Lenovo's Amar Babu to be the next MAIT President

According to sources in Manufacturers Association for Information Technology (MAIT), Lenovo India's MD - Amar Babu is all set to take over MAIT as its new President. Sources say that Amar Babu will replace MAIT's current President J.V.Ramammurthy, who is also the President and COO of HCL Infosystems.

Amar Babu is a known name in the IT hardware industry and he is instrumental in establishing brand Lenovo in India and making it a predominant player in the PC industry in India. And his escalation as President of MAIT will augur well and given his track record, Amar Babu is expected to aggressively take on to some of the pressing issues facing the IT hardware industry- from the challenges System Integrators (SI) facing to arriving at parity in developments like PMA.

MAIT 2.0?

Clearly industry will be expecting a lot from Amar Babu as he takes over the industry body at a crucial time. Also MAIT in the last one year has become very aggressive in addressing the issues relating to the hardware industry and as per sources, recently the MAIT System Integration Committee under its Chairman C.T.Bhadran, Government and Defence Business, HCL, in its first meeting recently deliberated on the key challenges being faced by the industry in SI projects.

With growing challenges in the SI business in the country has prompted MAIT to come out with some hygiene elements aimed at parity and level playing in this highly competitive and challenging market dynamics

The committee members brainstormed on challenges and proposed solutions that could be initiated for their resolution. The members deliberated on two areas: key challenges faced during the ‘bidding' and ‘execution stage'.

Of the many things that MAIT had proposed aimed at bringing fairness to SIs, sources privy to the development tells that the ‘Unlimited Liability' clause was one that got due attention. For instance it is believed that the industry members largely agreed that unlimited liability needs to be capped in some way.

For instance in a recent suggestion to DEITY a liability cap has been put on consulting agreements (value of order), large SI projects (annual value of the fee), and application development agreements. This clause of unlimited liability, with the current recommendation, is capped at maximum one year's contract value.

It is also believed that all members agreed that unlimited liability as a clause is not acceptable to them. It is imperative to have standardization in procurement practices across the country. A certain amount of good will also needs to exist within participating members in the SI committee itself. Indirect damages have been excluded from the model RFP.

Sources also say that MAIT in close co-ordination with it members intends to aggressively take on to various challenges faced by SIs by appointing smaller sub committees as well. It is also proposing a range of awareness building exercises aimed to showcasing these challenges and arriving at solutions for the overall industry's development.