Background

PSU in Banking sector
With the global economies facing dramatic changes, Indian banking industry is also facing some challenges brought down by global financial integration. In a democratic set up like India PSU banks have a major role to play, they have transformed themselves to a great extent to fit themselves to the requirements. The period first generation reforms brought fundamental and structural changes in the financial system leading to second-generation reforms, which lead to expansion of operations with the usage of latest technology. It’s almost one and half decade that the reform process was initiated in India.

As per the 2000-01 WTO agreement, PSU banks were to de-license branches by 2009 enabling global banks to set up shops without the permission of Reserve Bank of India. This meant that Indian banks had to be ready to face competition from global players, implying that technology had to be embraced to be ahead of competition. While this agreement does not hold ground, technology has now become one of the priorities for PSU banks. Most leading banks in India today have deployed many advanced core banking systems, and offer facilities like any-branch banking, electronic funds transfers, ATMs, etc. The most visible benefit of deploying core banking has been collating customer information and using this information for offering customized services. Through CBS they could tap customer information right from the time he walks into the bank to the time he has availed of the service Security is the key area of concerns for most of the banks today with online banking becoming more popular, the security risk associated with it have come as a cause of concern.

PSU in Utility sector
The oil and gas industry has been instrumental in fuelling the rapid growth of the Indian economy. Public sector oil companies are likely to spend US$ 11.33 billion next year on expanding supplies and building new transportation networks for oil and gas. Petroleum exports have also emerged as the single largest foreign exchange earner, accounting for 17.24% of the total exports in 2007-08. State-run fuel retailers Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum Corporation and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation together are planning to open 2,263 new petrol pumps in the country during the current fiscal, over an above the 35,068 pumps they already own.

IT in Petroleum sector
Being used only in accounting and payroll processes, IT has come a long way. Today, IT is an intrinsic part of petroleum PSUs and is being used for a variety of purposes acquisition, processing, analysis of seismic data, production monitoring etc. The future road map for IT in Petroleum sector lies in huge exploratory data management and its interpretation in Upstream, plant information management with potential for optimization in the midstream; and the SCM and the CRM are the areas in downstream where technologies will have a major role to play for delivering superior customer experience

PSU in Power Sector
India ranks sixth globally in terms of total electricity generation. The demand for power is growing exponentially and the scope of growth of this sector is immense. the government has earmarked a total capital subsidy of US$ 6.88 billion for providing electricity connections and for the distribution of infrastructure to rural households

Indian government is exploring export opportunities and is planning to set up nuclear power reactors abroad. Three Indian public sector companies—the NPCIL, BHEL and NTPC—will be setting up a company for the export of nuclear power reactors.

IT in Power sector
The power sector in India is coming up in a big way and the use of information technology and automation systems can play a major role in bringing about standardization, transparency, revenue realization and reduction in transmission and distribution losses in the sector. IT has helped power sector in improving revenue collection, minimizing ATC losses, proper energy accounting and efficient consumer services. Recent initiative taken by the state governments to introduce new automatic metering systems has been driving the need for IT adoption in the power sector .

PSU in Oil & Gas
Natural gas has gained tremendous importance, both as a fuel and as a feedstock over the past 20 years. Demand of natural gas is currently met by domestic production but LNG is imported. Petronet LNG Limited's (PLL) re-gasification terminal at Dahej was the first LNG terminal to get commissioned and it has commenced LNG imports from Qatar. Shell’s LNG terminal at Hazira had also got commissioned and it is expected to support imports.

LPG is largely used as a domestic fuel in India. The domestic segment accounts for around 78% of the total LPG demand. During 2006-07 to 2009-10, demand is estimated to increase at a CAGR of 6.78%, from an estimated 11.57 million tons in 2006-07 to 14.09 million tons in 2009-10. A substantial increase in LPG customer enrolment is expected with oil companies attempting to penetrate the rural market and strengthen urban markets. This would provide opportunities for small and medium players to supply cylinders, valves, kits, gasket, regulators etc. to oil companies marketing LPG. New LPG pipelines, tankage and bottling facilities offer business and investment opportunities. Use of cleaner fuels like auto LPG provide opportunities to develop the auto LPG infrastructure, construction of dispensing stations, automation, manufacture and trading of auto LPG kits etc.

International transportation of products by pipelines is preferred to other modes of transport for the reasons of safety, operational conveniences and its environmental benefits. In most cases, transportation of products by pipelines is cheaper in comparison to other modes like rail and road. Recent gas discoveries are expected to lead to new pipeline infrastructure set-ups. Similarly, the product pipelines may also see growth with new refineries being set-up.

The Oil and gas sector have felt a very slight impact of the ongoing slowdown, which is backed by continuous ongoing demand for fuel supply. IT spending in this sector is largely need based and not based on the business scenario. Technologies that provide cost reduction and optimum infrastructure management like SOA, networking technologies and open source are going to be the pick of the companies in the sector in 2009 and beyond. The sector is also looking keenly at RFID based solutions for pipeline monitoring and supply chain management of the same.

PSU in Manufacturing sector
India is emerging as one of the fastest global manufacturing hub, but in recent times high competition & demand saturation in economies of scale have adversely impacted manufacturing sector. Manufacturing sector in India contributes about 17% of the total GDP and around 1.8% to the global manufacturing industry. The total output for PSU in manufacturing sector accounts for 6% of the GDP. The government has granted autonomy to the PSUs through the concept of ‘Navratnas’ and ‘Mini Ratnas’ and implemented the National Strategy for Manufacturing (NSM 2006) prepared by the NMCC

The maximum IT deployment in manufacturing is happening in enterprise applications. ERP was the most common implementation, with SAP & Oracle B suite. This was followed by supply chain management solutions. E-sourcing or E-procurement were the other areas where IT deployments were done in the manufacturing industry

• Upgrading your IT Infrastructure using various applications: Low Cost, High Value Solutions for Business Success
• Using and adopting new, collaborative tools for a Profitable Future
• Business Intelligence and Outsourcing of data processing
• Client Computing

Various senior decision makers and influencers such as CIOs, IT Directors, CEOs/CFOs/MDs and senior and mid-level management executives like Vice Presidents, General Managers and Senior Managers from the Information Technology, Business Strategy, Research & Development, Finance, Procurement, Production and Operations functions from various private and public sector organization from India Banking, Manufacturing and Utility sector.