3i Infotech's I-SERV To Bridge Digital Divide

3i Infotech has announced the launch of I-SERV, a new brand for its retail services. Under the I-SERV brand, a comprehensive range of value-added services will be provided to consumers, specifically to those based in remote rural areas, thereby empowering them to carry out various day-to-day activities. 3i Infotech will deploy technical infrastructure and manpower support to deliver these services related to banking, insurance, mobile phones, education, ticketing and utilities.

A typical I-SERV store will have IT infrastructure spanning PCs, scanners, Web cameras, photocopiers, telephones and 24x7 connectivity to ensure maximum utilities to the customers. The ideal location for I-SERV will be the hub village. “Our prime objective is to drive the potential customer to I-SERV and cross sell a host of products,” says Anirudh Prabhakaran, executive director and president, South Asia, 3i Infotech.

Customers will be provided services by either accessing the respective company’s Intranet, extranet or through the offline mode. For example, a telecom prepaid card will be sold via the telecom company’s Intranet or extranet while offline solutions can be in the form of providing educational CDs.

The company will offer these services through 12,500 stores across nine Indian states including Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Delhi. I-SERV stores, which will house a training manual in the local language, are expected to benefit 300 to 3,000 households by offering a bouquet of products and services.

Facilities offered will include service banking, insurance, education, telecom, utility, agricultural, e-commerce and online services, retail value added services and entertainment services.

Prabhakaran says, “Rural India houses more than 70 percent of India’s population and the I-SERV initiative represents a unique opportunity to employ technological capabilities for bridging the existing urban-rural divide. We are extremely proud to be one of the first Indian companies to roll out this initiative at such an enormous level aiming to provide affordable value-added services to the end consumers, thereby transforming the consumers’ lives at large.”

3i Infotech will be working with various organisations for the services being offered by I-SERV. The consumers will be charged Rs 5/- per service and each household will be offered at least five services.

The BFSI segment can leverage I-Serve to tap rural markets. “The IT infrastructure will enable banks and insurance institutions to get real time information about the transactions,” says Prabhakaran.

The network availability will be through fibre optic cables, VSATs and dial-up lines. “Giving a ballpark idea, 50-60 percent of the connectivity is through Fiber optic cables, less than 5 percent is via dial-up lines and the rest is through VSATs,” says Prabhakaran. The partner companies will also be accessing the same network.

The transactions will also hit the 3i-Infotech DC in Chennai that will monitor the links via the Network Operations Centre (NOC). “The company has negotiated strict SLAs with the service providers and as the lucrativeness of this model keeps unfolding, we will gradually invest in the telecom infrastructure.”

Security is of paramount importance in a widespread networking model for service provision like the one 3i has envisioned. “We have worked out two to three layers of security that involves authentication. Moreover, all the transactions will be routed through the NOC in Chennai that has a robust security infrastructure with firewalls, spyware etc providing strong resistance against any intrusion activity,” concludes Prabhakaran.