO must be a trusted agent of change, not letting technology lead change but harnessing technology to reform how we design and deliver services from the inside out.

As we move beyond business process improvement enabled by IT, the issue over poor value from information will have to be addressed. This will become a pressing priority for IT if it is to deliver significant productivity and efficiency improvements but it will be hard to turn some of this into cashable savings. It also moves IT still further from the ‘T’ towards the ‘I’.

However, one area of technology which will remain a high focus is security and authentication. This is arguably going to remain the biggest technical hurdle ahead. Without a universal cost-public sector solution to authentication, – and opportunities exist for low cost, federated models of ID and authentication – many areas of information sharing and team integration will prove impossible.

New technologies which are common outside work will be adopted within our organisations. The fear of social networking, for example, will be exorcised and these new tools are likely to become dominant communication mechanisms competing with and replacing current levels of email.

IT business continuity will become more important, and organisations that are currently skating on thin ice with their business continuity and IT disaster recovery, including schools, will have to re-think their business model and make suitable provision. Driving without insurance is not acceptable, neither is running a public service without business continuity. This will further promote shared services and integration across the public sector with more cost efficient and subtle methods of providing IT business continuity than simply outsourcing data centres to the private sector as we have in the past.

IT will be at the heart of other profound changes. The concept of the desktop and for that matter an office will disappear. Technology will support a “mobile briefcase”, and typically people will be using their own equipment to access information and networks, not equipment provided by their organisation. They may go to an ‘office’, but not the dedicated office base of the past.

People will choose what technology they want to use and buy it themselves – most of us already have our own phones and PCs, (and cars!) so why do we need our employer to duplicate this? This will save money on equipment and support costs and give employees more choice.

Reusable transactions based around shared processes will dominate software priorities. Public service organisations will have to agree on a standard ways of doing things to cut costs, and this will be the incentive to create a single incidence of major software licences (eg. Lagan, ORACLE, SAP, IBM etc.) and drive down IT costs.

Web self service will, of course, become the norm and the default channel for service delivery – the web as a ‘bolt on’ to existing and traditional ways of delivering service is not sustainable.

That in turn will force a fundamental shift in channels of delivery, service design and the way in which the customer for services (and the citizen – they are different) will expect to see services presented. True end-to-end self service will be essential if back office overheads are to be removed – the temptation to retain manual ‘checks and balances’ will be resisted as the costs become more critical than the risks.

Joint ventures between public service organisations will accelerate shared services. Many of the current barriers – regulation, bureaucracy, political and others – will need to be overcome in the interests of efficiency and improved public services. Many public service organisations will be forced to make rapid changes in this direction just to remain solvent, let alone to deliver joined up service delivery.

However, traditional outsource contracts of the past are in many cases not fit for purpose. They have failed to be sufficiently flexible, low cost or transformational. In the same vein, most traditional contracts for IT are 20 years passed their sell by date. We will need a fundamental re-think if a greater flexibility and added value from IT investment is to be achieved. The tired ‘client/contractor’ model just won’t stand up.

The number of IT service centres across the public sector must fall dramatically – computer rooms, service desks, professional teams and even heads of IT. This will not only bring about dramatic efficiencies but just as importantly, it will drive the deliverability of public service reform by making it easier to share information and to integrate teams. Whilst national consolidation will happen, the main emphasis will be local – across councils, health, public protection services and central government services delivered locally.

Source:http://www.egovmonitor.com/node/36753