Nashik ­­– Will IT Attain the Halo?

Situated at the holy Godavari riverbank, Nashik is the prominent angle of the golden triangle in Maharashtra after Mumbai and Pune. The sacred of Lord Rama is famous for Kumbh Mela a mass Hindu pilgrimage of faith and ancient temples. Blessed with a pleasant environment and picturesque surroundings, Nashik is the fasted developing city in the country. Due to its strategic location, Nashik is emerging as an industrial hub and the next IT destination.

An Industrial hub

According to the global study conducted by ‘The City Mayors Foundation’, Nashik ranks 16th fastest developing city and has witnessed significant economic progress in the last decade. Nashik is also shortlisted for the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor as an investment region. Many big industries have set up their plants in the city. Some of the renowned industries situated here are Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, India Security Press, Bosch India, Mahindra and Mahindra, CEAT, Thyssen Krupp, Epcos, Atlas Copco, Crompton Greaves, ABB ,GlaxoSmithKline, Cipla, L&T, Schneider Electric, Jindal Steel, Lear Corporation, Kirloskar, IBP, Coca-Cola, Siemens, Parle G, Shalimar Paints. It is the vineyard capital of India with its wine fests famous all over the world.

Prospects for IT

Nashik brings huge business prospects for IT giants. Renowned IT companies like Datamatics, Winjit Technologies, Tecsys Solutions Pvt. Ltd, Netwin Systems & Software (I) Pvt Ltd, gloStream, Garyhat Vision Technologies Pvt Ltd., ESDS Software Solutions Pvt Ltd, WNS Global Services, SG STUDIO 4 Technologies Pvt. Ltd. etc. have established their offices here. Global IT giant, Accenture is setting up its new unit in Nashik, which will be functional in few months. 18 new IT companies have also started construction of their units in Nashik. Nashik is also emerging as a business process outsourcing (BPO/IT) destination and is on a list of the emerging Tier II cities for BPO/IT companies.  Currently, there is two private IT park called Vascon and Anand IT/ BUSINESS Park.

Educational Hub

Nashik has been the educational hub of North Maharashtra. With 2 state-run universities and 23 colleges the city is a big pool of IT talent. The city houses a large number of private and governmental educational institutions offering higher education in Medicine, Engineering & Technology, Architecture, Pharmacy, Military Management among others.

Private institutions such as Symbiosis School in Ashwin Nagar, Divyadaan: Salesian Institute of Philosophy, Sacred Heart Sisters of Sacred Heart Convent High School lies here. Various Colleges like Gokhale Education Society's R. H. Sapat College of Engineering, Management Studies and Research, Jawahar Education Society's Institute of Technology, Management and Research at Gangapur Road, Matoshri Education Society and KTHM College are located here.

Nashik also hosts one of the most prominent B-schools in the country: Symbiosis Institute of Operations Management (SIOM), an institution that offers management programs in operations under the banner of Symbiosis International University which is ranked 66th in India. Educational giants like Mumbai Educational Trust's (MET) Bhujbal Knowledge City, Sapkal Knowledge Hub and Sandip Foundation have set up their campuses with world-class infrastructure and facilities.

Name of the IT Association: Computer Association of Nashik

The strength of partners: 350-400 (Approx)

Major brands: HP, Lenovo, Dell, D Link, Digisol, I Ball, Cannon

Key verticals: Government, Industries, Agriculture, IT/ITeS, Real Estate

Challenges in growth

Despite huge potentials, the growth of the IT industry is not up to the mark in Nashik. Dipak More, director of DiscoverIT System Integrator Private Limited, says that the software industry has not received its deserving attention from the vendors and the government. He says that Nashik is not yet opened to new business approaches.

“I have seen hardly any investment in the software industry. People are still sticking to their traditional business practices and do not want to incur additional expenditure for deployment of modern and advanced technology”, he said.

“I am totally disappointed the IT growth in Nashik. If we really want to make the city technological advance, we need to come out of our narrow mindsets and start adapting new things”, he added.

Sumant Upasani, owner of Nexus says that IT professionals lack practical knowledge in the technology field, hence, fails to grab the good employment opportunity. Upasani says that there is an urgent need to upgrade the old and outdated syllabus and colleges need to give more emphasis on practical training.

“Every year thousands of engineers join the crowd of IT professionals. However, due to lack of practical knowledge they fail at the competition. Big companies prefer to recruit outsiders rather than giving preference to the local workforce. On the other hand, highly qualified engineers prefer to migrate to big cities like Mumbai or Bangalore for better career prospects”, he says.

The way ahead

Nashik, by virtue of its strategic location and growing economic activity, has the potential to emerge as the next destination of IT. However, in order to utilize the fruits of industrial growth and development, there is a need for a favourable response from the government agencies to revive industrial growth of the city.

Interview 1

Vineet Kankaria, Owner, Allways Infotech Pvt. Ltd.

What are the key challenges faced by the IT partners in Nashik?

Vineet Kankaria: Online Sales is the major problem which is a matter of concern for the entire resellers and retailer community. Apart from that National distributors directly products to the end user are the second biggest challenge we face in Nashik. NDs should not bypass the local distribution chain. They should ensure the growth of the local distribution channel as well. Secondly, we face a lot of service related issues. Most of the times there is no support from local dealers and service providers of brands.

How do you analyze the growth of IT channel business in the last 2 years?

Vineet Kankaria: IT channel business is definitely growing. Yes, there are certain challenges, but the market is growing at its pace. Nashik has become a capitalize city in terms of IT where stronger players are growing at very high pace and reasonably smaller players are struggling to maintain margins.

Interview 2 

Sumant Upasani, owner of Nexus

Despite of favorable environment for IT, what are the reasons behind stagnancy in the industry?

Sumant Upasani: The mentality is the biggest issue where people are yet to adapt professional attitude. Secondly, connectivity is another important issue which needs to be addressed on a priority basis. Political willpower also plays a crucial role to give strengths of local bodies. In short, there is a need to develop pro IT atmosphere in Nashik to pull and sustain MNCs.