IBM Global
Services India and Aptech
Ltd. have entered into a strategic e-business solutions partnership.
The alliance covers a host of activities such
as education, knowledge management, migration of legacy applications
and development of web-enabled solutions based on IBM’s e-business
technology.
IBM and Aptech are to offer courses in IBM products such as
Net.Commerce, Firewall, VA Java, Lotus Notes and concepts like
Internet security and Web administration.
The training is to be through its professional training division, Asset
International.
IBM and Aptech would be able to combine their respective complementary
strengths to bring a wide range of e-business solutions to the Indian
and global marketplace, officials here said.
The e-business industry is expected to generate revenues worth $300 billion
by 2002, which promises a huge market.
In the first phase, the course will offer training on IBM’s e-business
solutions in 35 centers and then extend it across Aptech’s network of
centers.
The partnership will also offer consulting and implementation
services using IBM Net.Commerce technologies to corporates in India
and abroad.
Aptech Ltd., one of the leading computer training institutes in
India, is planning to implement a company-wide knowledge management
network and the SAP enterprise-wide resource planning (ERP) system at
an investment of about Rs 35 crore (US$8.25 million).
The main focus of the company this year is to be on knowledge
management systems, e-commerce business and ERP.
“In the digital age,
managing information effectively is a prerequisite for success.
Companies must react more quickly to market needs, get products to
markets with greater speed and respond more completely to changing
business conditions,” a company official pointed out. “It is in this
connection that our e-business strategy will pay out.”
The ERP system, which Aptech is planning to implement, will mainly be
used to interconnect the operations of over 1,100 Aptech centers
spread across 15 countries to streamline and ensure effective delivery
of various educational services that Aptech offers to its customers.
A knowledge management system enables companies to achieve these by
allowing them to build on existing technology to create highly
efficient, integrated systems that collect, manage, organize and
disseminate information throughout an enterprise.
Though relatively a
new concept in India, knowledge management system holds the key that
could unleash the knowledge resources locked up within an
organization, the official said.
“One of the major benefits that can accrue to firms through knowledge
management systems will be the ability to choose varying technologies
and integrate them to work seamlessly,” he added.
Though many companies in India today have the fundamental blocks
necessary for building the knowledge network across the organization,
“a lot more goes into the making of a knowledge network.”
Aptech, in collaboration with Microsoft, is also to set up the
country’s first knowledge resource center in Mumbai.
The center will
showcase industry `best practices’ in knowledge acquisition, storage
and dissemination.
Aptech has also signed a memorandum of understanding to be part of the
‘Millennium Park’ of the Maharashtra Industrial Development
Corp. in Navi Mumbai, claimed to be the largest in the country.
According to Aptech executive director Harshad Shah, the 50,000 sq
feet of land which it has bought in the Millennium Park would be used
for, amongst other things, developing a hi-tech center for developing
e-commerce related activities.
Initially, it will employ around 800 software personnel at its park site.
