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TIDEL Park Ltd.: In Need of a Strong Marketing Strategy

WhiteArrow News Service, Chennai, April, Y2K.

With the growth in Indian software exports, Indian Governments – both states as well as central - have started realising the importance of this goldmine. Governments, especially state governments, such as, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu are competing with each other to pull software houses to their states. While doing so, the offer competitive investment environment and concessions to corporates to set up software centres at their states.

Two major hurdles for Indian software clinics within India are continuous power supply and swift connectivity for data transfer. In order to overcome these issues state governments are promoting software parks where these problems are not suppose to exist, thus pulling software firms ( Indian as well as global) to these parks. One such success story is Hi-Tech City of Andhra Pradesh.

TIDEL Park is one such major initiative of Government of Tamil Nadu towards development of world-class infrastructure exclusively for software and related activities. The project by TIDCO and ELCOT (industrial financial institutions of Tamil Nadu Government) is under active implementation, with a capital outlay of Rs 338 crore. The Park is located at Chennai, capital city of Tamil Nadu.

The project is coming up in 8 acres of the land with a build up area of 1.28 million sq. ft. The project consists of two basements, ground floor and 12 upper floors. The flexibility of design of the building is such that one can have the option of talking anything from 4500 sq. ft. to 90000 sq. ft. in one single floor.

Strengths of Tamil Nadu with respect to IT Industry

· Availability of skilled and educated man power, which is also English speaking

· Comparatively higher standard of educational institutions

· Sound infrastructure

· Lower costs of operation

· Presence of international airport and seaport

· Tamil Nadu offers the best incentive package for industries among industrialised states in India

· NCAER  - Incentive Index Rating of 129 comes second only  to Himachal Pradesh in terms of attractiveness of

incentives

· ‘Ideal Locality’ for software products - study by  Dun  and Bradstreet

· Excellent work culture and value system of people with a fairly simpler lifestyle

· Tamil Nadu Contributes around 7 per cent to the Indian IT Industry

· Around 30 per cent of Indian IT professionals in USA are from Tamil Nadu

· Supported by State Government policies

· Comparatively better power supply

Advantage Chennai

· International consulates - speedy visa processing will  help save time and material for IT players in the export market

· Peaceful and a law and order maintainable society

· Stable political system in the state

· Excellent hospitals

· Relatively cheap metro compared to other metros

· Pollution  levels  is  one of the lowest  amongst  the  four metros

Though the TIDEL Park claims superiority over other similar projects across the nation, it is still aiming to achieve an occupancy level of only 50 per cent by the end of May 2000, when it will be ready for inauguration. Comparatively, when the Hi-Tech city was inaugurated by Mr Bill Clinton, President of United States of America, the entire space of Hi-Tech city was marketed before inauguration. In fact, big global names in the industry inclusive of Microsoft have occupied space in Hi-Tech city. However, with respect to TIDEL Park, two months left for inauguration, it has signed up only with 14 companies, which are relatively unknown.

Marketing of Industrial Parks require high level of strategy formulation, rather than money power or local advertisements. A well carved out PR strategy as in the case of HI-Tech City may be of great use in marketing. Hi-Tech City, even after marketing the entire space, is still managing its brand equity, thanks to the strong long-term strategy of the State of Andhra Pradesh or rather the IT savvy Chief Minister Mr Chandra Babu Naidu.

Either TIDEL Park is struggling with creation of over capacity or lack of an intelligent strategy or both. Unless and otherwise the problem is short listed soon, a marketing solution can not be arrived at.